The $17 Trillion Dollar Question(s)...

Various government agencies and a calculator | 10/17/2013 | Self

[Thom Pain]

Run for Congress

Sorry, couldn't resist. Very good article.

[Positive]

Sorry I made a mistake in Idea #2.

I typed "You see creating $85 Billion per year would take almost 17 years to get to $17 Trillion...

Of course it should have been "per month".

[RadiationRomeo]

You should make sure you live in one of the states that will be seceding.

[Undecided 2012]

Positive, obviously you are still asleep and what you wrote was a dream right?
There is absolutely no way the fed will cut spending 2/3 from 3.7 trillion to 1.2 trillion to pay off that debt.
Hell, they can’t even balance a budget.
Hell, they can’t even pass a budget, what am I talking about.

Maybe we are both dreaming.

[agere_contra]

We all know what will happen.

The Government will continue to print like crazy, hollowing out the middle class and destroying anyone with currency savings.

And - just like every other country that has done this - the level of printing will cross an invisible line.

Beyond this line is double-digit inflation, some chance of hyperinflation and a 100% chance of the loss of reserve currency status.

Gold and Silver, other hard assets. Buy them, store them, tell no-one.

[central_va]

Hyper inflation is in the future.

[sauropod]

You’re forgetting the unfunded liabilities - this puts the dollar figure at $90 trillion +.

[TigerClaws]

Hyperinflation.

Collapse of the U.S. just like the Soviet Union collapsed. Not a shot was fired.

Break up of U.S. into 4 or 5 regional countries.

[djf]

You can’t pay it back.

The only legal tender is Federal Reserve Notes.

The only way they come into existence is to borrow them.

Doesn’t matter what the numbers are.

[eyeamok]

Bingo, we have a winner,
not only can it never be paid back, the INTEREST REQUIRED TO EXTINGUISH said loans, DOES NOT EXIST. All Interest on Government Debt can only be paid with the blood and sweat of LABOR. This is Involuntary Servitude.

[liberalh8ter]

We've passed the tipping point. The National debt is now so enormous that I fear it is impossible to rein it in. If conservatives are able to capture a majority in the near future, the democrats will have set them up to fail. Any meaningful attempt to correct the injustice that has been done to Americans by the democrats will have to involve deep, meaningful and painful cuts and the the people doing the cutting will be conservatives. The gimmedats will go ballistic and all blame will fall on the conservatives while the democrats hit every lame stream media source and bemoan the mean conservatives that are causing people to suffer. We are absolutely screwed.

[Venturer]

Love that word: Gimmedats.

[liberalh8ter]

Wish I had coined it but it belongs to someone else. I shamelessly stole it but honestly believe ALL DemonRATS should ALWAYS be referred to as such.

[Venturer]

With your permission I will also participate in that theft.

[Dad was my hero]

Two ideas I've heard floated about ...

1) mint a 17 trillion dollar platnium coin - seems hairbrained but some serious thinkers have floated that idea and, I think this more likely ...

2) get the dems back into the majority in the house and then nationalize all the retirement/401k accounts. I read somewhere that those combined are worth in the area of 19 trillion, so, debt solved, in fact we'd have 2 trillion to blow on more failed promises.

[Texas resident]

You nailed it.
The gop just gave the rats a blank check and we got stabbed in the back.
The free stuff army will destroy us.

[Positive]

We may both be in a nightmare.

But just to be clear, all of those "Ideas" were meant to be irony.

[MrB]

They WON’T pass a budget. That’s different than “can’t”.

[Positive]

Just to be diversified, you should purchase some of a couple of other precious metals... Copper and Lead.