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CruelNUnsual -> RE: You dont need a weatherman... (5/26/2009 4:04:36 PM)
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MmeGigs
It could certainly happen. Like the UK, our debt is at a level pretty close to our GDP. This is pretty new in the UK - their national debt has nearly doubled in a very short time. In the US it's been going up pretty steadily since about 1980. http://zfacts.com/p/318.html I'm sure that there are some who will take exception to the slant, but I think the graphic shows the progression of the national debt as a % of GDP pretty well.
I suspect that a good deal of whatever thread develops here will be about who is to blame, but the more pertinent and interesting discussion is around what can be done about it. Personally, I think we're fucked in the short- to mid-term. I've heard quite a few pretty simplistic solutions - cut taxes, raise taxes, save more, spend more. A lot of folks seem to think there's going to be some magical solution that will bring back the boom years. We just aren't going to go back to the boom years, no matter what we do. The things that we did to make the economy pay off so well for investors were not sustainable. There simply is no way to sustain double-digit ROI in an economy with single-digit growth. We did a lot of short-sighted things to keep it up as long as we did. We need to start thinking about the long-term.
With a GDP of $10 trillion, and Obamas budget having a deficit of $10 trillion over 10 years, it will be over 100% in no time.
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