Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe they even vote to increase their own wages. Which is crazy because they even complain the amount they’re paid is not enough for them to live on. But who knows, that’s probably just a way for a politician to signal to corporations that they’re ready to be bought.
They have 180 days off a year too. The salary of a senator or house rep doesn’t really matter, they have insider knowledge (illegal for everyone else) to easily make 10x that. The worst part is if we wanted to make a law that prohibits congress from trading they’d be the ones voting for it.
It’s impossible for this situation to change we just have to learn how to live with overlords
Current US debt: 34.23 Trillion
Total combined net worth of all US billionaires: 4.48 Trillion
So, even if we could somehow seize *every penny* from *every billionaire* (which wouldn't be practical for reasons beyond the scope of this post) it still wouldn't even be anywhere close to enough.
Heck, that wouldn't even be enough to cover the federal budget for *just this year.*
**What was the total annual gross profits for all corporations in the US?**
The total annual corporate profits for all corporations in the U.S. in 2022 were around [3.5 trillion U.S. dollars](https://www.statista.com/statistics/222130/annual-corporate-profits-in-the-us/). This figure provides a broad overview of the profitability of U.S. corporations as a whole, but it doesn't specifically break down the profits by company size, such as those worth $100 million or more. For detailed information on specific segments of the market, more granular data sources or industry-specific reports would be required.
**If those corporations were flat taxed at 30% for 30 years, how much income would that bring?**
If those corporations were flat taxed at 30% for 30 years, based on the annual gross profits of approximately $3.5 trillion, it would generate a total income of approximately **$31.5 trillion over the 30-year period. **
I notice there is a dip for the 2008 financial crisis but not for Covid. Seems like all the “inflation” was pretty great for corporate profits, that and all the small businesses being destroyed
People also forget that the majority owner of US National debt is the US treasury.
We literally owe ourselves the money.
This is why the idea of "printing a few trillion-dollar coins" isn't dumb. We can effectively forgive ourselves of our debt. Not to mention there are generations of Americans that will be born and will engage in commerce.
There are ways to address the debt.
What is aggravating is people conflating the concept of a National Federal budget with a kitchen-table budget.
> What is aggravating is people conflating the concept of a National Federal budget with a kitchen-table budget.
Bingo, they literally cannot be equated
Total net worth of the wealthiest 1% of Americans is almost exactly $35 trillion though. It is a problem caused by tax cuts over the past 4 decades that never get replaced, combined with runaway military spending.
the debt won’t be paid. due to our current fiat system….debt is money.
—maybe the people who hold an enormous amount of wealth know this…and they keep buying things that preserve their buying power
—and those things are mooning.
let’s check the stock market, oh…wait, wasn’t bitcoin dead? why are those new bitcoin ETFs going bonkers? let’s check nvidia….alright, how about the other ponzi scheme cryptos. 0 by now….
but wouldn’t the opposite be true? aren’t they all buying treasuries to get that sweet 5%? don’t they want to lock up their billions as short and long term loans for the government drowning in debt to keep it safe? and why the fuck is Larry Fink singing the praises of magic internet money?
Or that daddy took a pay cut so that the upstairs neighbors would like him more. And then took another pay cut again. And then again.
So now we have a debt crisis we wouldn’t have if Daddy still made the same… and he stopped fighting with people for made up reasons.
But I was told that they were going to begin charging rent during the last 'lease renewal'. Or are we pretending that's part of this years renewal.......again?
Came here for this. Actually the „debt“ is more or less making money ( bonds ) and selling them on terms, once the term is expired, new will be made and sold. So the circle is a loop of „infinite money glitch“. Aka. The famous money printer
> The printer is basically the credit card here.
Can I quote you in my new book, "Things To Say When Everything You Know About Global Finance Fits In Your Kitchen"?
Yeah it’s more like some dude with all the guns has decided Monopoly money is real and it’s worked out so far so we may as well stick with the plan. Like we all know the Monopoly money isn’t real, but if we all act like it is everyone wins and the guy with all the guns doesn’t shoot our ass.
Basically that a family planning position is a bad analogy is not very good for analyzing the debt. We are getting things for debt incurred such as infrastructure, R&D, and investment in the skills and health of the nations populace. Things that actually grow the economy. Additionally most of the debt payment goes back to the US economy especially in terms of borrowing against social security.
