CIA - The World Factbook (Who has money? Who doesn't?)

CIA ^ | 2007 | CIA

[BohDaThone]

"current account" means trade balance. If we buy a pound of copper from Hellholeistan, they have a "surplus" and we have a "deficit." (and we have the copper and they have a piece of paper). That's all it means.

If the US is a good place to invest, and the Emir of Hellholeistan invests here, that is the flip side of the transaction. If no one ever wants to invest there, they'll always run a "surplus."

The trade balance can be important, but not just in a simple-minded plus or minus sense. The US ran big "deficits" all during our periods of most explosive growth -- because people wanted to invest here.

[chuckles]

Clinton had nothing to do with the balanced budget. It was Newt Gingrich and the Contract with America that cut SPENDING.

If you go back and watch Clinton's SOTU speeches the first 2 years, he stated "Deficits as far as the eye can see". When Newt took over, remember the gubmint shutdown? He held the line on spending and FORCED the issue on Billy.

[Lord_Calvinus]

Don’t get me wrong: Bill was not the only one. I remember the contract and I remember the wave of Republicans into office. It still doesn’t change the fact that Bill did speak about and work for the balance. Perhaps, if given everything he wanted, he wouldn’t have balanced the budget. Clinton was a master of trying to make everything work for him.

Incidentally, if we believe this formula, we really need a liberal in the white house with a conservative congress. Perhaps, Coulter is right about Clinton being better than McCain.

My point is that Bush should have been able to accomplish so much more. It is not that Clinton was a good guy. Sadly, Bush has ended up being the worst President as far as the budget and spending have been concerned.

[HawaiianGecko]

Throwing numbers around doesn't make sense with out context.  As you can see our debt to gross domestic product hovers in the low to mid 60% range over time. It is also noticeable that 2000-2002 were significantly lower, indicating the results of the former dot-com boom and the effects of 9/11.  But the real thing to notice is that Bush's highest ratio is 65% and it only occurred one time while Clinton, my, my, my, had 66-68% for six of his eight years in office. 

Links to government sites where I got this information:

http://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/mspd/mspd.htm

http://www.bea.gov/national/nipaweb/TableView.asp#Mid

 

 

[HawaiianGecko]

How is this listing ranked anyway?  China with 363 trillion is ranked #1 and the United States with 747 trillion is ranked #163? 

[rurgan]

You are wrong. Clinton did nothing to reduce federal spending. In fact spending increased at least by 50% or 1/2 a trillion dollars during Clinton’s term.

The reason the budget balanced for only 2 of clinton’s 8 years was a FLUKE. The dot com bubble created a huge economy that wasn’t really real. all these temporary businesses did pay taxes with increased revenues to the government. In addition oil was $10 per barrel and gasoline was under a dollar during that time which helped the economy which further increased revenues to the government . this is why it balanced. Clinton didn’t have any thing to do with the low oil or the dot com bubble or the internet growth.

Federal spending increases during the Clinton 1990’s in million of dollars:

1990 1,253,130
1995 1,515,884
2000 1,789,216

So you see from these figures that Clinton increased spending almost by one half a trillion dollars.

proof:

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0104753.html

[Lord_Calvinus]

WHERE did I ever claim that Clinton tried to reduce federal spending? I simply made the statement that Clinton balanced the budget. I also made the statement that we might not agree with how he went about it. And, NO, it is never a fluke. You do have to present something that tries to do it, even if you are being heavily influenced by others.

Bush hasn’t even tried. He took 2 surplus years and turned it into a free for all spending cycle.

BTW, what is Bush’s federal spending for last year: 2.8 or some such ridiculous amount. My point, which I will repeat, perhaps more colorful this time: Bush is a raving drunken Kennedy when it comes to fiscal responsibility.

[Lord_Calvinus]

The debt to GDP ration is simply indicative that it should have been much easier for Bush to balance a budget or (gasp) have a surplus than Clinton. It is also a reflection of how Clinton did it: by stifling the economy with taxes.

Bush did the RIGHT thing by following Reagan: lower taxes. However, he did the wrong thing by not controlling spending.

[texson66]

And the Big O wants to GIVE AWAY 845 Billion to foreign nations! He wants to dismantle our military!He wants to suck the “rich” (meaning folks who work for what they have & save & invest) dry to give away the $$ to those “less fortunate”!

And people thinks he is a solution???

He is a gigantic train wreck ready to happen on DAY ONE of his presidency!

God have mercy on us ALL!

[FreeInWV]

“How is this listing ranked anyway?”

You missed the minus signs in the higher numbered rankings.

[BohDaThone]

And you might note that, although this is supposed to be a "balance" so you would think it would sum to ZERO, it actually sums to about MINUS 300 Billion -- so the world runs a trade deficit with itself!

Actually, I think the techinical reason is that imports are counted WITH freight (at the port of entry), and the exports are counted without freight (and insurance, etc) at the port of departure!

[chuckles]

I agree that Bush could have done better, but he also had 9/11, 2 wars, an inherited recession, Katrina and Rita, and the Homeland security branch of government was formed on his watch. Remember the hurricanes? How much was sent to New Orleans that they can't even account for? How many trailers are rotting in fields now? How much was given to people that committed fraud and didn't even live in the area and they are trying to get their money back now? But what if Bush said "No, I'm not sending any money to help"?

The thing to remember is no matter who is president, the wasteful money is hardly the problem. Its entitlements. If you just said, “No earmarks, no spending, nada nothing”, you might save $18-25 billion. Nat Defense, Social Security, and Medicaid is about 85% of the money. The other money is mostly for running the government like BLM and other bureaucracies. Which one do you think you could get cut? Saving a few million on a bridge to nowhere is a noble thing, but really a drop in the bucket for the coming problem in baby boomers retiring.

Bush made some mistakes, but Clinton had a party compared to what Bush has been through. The available money to cut is minuscule compared to what must go out, day in and day out. You won't get any votes from either party to cut $5 from Social Security or Medicare. Which weapons system would you cut during a wartime? We can't even get illegals cut off of Social Security. We had to burn up the phones to get illegals off the stupid Stimulus Package, and I bet they still get it.

Bush's mistakes were the pharma bill, throwing money at Katrina without limits, and not vetoing some of the Republican earmarks when he had the chance. Other than those, he's pretty limited. If Louisiana wanted $100 billion and he said $50 bill, he would have been impeached. Now we know most of the money was not needed, but who has the time to check every applicant to make sure they lived in the storm area if you have the Dems breathing down your neck?

[thefactor]

would you want to have china’s government and its bank, or america’s government and its bank?

[HawaiianGecko]

Thanks, it makes sense now.  I'm surprised I didn't notice it was descending then ascending (absolute values that is).  Still $747 billion doesn't appear to be much indebtedness.  We could probably find that much money in the cracks of the sofas and stuffed in the mattresses of Bill Gates & Warren Buffet.  Then again it is about $2,500 per man, woman and child in America.

[Lord_Calvinus]

Entitlements didn’t grow that much from 1.7 and a balanced budget to 2.7 + 400 billion in deficit in 8 years. And, if they did, then we have only 1 man to blame for that for not having the balls to just say no. As far as the other problems, they could have easily been handled from surplus by holding spending increases to reasonable limits.

But, no, Bush rarely said no to spending of any kind.