Posted on 10/30/2011 5:11:15 PM PDT by blam
IMMINENT THREAT: Foreign Borrowings Will Lead To The Destruction Of The US Financial System
Janet Tavakoli, Tavakoli Structured Finance
Oct. 30, 2011, 2:03 PM
The United States is the largest debtor nation in the history of the world, and our borrowing is increasing. In 1950 spending for social programs was only one percent of the total Federal Budget. As the economy grew, social programs expanded to include Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Food Stamps, Unemployment Compensation, Supplemental Security for the Disabled, and educational programs. In 1983 as the United States pulled out of an ugly recession and brought inflation under control, social programs consumed 26% of the budget. In fiscal year 2012, they’ll eat up an estimated 57% of the budget.
The original idea was that if everyone agreed to chip in a small percentage of ever growing income, the percentage of social spending would never have to change even if the programs grew. The percentage for social programs could stay constant because if income doubled every twelve years or so, the amounts available for welfare would also double.
Military budgets soared, the U.S. waged unfunded wars, the banking system was bailed out of the consequences of unwise lending more than once, and government bureaucracy grew rapaciously. All of this would likewise be covered by taxes assessed on growing income, or so the theory went. Like many academic economic theories, it was a convenient but misguided story. No country has ever managed to create a perpetual growth machine for its economy.
Time and again U.S. growth was brought to a standstill by (among other things) oil shocks of the kind the U.S. experienced in 1973 and 1979, monetary shocks of the kind the U.S. experienced in 1981, and systemic financial crises of the kind the U.S.
(snip)
(Excerpt) Read more at businessinsider.com ...
Here's How America Could Have A Manufacturing Renaissance By 2015
Of coarse it will. Let's eat, drink and be merry . . .
Everything will be okay by 2015 though
dire future.
have you read that book?
looks interesting.
i’ve got so many books to read that i hesitate to order it.
We’re also the biggest blank check writer for aid for any and all countries with their hands out. Enough already.
Blame it on the ‘Rats, Progressives, Socialists, Totalitarians and RINOS (Republican Implementing Nuances Of Socialism)!
OFF with their frikken heads.
“Above all, if you wish to be strong, begin by rooting out every particle of socialism that may have crept into your legislation. This will be no light task.” - Bastiat 1801-1850
Good article thesis and flow, though. With government being unwilling to lay enough employees with enough haste, the debt will continue to climb far beyond practicable solution. See “austerity measures” (crazy tax hikes with only token spending cuts) and repudiation in the end. IMO, nothing much good will be seen until after repudiation with risks of international wars also probably highest then.
“With government being unwilling to lay enough employees with enough haste,...” Oops...lay off enough employees, that is. Contemporary government does that other thing too often. ;-)
No.
I mostly read anthropologt/archaeology books these days.
Lay?....well I don't know about that but they're sure screwing the rest of us.....
Not hardly.
Fifty years ago, the DOD took roughly half of the Federal budget.
Today it's half of what it was then.
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