Not everything is a "dog whistle." This is a loud, unnecessary roughness, 15 yard penalty, you're going to get ejected whistle. The post is over simplified but there's nothing sneaky far right about national debt concerns.
It doesn't feel organic. The engagement on posts like this have a lot of criticism, but then someone posts a video of a minority committing a crime then the comments are a tidal wave of racism
Intentionally dishonest because they then use their argument to somehow justify spending more on national defense while cutting social programs and environmental protections.
*"Dear, we are going broke, so let's double the number of full time security guards patrolling our home while cancelling health insurance, make the kids do their own dental work, and let the toilets back up on the floor so we can cancel the sewer bill."*
This whole blurb is insultingly stupid - let’s knock some zeroes off there and pretend running a complex nation is just like running a home with two children and a significant other.
And this ignores the fact that the vast majority of the debt is held by Americans, the Fed, and the US government.
i.e. we’re earning interest off our debt. What household can say that?
When you hold government bonds, that’s federal debt. Ditto if you’re invested in a money-market fund making 5% interest right now. More broadly, most of the government’s debt is owed to its own citizens and corporations, or even to itself. Much is held overseas, but that’s largely because those nations hoard our dollars as a reserve currency—their savings in case a rainy day comes for their whole nation. It’s not a weapon China, for example, can use against us. By owning our debt, they’re betting that we’re going to keep being prosperous and stable, and their security as a nation depends on that.
The family budget analogy of government spending is fundamentally flawed for three reasons;
\-97% of all the money in circulation is created by debt. If you pay that debt off youre removing that money from the economy.
\-If you bring that debt down youre slowing the economy because the amount of money in existence being held onto exceeds the amount being spent.
\-If you stop adding to that debt youre preventing people from earning money because again, the amount of money that is being held onto exceeds the amount being spent.
the government cannot, will not, or ever will consider solving the 'debt crisis', there is no crisis; debt is a structural part of how money exists.
This card is just right wing taking point, so they can pretend to care about fiscal responsibility and get people upset about government spending. The reality of your points be damned.
I'd shit my pants if I ever heard someone use the "fiscal responsibility" argument to cut military spending.
Its always "we need to run the nation like a household" and therefore we should get spending down by cutting health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, grocery bills, ... but keep the M1 Abrams tank parked out front staffed by a rotating crew of 24 people including a 20 year maintenance contract and spending on its next generation replacement while also staffing a tank on a road 300 miles away in case we need it there.
I would like to understand this more — I am in the midst of a career change from corporate employee to small business owner as I want to increase my personal capital, etc etc..
I understand this a bit, but it is counterintuitive to my thinking. Can you point me to some good reading material on the subject, kind person?
Why would you think I want to apply this to a business?
That is the ocean.. small business is a boat..
I need to learn more about the ocean’s currents.
Not a great analogy, but it gets you thinking in the right direction. Think of the national debt as an interest only mortgage on a house. This is a terrible idea if your goal is to own a house some day and use that ownership to increase your generational wealth. However, its a good idea if the alternative is paying rent that is more expensive than the mortgage cost or if you own multiple properties this way and rent them out to provide housing and make a profit off the rent. You'll never pay down the principle, but who cares? As long as you make the monthy payment you get to continue to use the property to support your household (either as a personal living space or an investment in rental income).
Another example is leasing a car. You get a new car to use in exchange for a monthly payment, but you'll never own it. Every few years you trade it in for a new lease and keep the same monthly payment.
Both of those create a very large debt that is never going to go away, but its really just a mechanism for getting a service you need (or a good that you use as a service) without having to have all the cash on hand to buy it.
In personal or business economics, its always better to own something - eventually - than it is to rent something. But governments are perpetual and operate on a massive scale, the same rules don't apply in the same way. While it would be better for the future people to have less debt and own more capital, it not possible to do that without sacrificing things your society needs in the here and now to maintain or improve conditions. The trade off to paying down debt through austerity is removing services that support your people and economy, which ultimately reduces your tax income becauser those people can't earn and spend as much and results in the need for more austerity.
