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Remember the nine Billion in aid to Iraq that seemed to simply vanish
" I had heard the number was three, not nine, and the money didn't vanish, it was recovered. Their paperwork didn't show the actual flow of the money. None was lost."
I couldn't present a better example Charles. I'm fairly certain we both assume we obtained our info from
reliable sources. Nine billion vs Three billion. Humm, that is indeed a problem ! " .... didn't show the actual flow of money'
None was lost " Come on Charles, Really ? Really ! The larger picture would indicate ( to me ) the general public has absolutely no real data upon which to base their opinion. WE DON'T KNOW ! I'm fairly confident Congress is in the same boat.
Foreign aid IMHO can easily be accomplished through private donations. I know, on the surface that sounds silly.
www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/59357/carol-c-adelman/the-privatization-of-foreign-aid-reassessing-national-largesse
"What such criticism fails to take into account is the new landscape of foreign aid. Current measures of a nation's largesse only count funds doled out by the government, thus ignoring the primary way in which Americans help others abroad: through the private sector. In the last decade, U.S. government aid has been far outstripped by private donations -- from foundations, private voluntary organizations (PVOS), corporations, universities, religious groups, and individuals giving directly to needy family members abroad. There is no comprehensive measure of how much Americans donate overseas, but a conservative estimate, based on surveys and voluntary reporting, puts annual private giving around $35 billion. Even this low-ball figure is more than three and a half times the amount of official development assistance (ODA) given out in a year by the U.S. government. In the third wave of foreign aid, it is private money that is making the difference."
Unfortunately one must cough up forty bucks to read the entire article.
Additionally Charles I'm a bit miffed, Congress has yet again failed to contact ME for my input on the alleged " Fiscal Cliff "
The 2010 United States federal budget spent $52.7 billion out of $3.55 trillion (1.5%) on foreign aid. $15.0 billion was military; $37.7 billion was economic aid (of which USAID received $14.1 billion).
Aid from private sources within the United States in 2007 was probably somewhere in the $10 to $30 billion range. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) estimated that net private grants from the United States to developing countries totaled $12.2 billion that year.
Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by bobs_uruncle
Dear bobs_uruncle,
I hope I'm not one of the psychopaths that need to be cleaned from the gene pool? Oh, wait a second, I'm 60. The gene pool doesn't care about me anymore. Whew, I'm safe.
Would you do me the favor of checking my thinking on some numbers? Now I don't really care much if I'm exact, but I'd like to be in the right order of magnitude.
We take in about $3.5 trillion and spend about $5 trillion. We're running an average annual deficit of $1.5 trillion over the last four years. To eliminate the debt in 10 years we'd need an additional $1.5 trillion each year.
To accomplish all this, we would have to double the total income of the US government for each of the next ten years and not increase spending even a drop. Sorry, I don't see any way at all to do this, unless they confiscate everything everybody earns.
With respect,
Charles1952
Originally posted by bobs_uruncle
Originally posted by charles1952
reply to post by bobs_uruncle
Even assuming that your percentages are correct, and I don't think they are, you've eliminated 75% of the deficit. That means 25% remains. With that, the debt will continue growing, albeit at a slower pace. The idea of paying off the debt in 10 years is not within the realm of possibility.
So you don't believe that the US could scrape together between 700 billion and 1.5 trillion a year to get rid of the entire debt in 10 years (that is if the debt is actually around 15 trillion)? I think the US can ;-) I don't care about CDS or derivitives, that is not a problem of the US citizens in general terms, that is a greedy bankster problem. So let the chinese and other nations deal with the problems of wall street et al burning them, in a more permanent manner. I think they still hold public executions for mass fraud over there. If I were in power and the chinese wanted the wall street or european or whomever banksters, I send them all and I wouldn't think twice about it.
The gene pool must be cleaned of psychopaths from time to time with the chlorine of plumbers, scrub brushes of maintenance personnel and the occasional toilet snake.
Cheers - Dave
Ok, so your first idea is to raise taxes anywhere you can think of, because that's what all these ideas are.
Get some income reform going on government employees, especially senators and congressmen, anyone with a ridiculous "golden parachute." Stop the corporate welfare program! That will I believe increase the governments income by something in the range of 1.5 to 2.0 trillion, . Penalize companies for going offshore with jobs rather than rewarding them as is presently done.
The vast majority of prisons and schools, at least through high school, are already government owned. So it seems that your suggestion is for the government to take over any large and useful industries, thinking, I suppose, that the government will be more efficient and less costly?
return energy control, prisons, education, etc. back to the government, meaning kill the privatization as it has been the death of countries and colonies.
Shutting down the entire military completely won't save more than $800 million. Is that what you're suggesting?
shut down most of the offshore military bases and pull back from all the rediculous wars, that should free up another trillion or so
Let's spend money in places that the private sector doesn't think is profitable enough to invest in themselves. Sounds like Solyndra. Besides, we're raising revenue here, not spending.
Put money back into the manufacturing sector and increase the job base to increase tax revenues.