snidely
20th September 2008, 00:32
i had high hopes for the "grand experiment". we were the only country in the world that was able to design and implement a sane scheme of government. but it seems that will all come to an end frighteningly soon.
in 1981, reagan and his team started borrowing money in the form of having the treasury auction off 30 year bonds at the rate of about 400 billion dollars u.s. a year, in essence, mortgaging the future to provide for the present. (all currency referenced here is assumed to be u.s., unless otherwise stated.)
in 1979, the national debt was just under a trillion dollars, something like $997,999,000.00. in the 12 years following, the reagan/bush administration ran the national debt up approximately $5.5 trillion. for the sake of simplicity and round numbers, let's just call it an increase of $4.8 trillion. it divides nicely by 12, giving you about $400b a year in deficit spending.
you may be asking yourself, by now, where is this leading? rightly so, and i'll tell you, it leads right to the year 2011. what's so significant about this? well, it's 30 years after 1981, which makes it the year that these bonds come due.
right now, we pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $350b a year in interest on these bonds. when these bonds come due, we're going to be paying about $800b a year to pay this off, for the following 12 years.
i read somebody's essay on how this wouldn't be a problem because we could just rollover the debt indefinitely by selling more 30 yr. bonds, but that makes the presumption that it's worthwhile to invest in america anymore. there's got to be a reason for somebody to invest in america for that scheme to work. national pride is just not a viable investment product.
frankly, i don't see it. we don't make anything anymore, india's doing computer science for pennies on the dollar, china's manufacturing everything as well as turning out 500,000 scientists and engineers a year while america turns out 30,000 because math is too haaarrrd, mommy! that's just the tip of the iceberg.
what else could go wrong,? i could make you guess, but why waste the time. well, 2011 is also the year that the first wave of babyboomers (1946-1964, 77 million people) leave the workforce for retirement and wait for that first social security retirement check.
fortunately, we only have 18 years of babyboomers. they'll be retiring between 2011 and 2029. don't worry, you'll get to meet them. they'll be working as greeters at the umbrella corp., i mean walmart. but that's another story.
one more thing, we could have had the largest super-conducting super-collider in the world, for 2/3 the cost of 1day of pointless war in otitis medea, 'earache', iraq, $8 billion, to draw and employ top scientists and engineers in the world, but no, better to build four more b2 bombers.
don't get me wrong. i love my country. i love the ideas upon which it was founded, the federalist papers are an inspiration. i don't want to see my country die anymore than i want to die, but i would willingly give my life so that it could survive.
thank you, daremo, for this forum. it's unique and elegantly designed.
snidely
in 1981, reagan and his team started borrowing money in the form of having the treasury auction off 30 year bonds at the rate of about 400 billion dollars u.s. a year, in essence, mortgaging the future to provide for the present. (all currency referenced here is assumed to be u.s., unless otherwise stated.)
in 1979, the national debt was just under a trillion dollars, something like $997,999,000.00. in the 12 years following, the reagan/bush administration ran the national debt up approximately $5.5 trillion. for the sake of simplicity and round numbers, let's just call it an increase of $4.8 trillion. it divides nicely by 12, giving you about $400b a year in deficit spending.
you may be asking yourself, by now, where is this leading? rightly so, and i'll tell you, it leads right to the year 2011. what's so significant about this? well, it's 30 years after 1981, which makes it the year that these bonds come due.
right now, we pay somewhere in the neighborhood of $350b a year in interest on these bonds. when these bonds come due, we're going to be paying about $800b a year to pay this off, for the following 12 years.
i read somebody's essay on how this wouldn't be a problem because we could just rollover the debt indefinitely by selling more 30 yr. bonds, but that makes the presumption that it's worthwhile to invest in america anymore. there's got to be a reason for somebody to invest in america for that scheme to work. national pride is just not a viable investment product.
frankly, i don't see it. we don't make anything anymore, india's doing computer science for pennies on the dollar, china's manufacturing everything as well as turning out 500,000 scientists and engineers a year while america turns out 30,000 because math is too haaarrrd, mommy! that's just the tip of the iceberg.
what else could go wrong,? i could make you guess, but why waste the time. well, 2011 is also the year that the first wave of babyboomers (1946-1964, 77 million people) leave the workforce for retirement and wait for that first social security retirement check.
fortunately, we only have 18 years of babyboomers. they'll be retiring between 2011 and 2029. don't worry, you'll get to meet them. they'll be working as greeters at the umbrella corp., i mean walmart. but that's another story.
one more thing, we could have had the largest super-conducting super-collider in the world, for 2/3 the cost of 1day of pointless war in otitis medea, 'earache', iraq, $8 billion, to draw and employ top scientists and engineers in the world, but no, better to build four more b2 bombers.
don't get me wrong. i love my country. i love the ideas upon which it was founded, the federalist papers are an inspiration. i don't want to see my country die anymore than i want to die, but i would willingly give my life so that it could survive.
thank you, daremo, for this forum. it's unique and elegantly designed.
snidely