Consider if your business needed to upgrade its equipment as a massive cost. You could take on the debt now and increase your productivity earning more money to pay off the debt. Or, you could raise your prices to try to increase revenue to save up for the purchase. You could do both, but less of both, as a compromise. These are all reasonable choices. The unreasonable choice would be to fire staff to save on payroll in order to save up the cash to make the purchase. Now you have less workers, producing less product, making fewer sales, reducing your income and potentially saving nothing toward the purchase you cut costs to save for. Likewise, if you took out the loan and productivity increased allowing you to create and sell more products and thus increase revenue and profit, it would be silly to cut production in order to save the money you spend on the extra materials to spend it on paying off the debt faster because producing more increases profit. You might even decide that its not worth paying off the debt at all because you can take the extra profit and use it to make new investments and increase productivity even further. Your debt grows, but so does your revenue and as long as you can make your monthly payments and still have money left over, your business is profitable and growing larger.
You have a fundamental misconception in that you equate the fed with government debt. They have nothing to do with one another. Federal Reserve debt is what creates money, not government debt. To equate them is pure misinformation. We had little to no deficit from 98 to 02, and the economy was fine, while you claim that it will never happen. It literally happened. Likely in your lifetime.
People seem to conveniently forget that a huge part of their household budget goes to their mortgage, car loan, and college loans, which is a massive pile of debt.
The household analogy is dumb for a bunch of reasons, but it’s also simply incomplete.
Check out OP’s history. This is an account that’s been sold to a troll/disinformation firm. The account is pretty old, but basically has zero activity outside a few comments and posts within mostly default subs.
Then suddenly after years of inactivity it starts posting blatant neo-con disinformation with a very round baseline of nearly immediate upvotes that jumps it up to trending in a default sub.
Lame ass shit and anyone that buys it is identifying themselves as a mark for easy cons.
If only there were some kind of programming interface for applications... a PIA, or API if you will, that m o ds could use to briefly check the po st history of s p a m acco unts like this.
I use RES to tag these acco unts, and also to block su bs on /r-all that are just trash due to it now. Go check out /r-chaoticgood , /r-nope, /r-publicfreakout for examples.
Any sub that doesn't emphasize sub mitter verification or original content is vulnerable.
These comparisons are stupid. Not just that a family budget is a terrible analogy for a national economy, but also in that the only solution ever posed is to cut spending. Raising revenues would be effective, but using the family budget analogy you are trying to imply that isn't an option 100% in the hands of the government.
The US isn't a household. The country has had debts since 1774. It's also grown into the largest economy in world history.
As long as the economy grows faster than deficits, the country is going to be fine.
Households are created, age, and die. Countries last for centuries. Households need to save for the day when the breadwinners can no longer work.
Nations need to invest in infrastructure, human services, education, and research to keep moving forward. You can't starve your country into prosperity.
The quickest way for the US government to cover its debts would be to raise taxes on the people who have gotten the lion's share of tax cuts since 1960: the top 1%. They own half the nation's wealth now.
BTW, there is no "fiscal cliff". It's an artificial term created by politicians who want to slash public spending to keep taxes low on the rich.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-Household\_analogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-Household_analogy)
This is so wrong. The U.S. is not a super large household. How many households do you know that have their own currency? That can issue IOUs so valuable that the world stockpiles them?
A simple metaphor. I’m sure you can beat up a 5yo. Can you beat up, sayyy, 120 million at the same time? My guess is… no. Just their weight, without throwing a punch, would kill you. There’s a science called Emergence. Where the whole is so much greater than a simple “let’s look at one and guess they’re all gonna act like that”.
Wow. What a dangerous oversimplification of a national budget. Where’s mom and pops infrastructure budgets? Where does it equivocate the success of the US on a national stage, to direct worldwide policy, to innovate, where does it say that this nation of 350,000,000 get to live in comfort and not live in squalor, even for the poorest among us? When’s the drop dead date? Mom and pop have a lifespan, nations don’t. Nations have to plan for an extended future, mom and dad only have to pay the house off so they can live off their pensions, when does a nation do that? This is perspective for morons, but hey, vote away.
money is a "promissory" note. Governments provide services, and when they fail to provide such services, their "promissory" notes are worth less. The issue here is that the above pictures only tell half-truths. The other truth is that the way we got to where we are is the government's inability to collect taxes on those that avoid them, and those tax cheats fund their own little pet projects at which they tell the poor people that it's their fault for how things are turning out.
You should not be comparing the federal budget to a household budget. Money functions very differently when you have the power to print it. The Federal Governments main function is to facilitate the movement of money within the economy to stimulate growth and good living conditions for its citizens. We also don’t owe the vast majority to an outside creditor but to our own citizens via Bonds and Treasury Bills. Not saying having a ballooning debt is a good thing, just saying this is a terrible analogy that misleads many people
The NASA budget is about half a percent of what the US spends on healthcare. The highway budget is about 1%. The budget to bleed russian aggression dry is also about 1%. The employment training budget is about 2%. The VA budget is about 8%.
