Canadian Explains U.S. Debt Crisis

[Cassandro]

One of the most concise explanations of the U.S. mortgage meltdown:


[ame=http://www.youtube.com/embed/wWkUaJId7pM?feature=player_embedded]Avoid the Fiscal Cliff - Economic Freedom Speech - Pierre Poilievre - Enhanced Version - YouTube[/ame]

 

[waltky]

Granny says tell dem Cannucks we've started buyin' back our debt...

Fed Has Bought More U.S. Gov’t Debt This Year Than Treasury Has Issued
February 7, 2013 - So far this calendar year, the Federal Reserve has bought up more U.S. government debt than the U.S. Treasury has issued.

On Dec. 31, the total debt of the U.S. government was $16.4327 trillion and then-Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner announced that the government had hit what was then the legal debt limit. Last week, however, Congress enacted a law to suspend the federal government debt limit until May 18, 2013, and allow the administration to resume increasing the debt. By the close of business on Wednesday, Feb. 6, according to the U.S. Treasury, the total federal debt had climbed to $16.4799 trillion—an increase of $47.2 billon for the calendar year.

At the close of business on Jan. 2, the Federal Reserve had owned $1.661 trillion in U.S. Treasury securities. By the close of business on Feb. 6, it owned $1.7172 trillion—an increase of $51.1 billion for the calendar year. Thus, the Federal Reserve’s purchases of U.S. government debt in this calendar year have exceeded the Treasury’s net debt issues by about $3.9 billion. Also last week, the Federal Reserve announced that it “will continue purchasing additional … longer-term Treasury securities at a pace of $45 billion per month.” If the Fed continues to purchase $45 billion in additional federal debt each month in 2013 it will buy up another $540 billion in federal debt this year alone.

The CBO currently estimates that the federal deficit for fiscal 2013 will be $845 billion. If the Fed were to buy debt at a pace of $540 billion a year, and the Treasury were to issue it at $845 billion per year, the Fed would be buying the equivalent of about 64 percent of all debt the government issued. As recently as calendar year 2007, the total debt of the United States increased by only about $549 billion, or roughly equal to the amount of debt the Fed plans to buy this year.

Fed Has Bought More U.S. Gov?t Debt This Year Than Treasury Has Issued | CNS News

See also:

CBO: Federal Revenue to Set Record in 2013
February 7, 2013 – Federal revenue will return to its pre-recession levels in 2013, according to projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), setting a record for the most money the government has ever taken in.

In its latest Budget and Economic Update, the CBO forecasts that federal revenue will top $2.7 trillion in 2013, slightly higher than the $2.6 trillion the government collected in 2007, when the last recession officially began. Government revenues had fallen by nearly $500 billion during the recession to $2.1 trillion in 2009, contributing to the $1.5 trillion deficit that year. However, federal revenues have been recovering since the recession ended in June 2009, and the CBO now projects that they will slightly eclipse their pre-recession peak.

In fact, the $2.7 trillion in revenue will be the most money the federal government has collected in history. According to historical tables compiled by the White House Office of Management and Budget, the government has never collected more than the $2.6 trillion it collected in 2007, meaning that if CBO’s projection is correct, it will set a new record for revenue collection in 2013.

This projection could undercut a key argument made by the White House that any balanced approach to deficit reduction must include more federal revenue in the form of “tax reform.” “Now, I think this balanced mix of spending cuts and tax reform is the best way to finish the job of deficit reduction,” President Obama said in a speech on February 5. Republicans counter that additional tax revenue is not necessary, citing the tax increases on wealthier Americans they agreed to as part of the January deal to make permanent most of the Bush tax cuts.

Instead, they argue, the focus should now turn to cutting federal spending rather than raising further tax revenues. “Democrats say we should replace the president’s ‘sequester’ with revenue increases, or delay it. Republicans say we should replace [it] with responsible reforms that will help put us on a path to balance the budget in 10 years,” House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said at a news conference on Wednesday.

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/cbo-federal-revenue-set-record-2013

Related:

World Debt Explained: Nation’s Debt In $100 Bills
January 31, 2013

Politicians speak about Millions, Billions & Trillions everyday. The numbers mean nothing unless one understands the size of these numbers. Here is an info-graphic that is visualizing world debt in $100 bills while making the assumption that debt is represented by physical paper (when it is nothing but a bunch of electronic ones and zeros stored in various computers around the world), presents in gloriously visual terms precisely what the literal debt burden of the world’s would look like expressed in piles of one hundred dollar bills.

MORE http://www.trueactivist.com/world-debt-explained-nations-debt-in-100-bills/

 

[Norman]

One of the most concise explanations of the U.S. mortgage meltdown:


Avoid the Fiscal Cliff - Economic Freedom Speech - Pierre Poilievre - Enhanced Version - YouTube

Great speech. Why haven't I heard of this guy before.

 

[DSGE]

Yes. There is no US Debt crisis. It's all make-believe.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Yes. There is no US Debt crisis. It's all make-believe.

care to explain???????????

 

[DSGE]

Yes. There is no US Debt crisis. It's all make-believe.

care to explain???????????

