Anything holistically accurate or likely in this doom and gloom economic prediction.
- Thread starter GON
- Start date
I've read and heard much the same about a lot of things in life. The top 10% of the real estate agents sell 90% of the available properties.
The top 10% of fighter pilots in WW 2 shot down 90% of the enemy aircraft. Over 50% never fired their guns at an enemy aircraft. The top 1% pay 46% of all the Federal income tax collected.
The top 10% of new car salesmen sell 90% of all the new cars. And on and on. There are a LOT of slackers in this world. If there weren't socialism / communism would be paradise on earth.
There is a significant difference in comparing people to countries. People have finite lives, specifically finite working lives, and as such they are much more sensitive to debt because at some point they have to stop servicing the debt. Countries live on and so their capacity to service debt lives on too.
The positive here is we as a country never have to pay back debt all the way down to zero. It is impossible and unnecessary and it would actually be destructive to the economy because the only way to do it would be to dial back spending so much that the economy would have to contract. Think about it like leverage, this debt allows us to do things we otherwise would be unable to if we had to flat-out pay for it at the time we did it. Our problem isn't the absolute value of the debt but the ratio of the debt to GDP. What we do need to do is slow debt accumulation so that over time debt becomes a smaller percentage of GDP.
We are admittedly nowhere close to that at the moment but simply slowing the growth of debt relative to the increase in GDP is at least theoretically doable.
I agree to an extent. I don't see anything wrong with gov subsidies going towards R&D of possible future technology because we won't know what will realistically work or not work without trying. Lots of tech we use today came out of subsidies like nuclear research. However, the abuse of the subsidies by private companies is appalling as companies like Rivian or FirstSolar for example, get billions for basically doing nothing towards our future (especially if they're non-American companies getting gov subsidies.)
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
We do not concur on this- which is fine.
I am not an economist, not a history professor, not a senior executive with decades of experience at the U.S. Treasury. But I know that when a nation spends more than they intake, year over year, while increasing entitlements- no pixie dust or sleight of hand will solve what will be coming in the future. Next month, next year, next decade- I know not. I just know when you grow government, grow debt, grow deficit, and this is paid for by printing money- it is not likely there will be a happy ending.
Hey, I get it, although it's usually presented as the 80:20 rule. As someone in the top 1%, I got here by sheer will and grit, nothing given to me.
There's a huge anti-education push right now in the US but the fact is I'm in the top 1% because of my education.
There's a huge anti-science push right now in the US but the fact is I'm in the top 1% because of my understanding of science.
My education and understanding of science puts me in the top 1% because the other 99% don't have the education or understanding of science and that gives me a unique skill set.
Last edited:
I don't think it's a "anti education" push per say. People are just starting to realize some of these expensive degrees from many of these so called "prestigious universities" are not worth as much as they borrowed to get them.
You don't have to be an economist or history professor or senior executive. You just have to understand some basic math and the concept of growth rates. As an example, if the national debt increased by 2% per year but GDP increased by 3% per year, over time, debt would become a smaller percentage of GDP. The debt service would become a more insignificant portion of GDP even though it is still going up. As of 2022, debt-to-GDP was 115%. In the above example, where there is a net 1% reduction per year in debt-GDP, after 20 years the debt-GDP would be 95%. After another 20 years, it would be 75%. Sixty years from now it would 55%. The associated debt service would also come down.
Now that's not what is happening. Debt is increasing more quickly than GDP and that IS a problem.
GON
$150 Site Donor 2025
Not sure about that.
About 20 years ago I was applying for a position at the CIA. The application listed about a dozen or so "prestigious universities" or other for where the applicant attended higher education. The applicant was required to check the box of which prestigious university they attended, or the other box. I was a "other" box check.
I stopped the application process. I knew that only applicants from "prestigious universities" were being targeted. No need wasting their or my time with an application that wasn't going to get past the education background. Attending prestigious universities often gets the graduate into a "favored club". Being a member of that club may get people very high paying positions.
A private industry example was the (former) marketing manager for Bud Lite. She was a graduate of Harvard, making mid six figures. If this same person with the same skillsets graduated from Oklahoma State University, I very much doubt she would have been selected as the Bud Lite marketing manager. But if Budweiser had selected an Oklahoma State graduate to be the Bud Lite marketing manager, Bud Lite likely would still have been the top selling beer in the U.S. today.
Without finding our way into prohibited BITOG waters that's not what I mean when I say anti-education. I'm the product of multiple public university systems and have spent a fraction on my education compared to many. You don't need to attend expensive prestigious schools to make it here in the US. I'm talking about people pushing for anti-vax, flat-earth, anti-evolution, anti-physics/cosmology, and anti-trust science in general because it's a process that is often wrong and self-corrects but it is not perfect from the start, and because these ideas disagree with what someone's good book says.
Its useful to understand it - but you can not do anything about it.
The cure is built in. Ever wonder where the fed's 2% inflation mandate came from? Put $20 in a drawer in a rule of 72 indicated its worth $10 in 36 years. Except we never run at 2%. Since WW2 average is about 3.28 percent - so halving every 22 years.
Problem is as @PWMDMD pointed out, were running deficits faster than we can debase the currency.
The other problem is we have 1.3% GDP growth with a 7% deficit - so cut the deficit and you crash the economy.
Plus we have population decline.
Were still better off than most of the world - total debt = about 400% GDP globally. People still want to move here, not leave.
Can't stop the train. Will be interesting to say the least.
Yes, if you want to be in the top 0.1% category for just about anything, going to a prestigious university might help. My retired partner was the product of the Lawrenceville School for high school, Princeton for college, and Harvard for dental school, while I was the product of public schools. Yet, there we sat next to each other every day. It's a big jump from the top 1% to the top 0.1%, a jump I see as unnecessary in my life, so I'm happy to be a graduate of SUNY, UConn, and soon UMass, for a fraction of the cost.
I agree. But those people are idiots. And there isn't much you can do for or with an idiot.
Nope, not much you can do, and while certainly not anywhere close to a majority, they are a frighteningly large percent of the population, and there is a push to expand this base, usually in the name of fundamentalist religious liberty.
Ehhh, I resemble that. It was easier when I was young and dumb with a wife,3kids and a mortgage. Until the shipyard closed back in'86..
- Joined
- Jan 7, 2024
- Messages
- 263
The market has been manipulate for many years. The stock market should not even be this high
I was a very small child during the worst of it. I very vaguely remember parts - like my parents fighting a lot. . The fighting stopped when I got older in the 80's.
I figured they simply learned to get along better, but my wife and I discuss this occasionally and her parents did the same.
I presume they were trying to decide if we should eat or be warm or whatever. Hard times for sure.
- Joined
- Oct 15, 2022
- Messages
- 319
Ask 10 economists and you may get 11 different answers
Substitute "someone" for "The U.S. Government" and "the interest alone on their debt exceeds their income."
The interest on our $47 Trillion in debt is now almost equal to the Defense Dept. budget and will soon exceed spending on social programs. And we add another trillion in debt every 100 days. Things that you think can go on forever will do so.......until they can't.
