If We Don't Begin To Solve Debt Problems

Moody's recently said that the United State's AAA bond rating could be in trouble once Medicare and Social Security costs skyrocket with the retired baby boomers. Moody's rates bonds from nations around the world.

There is still time to fix the issue, or at least start to get things under control if Congress and the President are willing to face the hard truth. But each year gets us closer and closer to the eventual massive shortfalls of social security and medicare we will have to face.

The subprime meltdown is a relatively minor event comparatively and it has Wall Street panicked. Imagine what is in store for us once the social security/ medicare meltdown begins to kick in. If our bond rating gets downgrading the result will be crushing.

I understand Iran is already using the dollar as toilet paper. We might be doing the same if we don't get our house in order and have to start printing lots of money to keep paying our debt.

I used to be optimistic that we could indeed begin to fix the issues especially with a Republican President. Republicans are supposed to be against big government and excessive spending right? Ironically Clinton not Bush did more to balance the books and reduce debt. Bush has only exacerbated the problem. Government has grown at an out of control rate under his presidency and so has the national debt.

It is probably impossible that any President and Congress would be willing to approach the American public and tell them we need to make some sacrifices so our children can enjoy some prosperity. Presidents are elected on their optimism not their pessimism. We need to tighten our belts and nobody wants to hear that in an election year.

I've heard enough talk about rainbows and sunshine. A little pessimism would do this country some good.

Feds' budget tricks hide trillions in debt - MSN Money

Feds' budget tricks hide trillions in debt - MSN Money

It is staggering the sheer amount of money this country overspends and how they play with the numbers to hide billions upon billions in overspending.

With the middle class getting the knock out punch from inflation (food price increases, gas, medical insurance) there isn't a very strong base to pull us out of this when the social security problems begin to hit.

Intelligentguess - Analysis of Market Economics » USA - Relationship between Total Debt ( data from 1929) and External debt as a % of the GDP (data from 1995)

Intelligentguess - Analysis of Market Economics » USA - Relationship between Total Debt ( data from 1929) and External debt as a % of the GDP (data from 1995)

I've talked a lot about the Republican cut and spend policy and how it is hurting out country. Here is a nice graphic illustration. It's a graph of the national debt as a percentage of GDP. Look at how in recent years what has happened under Republican Presidents. They increase spending but reduce revenue in the form of tax cuts. The size of government has grown incredibly under George W which is normally a trait of the Democrats.

I'd actually support a cut and cut policy if it reduced the national debt. Cut and spend is damaging the future of the country.

New Episode of My Podcast Up

I have a new episode up of my Maximum Security Podcast. Check it out.
Click here or on the podcast icon at the top of the page.

Hear my take on the war in Iraq. I got a solution to this problem that nobody wants to hear. A final good bye to Rummy. Enron back in the news again what a joke. Glenn Beck puts himself in company with Joseph McCarthy.

http://georgeblume.podomatic.com/

Your Share of the National Debt

As of the date of this post the national debt was $8,610,692,271,807.47

That comes to $28,682.43 per person.

We are overspending at the rate of $2.3 billion per day.

Nice work Mr. Bush and Congress! Hard to believe my newborn son is $28k in debt.

Here is a link to the national debt tracker where I got the above numbers.
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/

Here is an article on the national debt by NPR. Take a look a the graph which shows the national debt is 64% of the GNP. The article is mostly about the raising of the national debt ceiling to $9 Trillion dollars. No we don't have a serious spending problem in this country!

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5282521

Here is a link to an NPR podcast that talks about the true cost of the war in Iraq. The cost could top $2 Trillion.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=5156416

It is wrong to mortgage our future for today. We are facing a serious shortage in Social Security that will start to come due very soon. How are we going to face this problem if we cannot control our current government spending? I hope the Democrats can curtail this massive amount of over spending but I'm not holding my breath.

Political Cartoon