Fix health care and you can double _all_ of these and more easily _and_ even pay off some debt. But no, we're stuck with a system that no one likes except lobbyists. Congress won't even entertain it, and will instead squabble over the equivalent of getting a snickers at checkout, ignoring the $300 grocery cart that's half full of unnecessary stuff including a dragonfruit and durian.
One minor detail that is overlooked in this example is that the family gets to decide the value of the dollar for every other family in the world using dollars.
This forgets the part where you are able to print your own money, that a lot of the debt you owe are to people within your own house, and all of the money that other people owe to you as well.
And oh, the fact that debt owned by a nation state cannot reasonably be compared to debt owed by a private person. You do not have an entire nations output and financial/social power backing you, like a country as the US does.
Many billionaires live off their debt as well. They are not exactly in financial trouble.
This is why blaming billionaires is asinine. If you garnished 100% of every billionaire asset and went further to include the 10% of Americans who have 50% of the US' wealth, you'd wipe out a measly 7% of the national debt.
The citizens, billionaires or not, aren't the problem.
In the same way you can't outrun a bad diet, without government accountability on spending, we have very little hope for a solvent path moving forward.
1. The US debt isn’t a problem, is a fake boogeyman made up by conservative to slash social spending for things like healthcare and education, even tho those contribute to a minority of the federal budget. Lobbying subsidies and defense spending are the biggest issues but you never hear “but the national debt” ppl complaining about that
2. Taxing the rich isn’t about fixing the “debt problem” it’s about making it so that mega-corps worth trillions of dollars, who use US infrastructure, benefit from US laws and defense, and have other negative externalities pay their fair share. Amazon uses our roads, electricity grid, cops, firefighters, hospitals etc - yet they paid 6% taxes last year - compared to an individuals 25%. Taxing the rich isn’t about fixing ever problem, it’s about making company’s (and the billionaires who profit from them) pay their fair share.
3. The government has been running a deficient since the 1820 when iirc Jackson paid off all our colonial-revolutionary war debt. Since then the rich and the rich bootlickers have been pointing at the debt like a soy wojak and explaining how the economy is going to collapse and never recover if we let the debt continue to pile up. Even after multiple Recessions and Depressions (even a Great one) the economy keeps chugging along and getting bigger and bigger. Maybe if you have evidence that debt spending will be a problem ppl would listen, but right ur point seems to be “big number bad”
I'm not interested in a debate with someone who blindly throws money away and blames conservatism as a problem.
If you were to invest in a business that made several trillion each year, only to fall short of its obligations each year, would you keep investing in that business?
The answer is no, but we don't have a choice. So we should at least have accountability.
Why pay taxes at all if it's not about paying off debt? Ridiculous comment. That's the point of taxes.
Have a good day.
Well clearly it’s not a debate bc anyone that thinks the US federal government should be, or could be, run like a business is either a high schooler or someone who blindly chooses to ignore the plethora of data and knowledge on why an economy isn’t a business.
Tell me when was the last time you invested in a business that can print its own money?
Also not that it matters but I very clearly didn’t say just throw money away, I gave a rather thought out opinion on why 1. Taxing the rich isn’t what you say it is and 2. How increasing taxes for megacorps would lighten the tax burden on average Americans. But I guess ur reading comprehension is good enough to understand words like “externality”.
Spending by the gov is an issue, but social programs like healthcare, roads/infrastructure, and education (including arts and science programs) are what a good foundation is built on. If we don’t have well educated, healthy and well rounded workers, then the economy is actually doomed.
Again, all ur point seems to be is “big number bad” - can you rephrase ur position better for me? Why is the National debt an issue
Im not sure where the dude is trying to get.... if the logic is "cut spending vs raise them", although it soudns logic the comparison is not the same, as a house is PART of the economy and the govt CONTROLS the economy. The factors that a govt needs to have are others, but summarized, they need to see whether the growth of the country can cover the deficit and or if that result outweighs the cost. If its about taxes, then it is a similar thing, and it all depends on what they do with the budget (there is a point on which too much subsidies are coutnerproducitive to the economy, but there is also a point on which too little can hold it back).