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

Yes. There is no US Debt crisis. It's all make-believe.

care to explain???????????

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

 

[DSGE]

care to explain???????????

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

I agree that the government spends too much, that wasn't the question. The question is where is the crisis. A crisis is something imminent. Government spending is a long term problem that we have time to address.

 

[Kimura]

care to explain???????????

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

Do you know what your point is?? If so please tell us??? Thanks

 

[Kimura]

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

Do you know what your point is?? If so please tell us??? Thanks

My point is, this obsession with debt is insane, nor can a sovereign issuer of the currency, the US government, ever go bankrupt. When the government runs a deficit, that money goes somewhere, right into the non-government sector. There's a direct relationship between the government's budget balance and the private sector's budget balance. As the government spends more than it takes back from us in taxes, that money must accumulate somewhere, which is the net savings of the private sector. The US has been able to accumulate savings and rebuild and repair its balance sheets after the financial crisis and the loss of 16 trillion dollars in wealth.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

My point is, this obsession with debt is insane,

so its insane not to want to pay my share $134,000. Id rather have a vacation house!! Not so hard is it???????

nor can a sovereign issuer of the currency, the US government, ever go bankrupt.

but they sure must collect more and more taxes.

When the government runs a deficit, that money goes somewhere, right into the non-government sector. There's a direct relationship between the government's budget balance and the private sector's budget balance. As the government spends more than it takes back from us in taxes, that money must accumulate somewhere, which is the net savings of the private sector. The US has been able to accumulate savings and rebuild and repair its balance sheets after the financial crisis and the loss of 16 trillion dollars in wealth.

so are you saying that I should not care about my $134,000 share of national debt ???????????? Paying for it rather than my vacation home or Porsche is a good thing????

See why we are positive a liberal will be slow, so very very slow.

 

[Norman]

The US has quite a lot of debt. What's the crisis?

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

So let's just move all the funds from your bank account to mine. All I am doing is shifting some funds from your bank account to mine.

Or how about:

Let's just shift the funds from US retirees accounts to China's account. All that is being done is just shifting some funds from one saving account to a other.

Or what if the Fed would just shift some funds to the Treasury account to pay for all the retirees and chinese. That would only quadruple the money supply, surely no one would lose their savings in this process!

I guess, I don't quite get what your point is. I think everyone already knew that the debt is "just an account". Although most people surely put more value to it knowing it may soon be just THEIR "retiree account" or "bank account", that is going to pay the shortfall.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

So let's just move all the funds from your bank account to mine. All I am doing is shifting some funds from your bank account to mine.

Or how about:

Let's just shift the funds from US retirees accounts to China's account. All that is being done is just shifting some funds from one saving account to a other.

Or what if the Fed would just shift some funds to the Treasury account to pay for all the retirees and chinese. That would only quadruple the money supply, surely no one would lose their savings in this process!

I guess, I don't quite get what your point is. I think everyone already knew that the debt is "just an account". Although most people surely put more value to it knowing it may soon be just THEIR "retiree account" or "bank account", that is going to pay the shortfall.

I think the traditional liberal point has been, since we owe the money to ourselves it doesn't matter and we can just keep expanding welfare payments forever.

 

[Kimura]

dear, when you are in debt you have to pay it back rather than buy new things. Each family would rather keep its $134,000 share and buy new stuff, rather than ship the money off to the liberals in DC. Or they would rather keep 2 carriers in the Gulf as the MIddle East is on the verge of blowing up!!

NOt so hard is it??

When the US government spends/creates money, it basically boils down to moving numbers into our respective bank accounts. Moreover, every commercial bank we use for banking has bank accounts at the FED which are referred to as reserve accounts. Foreign governments, such as Japan and China, also have reserve accounts at the Fed. FED reserve accounts operate just like checking accounts.

Also, when the government spends without taxing, all it's doing is changing numbers in certain reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED. For example, when the US government cuts a $2000 dollar Social Security check to a retiree, all it's doing is marking up that person's checking account, thus changing it by $2000 dollars.

It should be obvious that a Treasury security is nothing more than a savings account. If I purchase a Treasury security, I'm sending my dollars to the FED and at some future date, they'll send those dollars back to me, including some interest. This is the case with any savings account at a regular brick and mortar bank. I deposit dollars, they send me back the dollars with some accrued interest. Let's say, for the sake of argument, that my bank decides to purchase $200,000 dollars worth of US Treasury securities. In order to pay for those securities, the FED decreases the total amount of dollars my bank has at its reserve account over at the FED by $200,000 dollars, then it adds $200,000 dollars to my bank's savings account (Treasury securities) at the FED.

Basically, when the US engages in 'borrowing money', all it's doing is shifting funds from reserve accounts (checking accounts) at the FED to savings accounts (US Treasury securities). In point of fact, the entire 16 trillion in 'US debt' is nothing more than the US economy's total holdings, in terms of savings accounts, at the FED.

So let's just move all the funds from your bank account to mine. All I am doing is shifting some funds from your bank account to mine.

