$12 x 10^12 indebtedness for a start. ... How will the government pay that off?
What makes you think that they have to? Yeah, the public debt is high right now, but as a percentage of GDP, it's less than it was when Eisenhower took office, and it was high then because of a financial recession and a war, too.
The public debt as an absolute number has seldom gone down in recent history. But the absolute number isn't that big a deal. The debt as expressed as a percentage of GDP is much more revealing.
And, actually, paying off the debt results in deflation, not inflation, due to removal of money from the economy. Either one can be bad, of course, but neither is as a matter of course.
Don't get me wrong, our economy isn't in a good state; but the sky isn't falling, either.
On the other hand, one thing in particular does worry me about the public debt, which is the amount of it owned by the Chinese coupled with the artificially low value of the yuan.
I am no economist, but the magnitude of this most recent bubble -- the zero-down, sub-prime, ARM, flip-my-house, mortgage-derivatives bubble -- seems pretty staggering to me.
I am much more inclined to share Doug's pessimism.
It is remarkable. The administration that was so contemptuous of government and that might have briefly been seen as a beacon of hope by "big L" libertarians is now printing money faster than Palin can gut a moose and shoveling it to the AIGs of this debacle. Apparently we, as taxpayers, will be taking an interest in AIG; an ownership stake. Not exactly what the Libertarians had in mind.
It's almost comical to hear McCain talk about how more regulation would be a bad thing. But in the vein of "Just how different are the Democrats from the Republicans" and after listening to some of the recent Obama campaign rhetoric, I have to ask: which Democrats did *anything* to put a spotlight on this huge iceberg and steer hard to port (or starboard)? Barney Frank is a smart guy and talks a lot, but I just didn't see any effectual effort from the Dems.
I don't see it. I am a complete dumbass when it comes to higher-order economics, but the inevitable end of a greedy flip-my-house bubble with get-rich-quick funny-money derivatives seemed pretty obvious. Some greedy people got rich. Not us.
TonyC, you may be in the most observant position to point out what the Dems did (at great risk to themselves and their careers, and in a fashion that distinguished the Dems from the Republicans) to try to save us from this mess. Why did *I* see it coming and not the professionals?
Greed. I don't know for a fact that Hell is around the corner. I just feel like we surely haven't seen the end of this yet.
Non sequitur: it was interesting to see this Sarah Palin thread slowly drop down the Off-Topic Forum. BBS art imitates life?
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