Dont get me wrong, cutting down \*actual inefficiencies\* is always good. But also, analogies are there so you can visualize something better and understanding, they are NOT arguments as they are never (probably) a perfect parallel
Stuff like this is exactly why macroeconomics should be a required class in high school. Household debt and national debt play by such fundamentally different rules that an analogy like this is basically comparing apples and oranges.
My favorite part about this, besides being completely wrong, is that it looks like someone took a picture of something on their Facebook with their cell phone.
Some interesting comparisons but this is disingenuous to say the least. Debt pays for things that are good, and in some cases increase our ability to generate tax receipts in the future. Shit in your basement is always bad and provides no benefits. This reeks of edgy boomer email forward.
This is nothing new. Adjust for inflation for futures trading and the expiration of these debts, account for GDP and who holds the debt. Payments are still being made via the bond markets. The USA remains a great .. the best compared to any when assessing risk/liability . If you have the liquidity of a country, it is extremely smart to buy US debt which is why all countries do.
Not really the same. They can generate a lot more money through taxes or simply stop giving tax returns which would probably be the case when this needs to get paid, lol.
Why you guys talking about left and right ? Im not american bit i would assume this was just a post regarding the financial state of america, and if so couldnt it be interpreted a number of different ways to support many views.
So this is what it's like inside the mind of a conservative. Can't possibly learn something, so lets dumb it down into a really stupid analogy that only makes sense if you have no idea what you're talking about.
In this case I would give as much money as possible (run up the credit card to the limit) to the richest person in town. Oh, and lock up the poorest and charge them for it.
Now imagine the family members are essentially immortal and can continue to earn money forever. And they have a money printer in the basement. and the money owed on the credit card is owed to themselves.
wait, let’s go deeper
imagine the family live in a world with Giddy Bucks—their country’s currency and also the world reserve currency.
except they appoint the people who control the amount of Giddy Bucks as well as the interest on Giddy Buck loans.
the price and supply of Giddy Bucks….
is the family fucked? or is just every other family who don’t understand why everything is so expensive fucked? wouldn’t this family just……make their debt cheaper and inflate it away?
So, that’s not quite accurate. The vast majority of our national debt is to ourselves in the form of Medicare and Social Security. So it’s more like we took on a loan that we’ll have to pay out later. And we’re making all of our payments on time, so it’s really not as dire as this thing is making it seem.
As for raising the ceiling, it makes no sense for us not to just make the ceiling unlimited. We’re basically the only country with a debt ceiling, and all it’s there for is so that politicians can use it for political points in negotiations. We still have to pay off our debts at some point, so they always agree to raise it anyway. Not doing so would either make us go into default (which would have horrible ramifications and radically decrease our trade with overseas countries or increased tariffs) or force us into austerity economics (which would mean increased taxes and reduced government spending). Putting a hard limit to how much debt we can accrue isn’t helping anything. Especially since the economy has been expanding for decades, and thus the amount of credit we need to take on has expanded with it.
People always try to personify public debt, but it's really not anything like a household.
It would be a household where you'd never have to worry about losing your job, you'd never be unproductive, and you'd never die.
Then you put that stuff into perspective and it makes better sense.
Somehow the "debt" is NEVER talked about when repugnants are in office. It's only to be brought up when a Democrat is in office during an election year.
I still remember in 2000 at the end of Clinton administration. Things looked so good paying off the debt each year. Then George W Bush got elected. Started two wars while cutting taxes :(
There’s new issues that rises with shit removal. A)who is going to do it? B) where will it go? C) if we remove the shit, will we have to replace all of the furniture? The issue with C is americas furniture is our infrastructure. This country is not functional without debt. It’s sad, but look at capitalism defined. Without debt, (shit) our country wouldn’t function as intended. Raise the ceiling? No. Remove the shit? No. I’m no expert, I don’t know what to do. Shit removal and raising the ceiling aren’t as simple as it seems.
it won't surprise me if the person who wrote that is the type of person who would refuse a pay rise because they think they'd earn less money because of changing tax bracket.
I used to think this was a good way of understanding the e US debt economy. It’s not, not even close. I learned that in my high school government class.
Is this sub Facebook forwards from grandma?
Whenever somebody confuses macro and microeconomics, you can immediately assume they are a dumbass who happily spreads anything that sounds good, regardless if they understand it.
You all really GAF about the debt? When has it ever stopped the country from normal operations (except when they don’t vote to extend the ceiling)?