That's a bad example since we can't compare households to sovereign governments. Households can’t issue their own currency and require under law that citizens use that currency to pay their taxes. Our supply of dollars is always limited, the government's supply is matter of policy decisions.

Or how about:

Let's just shift the funds from US retirees accounts to China's account. All that is being done is just shifting some funds from one saving account to a other.

We don't need to use China, that's basically what the US government does when it issues social security checks to retirees.

Or what if the Fed would just shift some funds to the Treasury account to pay for all the retirees and chinese. That would only quadruple the money supply, surely no one would lose their savings in this process!

An increase in the supply of money isn't inflationary, so long as there is a tandem increase in the supply of real goods and services. The US can easily fund social security. People seem stuck on the QTM identity as set in stone.

I guess, I don't quite get what your point is. I think everyone already knew that the debt is "just an account". Although most people surely put more value to it knowing it may soon be just THEIR "retiree account" or "bank account", that is going to pay the shortfall.

My point is, the deficit reflects the net savings of the private sector. When the government runs a deficit, that money has to end up somewhere, which is the non-government sector of the economy. There's a direct relationship between the government's deficit and the private sector's surplus. As the government spends more than it takes back from us in taxes, that money must accrue somewhere, which is the net savings of the private sector. The US has been able to accrue savings and rebuild and repair its balance sheets after the financial crisis and the loss of 16 trillion dollars in wealth.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

My point is, the deficit reflects the net savings of the private sector. .

so what???????? does this make deficits a good thing??? Should we run a 10trillion deficit each year????? Do you have any idea what you are saying??

 

[Ceteris_paribus]

My point is, the deficit reflects the net savings of the private sector. .

so what???????? does this make deficits a good thing??? Should we run a 10trillion deficit each year????? Do you have any idea what you are saying??

so what is your solution to balance the deficit?

 

[Kimura]

My point is, the deficit reflects the net savings of the private sector. .

so what???????? does this make deficits a good thing??? Should we run a 10trillion deficit each year????? Do you have any idea what you are saying??

Deficts can be a good thing, because they create net financial assets. If you want the government sector to run a budget surplus, then the domestic private sector will have to run a deficit, which is what happened during the Clinton Administration. This caused the domestic private sector to borrow in order to fund consumption, which helped to create the housing bubble among other things.

The deficit equals the total net increase in the holdings (financial assets of the US) of the American people, such as households, firms, etc., which is referred to as the non-government sector. In other words, the deficit equals an increase in the total aggregate savings for all of us down to the last penny.

Sure, government spending can cause inflation, that's not what I'm saying. We have an unemployment glut which needs to be solved. We could literally increase the debt significantly, because there's a ton of excess capacity, excess labor and low industrial output. If we were at full employment and the economy was at full capacity, then I'd be worried about inflation, but we're nowhere near that happening on our current path.

 

[EdwardBaiamonte]

We have an unemployment glut which needs to be solved. We could literally increase the debt significantly, .

could anything be more stupid and liberal???
A real job doesn't come from deficits, it come from a Republican supply sider who invents something and then hires someone to make it!!!

Idiotic liberal gimmicks like deficts and dropping money from helicopters or providing food stamps did not cause the computer to be invented!!

Slow much?????????????

 

[Kimura]

We have an unemployment glut which needs to be solved. We could literally increase the debt significantly, .

could anything be more stupid and liberal???
A real job doesn't come from deficits, it come from a Republican supply sider who invents something and then hires someone to make it!!!

Idiotic liberal gimmicks like deficts and dropping money from helicopters or providing food stamps did not cause the computer to be invented!!

Your glorious supply siders based their whole theory off of Keynes.

Arthur Laffer even admitted taking the idea from Keynes, because tax cuts that increase aggregate demand are the fiscal equivalent of spending increases. It's been hijacked by certain ideological nuthuggers on the Right, because they're hell bent on increasing income solely for corporations, owners of capital and extremely high earners.

However, back on planet earth, if we analyze the supply-side Reagan era, it was totally out of balance. The effects were horribly distributed in the US economy, because it was part of policies that negatively affected wage earners/. As a matter of fact, real income of wage earners decreased during the 1980's, and they to continue to spiral downwards, or fail to keep pace with these insane policies. One would logically assume if the supply-side policies were viable, then the people involved in making the supply, the workers, would see an increase in real incomes. It never materialized, sorry to burst your bubble. You'd figure if these supply-side polices worked, then people making that supply, the workers, would see a boost in real incomes. It never happened, sorry.

Moreover, business investments in the 1980s were only ten percent of GDP; this is with the Reagan tax cuts. This was pretty linear throughout the 1980s. Compare that to the 1970s, where business investments went from four percent of GDP to eight percent of GDP by the end of the 1970s. Even under the Obama Administration, despite its disastrous policies, business investment makes up fifteen percent of GDP.

Slow much?????????????

Also, this claim about businesses being 'job creators' is another crock of shit dreamed up by ideologues and nitwits. First of all, consumers create demand, and without consumers, businesses goes nowhere. Secondly, if you haven't already figured this out, labor is an input cost, which means it basically costs money for firms to hire people. The only way firms will hire is if there's an increase in orders or an expected increase in future orders.