goldwater's ghost
Member
- Joined
- Nov 20, 2011
- Messages
- 331
Ron Paul needs to personalize the message of the debt so people can understand how it relates to them. I think he needs to start using every American citizen owes $189,000 and growing instead of 16 trillion. 16 trillion is too theoritical. 189,000 is real.
That means that if one counts only the official national debt, every man, woman and child in America owes $48,700. Include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, and every one of us is in debt to the tune of $189,000.
Or look at it another way. One can’t pick up a newspaper these days without reading a story about the debt crisis in Europe. France, for example, just had its credit rating downgraded. Yet, measured as a percentage of GDP (the value of all goods and services produced in a country over a year), our budget deficit is roughly a quarter larger than France’s. In fact, among European countries, only Greece and Ireland have larger deficits this year than we do.
The debt figures paint an even grimmer picture. If one includes all the unfunded liabilities of pension and health-care systems, Greece’s total debt equals 875% of its GDP. France, the next-most insolvent country in Europe, owes 570% of GDP. The United States, however, now owes 885% of GDP, more than any other industrialized country.
We have been able to avoid disaster so far only because, as the world’s preferential currency, other countries have been willing to lend us money cheaply. But that is not going to continue forever. And if our creditors begin to hike interest rates, we will be facing the same economic consequences facing so much of Europe today.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_V5KvB19adtZ9fXbLNGMaRO#ixzz1ktSstMRX
That means that if one counts only the official national debt, every man, woman and child in America owes $48,700. Include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security and Medicare, and every one of us is in debt to the tune of $189,000.
Or look at it another way. One can’t pick up a newspaper these days without reading a story about the debt crisis in Europe. France, for example, just had its credit rating downgraded. Yet, measured as a percentage of GDP (the value of all goods and services produced in a country over a year), our budget deficit is roughly a quarter larger than France’s. In fact, among European countries, only Greece and Ireland have larger deficits this year than we do.
The debt figures paint an even grimmer picture. If one includes all the unfunded liabilities of pension and health-care systems, Greece’s total debt equals 875% of its GDP. France, the next-most insolvent country in Europe, owes 570% of GDP. The United States, however, now owes 885% of GDP, more than any other industrialized country.
We have been able to avoid disaster so far only because, as the world’s preferential currency, other countries have been willing to lend us money cheaply. But that is not going to continue forever. And if our creditors begin to hike interest rates, we will be facing the same economic consequences facing so much of Europe today.
Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/news/opinion/opedcolumnists/item_V5KvB19adtZ9fXbLNGMaRO#ixzz1ktSstMRX