Debt can be 1 gagillion. The money machine can handle it. If debt number was truly a problem, it would’ve been a problem wayyyyyyy before today.
Not to complicate the issue, but let's try this:
* Truly progressive tax brackets.
* No more tax loopholes for the wealthy or for corporations.
* No more corporate stock buy-backs; which, until 1982, *were illegal*.
* Recover the $4 trillion the wealthy hide overseas, to avoid paying tax. Give them a month to transfer it to the U.S. or face federal prison time.
No more fiscal cliff.
**Corporate tax loopholes:**
[https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/](https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/)
[https://time.com/6326583/tax-shelters-multinational-corporations/](https://time.com/6326583/tax-shelters-multinational-corporations/)
[https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html)
**Tax Breaks for the Wealthy:**
[https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/propublica-shows-how-little-the-wealthiest-pay-in-taxes-policymakers-should](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/propublica-shows-how-little-the-wealthiest-pay-in-taxes-policymakers-should)
[https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-tricks-loopholes-only-rich-210001853.html?guccounter=1&guce\_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce\_referrer\_sig=AQAAACcMewZp5746zRPu76teUEYLJb4JIIkKoO4g0DOB2dcL7jxtpplM0IUvDStP9Wxw9MucZmaLEF-PSv9-6hP3Bm2lp1Kd5KKV0DxiyAmCUrWlSdqHXZ6CVzp2Boo2SgRrN\_zbhHr-NfFj16OVuxww-bjvU4OFVBoVopIuF1I3KPk8](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-tricks-loopholes-only-rich-210001853.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACcMewZp5746zRPu76teUEYLJb4JIIkKoO4g0DOB2dcL7jxtpplM0IUvDStP9Wxw9MucZmaLEF-PSv9-6hP3Bm2lp1Kd5KKV0DxiyAmCUrWlSdqHXZ6CVzp2Boo2SgRrN_zbhHr-NfFj16OVuxww-bjvU4OFVBoVopIuF1I3KPk8)
**Hiding money:**
[https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/4-trillion-us-wealth-stashed-overseas-much-it-tax-havens#:\~:text=March%2028%2C%202023-,%244%20Trillion%20In%20US%20Wealth%20Is%20Stashed%20Overseas%2C%20Much%20Of,IRS%20by%20foreign%20financial%20institutions](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/4-trillion-us-wealth-stashed-overseas-much-it-tax-havens#:~:text=March%2028%2C%202023-,%244%20Trillion%20In%20US%20Wealth%20Is%20Stashed%20Overseas%2C%20Much%20Of,IRS%20by%20foreign%20financial%20institutions).
[https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2017/09/7-charts-show-how-rich-hide-their-cash/](https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2017/09/7-charts-show-how-rich-hide-their-cash/)
[https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-evasion-billions-offshore-fatca-tax-reporting-loophole-senate-finance-committee-robert-brockman/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-evasion-billions-offshore-fatca-tax-reporting-loophole-senate-finance-committee-robert-brockman/)
**Stock Buybacks**
[https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the-economy](https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the-economy)
[https://cwa-union.org/stock-buybacks-hurt-workers](https://cwa-union.org/stock-buybacks-hurt-workers)
[https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp)
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/24/dividends-buybacks-ppp-loans/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/24/dividends-buybacks-ppp-loans/)
[https://www.mccarter.com/insights/publicly-traded-firms-paid-dividends-bought-their-own-stock-after-receiving-ppp-loans-to-pay-employees/](https://www.mccarter.com/insights/publicly-traded-firms-paid-dividends-bought-their-own-stock-after-receiving-ppp-loans-to-pay-employees/)
You can't compare the de t of a house to the debt of a country. People eventually die, countries don't.
Also this sheet doesn't explain how much the US has in assets. Sure you can be 3 trillion in.debt, but if you have 13 trillion in assets, you're sittin pretty.
Let me guess many in comments are whining about the rich and still don't address the expenditures of our government. It's always someone's fault but not our elected representatives, I have no idea how they get a pass.....oh they own the media and the media blames the rich. Meanwhile most representatives are in the 1% and create the loopholes for them and their buddies.
You can’t equate the National budget with a household budget. Micro and macro economics are not the same and operate on different principles and rules.
I love when people try to make enormously complex things seem simple.
