[Mouton]

Tell us something we don’t already know. Gee, what a precient observation. BTW, interest on the debt last year was almost 500billion and the jackass in the whitehouse wants to raise it much farther.

[fhayek]

Which is precisely why the Fed will have to continue to buy treasuries to keep interest rates low. We have painted ourselves into a corner.

[ClearCase_guy]

Default, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in our future

[LibLieSlayer]

Gee... whenever we TEA Party types bring this up... we are wackobirds and wackadoodles for thinking that way.

[Buckeye McFrog]

That’s why packing the Fed moved up on the Democrap priority list.

[ex-snook]

Bowles - It’s the coolie labor rates and pollution, stupid.

[LucianOfSamasota]

What’s 5% of $17,000,000,000,000?

Don’t need a PhD in economics to know this is a problem...

[grania]

The argument has nothing to do with responsible people who pay their own bills and prepare for futre financial obligations. These low interest rates on savings have made it impossible to do so. What's happened is the little guy has subsidized reckless government debt and global economic practicies.

So what do I care if the global economy collapses and the Federal Reserve doesn't get money from bogus loans back? BRING IT ON !!

[PGR88]

A massive, progressive, socialist, nanny-state government like we have now can not exist without the Federal Reserve and its ability to monetize US Government debt, and manipulate interest rates.

[2banana]

To put this in perspective.

Thanks to the US Government’s INSANE spending and deficits levels...

A rise in interest rates will mean we will spend more money on servicing the debt than on national defense.

Military Spending - 19% of the Federal Budget ($670 Billion) per year

Entitlement Spending - 58% of the Federal Budget ($1.65 Trillion) per year.

In 2010 (last year figures are available) - the deficit is 62% if GDP - a figure not seen in 60 years.

Where does it end? Look at Greece and Argentina today.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/US_deficit

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:U.S._Federal_Spending_-_FY_2011.png

[tired&retired]

Let’s see:

$17,258,471,483,278.83 in debt X 10% interest rate = $1,725,471,483,278 in interest per year

Total actual revenue from all US income taxes collected in 2013 fiscal year was $1,589,900,000,000. ($1,316.4 B Individual Taxes and $273.5 B Corporate Taxes)

Any one see a problem in the future? Remember what rates Carter left us with!

[tired&retired]

Don't you just love extrapolation of garbage....???

[Wyatt's Torch]

Interest expense as a percent of GDP:

[Organic Panic]

We don’t have a spending problem. We have a paying for it problem...At least that is what a democrat told me.

[logi_cal869]

Why is this such a mystery. (rhetorical) Y'all should know that I've heard a pattern around here from those 'with a dog in the fight' (i.e., those in financial services, including a friend of mine), talking up the pluses of economic reports and almost 'talking-point' point-by-point rejection/explanation of negative stats.

I wish Conan would do one of these on 'Economics'...