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bbc
Other people's money
So the message in Laredo is that empires very much come and go.
But what of the US and its dominant position in the contemporary world?
Is it too set to decline? It may seem like a ludicrous question.
Most commentators I have spoken to believe that, in the short-term at least, US power will actually grow.
But economist Will Hutton told me of what he calls "the dark underside of the United States economy" - the condition of its international accounts.
Put bluntly it owes the rest of the world $3trn dollars, and that is debt which is increasing by $500bn a year.
Mr Hutton makes a persuasive case that America's current strength is built on other peoples' money and he fears that the US economic bubble will eventually burst.
"People simply aren't going to carry on lending America billions and billions of dollars and America's not going to carry on borrowing it," he told me.
In his view America's economic strength is "built on sand".
Originally posted by pugachev
Actually, the debt is more or less controlled now. As long as the economy grows faster than the debt grows, it doesn't matter how high the debt is.
Originally posted by ferretman2
The US has a 16 trillion dollar GDP.
The debt is not as bad as some of you would make it seem.
Originally posted by Realtruth
That kind of statement was valid when the USA really produced products and sold them external to the USA and made a profit.
Originally posted by Conspiracy Theorist
One question. Does the $9 Trillion figure include the $2.3 Trillion that is "not missing, we just dont know where it is" from the pentagons budget?
Being discussed here if any1 cares
Originally posted by BANGINCOLOR
You guys should vote for a fiscally responsible Democrat next time and not an out of control spending Republican!!!
That's what we get for 8 years with a Republican president. If we vote for one more Republican for president, our economy will be in serious trouble.
Originally posted by vor78
Yes, it is included. The government certainly has long since known it has spent that $2.3 trillion. The military only recieves the amount of money that Congress appropriates for that fiscal year, nothing more, and the overall amount is known.
It is considered 'missing' because the Pentagon does not have a record of what the money was spent on, not because they've suddenly found a heap of bills they owe.
Originally posted by Realtruth
The US dollars is worth nothing and the rest of the world knows it.
www.brillig.com...
U.S. NATIONAL DEBT CLOCK
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 05 Dec 2006 at 07:47:05 PM GMT is:
$ 8 , 6 4 4 , 2 5 5 , 5 7 4 , 9 8 5 . 4 1
The estimated population of the United States is 300,393,454
so each citizen's share of this debt is $28,776.44.
The National Debt has continued to increase an average of
$2.04 billion per day since September 29, 2006!
[edit on 5-12-2006 by Realtruth]