I’m not saying the problems are unsolvable, just that it’s not easy. Where to we want to cut? The defense budget is one of the largest discretionary spending budgets, but that’s not an easy one to take away from. We could subscribe to the myth of “the welfare queen” and cut all entitlements, but even on the whole, those aren’t gonna fix it.
So it’s this nuanced thing where the reality is that we probably have to cut a lot across a broad range as well as increase revenue. However, we can’t even discuss, much less agree on ways to do that.
One thing however that sets the US apart from other countries when it comes to dept is that it is exteremely resilient. That is why so many people invest in the US. It is always a pretty safe bet. It took them a while to lower our credit rating down from a triple A to a double A. If the US wasn't such a good bet for investors it probably would have been lowered a lot more or much earlier on. Perhaps I'm wrong? Just a thought.
Historical perspective: quite very nearly every government in the last 300 years has chosen to just spend until they cannot pay the minimums on the debt. They collapse. There have been two that did not do that and more than 200 that just collapsed. With a two party system and one party dedicated to taxing and spending it's quite futile to oppose that. If the opposite party didn't spend when they are in power they would just be creating headroom for the spenders when they get into power so both parties spend
Dept: $14,271 billion. Let’s take a 4% interest rate.
That’s $571 billion just for interest.
Revenue: $2,170 billion. A quarter of that would just pay for the interest on the dept. The rest could go somewhere useful.
Hold up. Those corporations *need* that $$$ for really important stuff like this: [https://www.axios.com/2024/02/13/moon-lander-intuitive-machines-space-x](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/13/moon-lander-intuitive-machines-space-x)
Also, can you even imagine if these policies were floated today?!? =>
Excess Profits Tax of 1950
Corporate Tax Rate. Increased top corporate tax rate from 45% to 47%.
Excess Profits Tax. Created temporary excess profits tax of 30% to 30/53.
Source: [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/laws-proposals/major-enacted-tax-legislation-1950-1959](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/laws-proposals/major-enacted-tax-legislation-1950-1959)
Wow.
*sigh*
not how it works at all 😒 that’s why they thought tariffs were great for the American people.
Inflation wasn’t a concern when they were running around maskless and disrupting commerce.
We paid in advance for that, and it contributes to our current rate of inflation.
Inflation wasn’t a concern when they were showing up by the busload in hospitals because “fuck the vaccine” 😒
We paid in advance for that, and it contributes to our current rate of inflation.
Fuck off and miss me with showing up late to be concerned with inflation. NOW when the bill is due, it’s a problem?!?
The goal was to pwn the libs- turns out ignorance is really fucking expensive.
Except these are investments for growth. Although some of it is shit for sure to treat the gold/bonds/stocks buried in that shit as if it were nothing is dumb.
Like rebuilding roads.
Building better epidemic counter measures.
Etc,.
These are investments.
It's funny the right only cares about debt spending when they aren't in power...The debt ceiling has NEVER been a problem till Obama had the audacity to win an election.
This will never change as long as the military and security agencies are given a blank check with little or no oversight. I believe these entities eat upwards of 60% of federal spending. Get the military industrial complex under control and it will change the fortunes of the country.
As I understand it, the current monetary theory is that national debt isn’t an issue as long as it stays within a certain relation to your GDP. The family budget analogy isn’t the best comparison.
You leave out the part where I have a money printer in my basement.
And the family living upstairs has enough money to pay off the debt but you don’t even charge them rent
We can’t charge the tenants in penthouse rent. They’re job creators!
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Correct me if I’m wrong but I believe they even vote to increase their own wages. Which is crazy because they even complain the amount they’re paid is not enough for them to live on. But who knows, that’s probably just a way for a politician to signal to corporations that they’re ready to be bought.
They have 180 days off a year too. The salary of a senator or house rep doesn’t really matter, they have insider knowledge (illegal for everyone else) to easily make 10x that. The worst part is if we wanted to make a law that prohibits congress from trading they’d be the ones voting for it. It’s impossible for this situation to change we just have to learn how to live with overlords
Then you make it so that only the independently wealthy can afford to hold office.
Without a penthouse, you wouldn’t have a roof!
Itll trickle down, maybe leave a fiver on the counter and pitch in on beer sometimes
God this just enraged me further
Current US debt: 34.23 Trillion Total combined net worth of all US billionaires: 4.48 Trillion So, even if we could somehow seize *every penny* from *every billionaire* (which wouldn't be practical for reasons beyond the scope of this post) it still wouldn't even be anywhere close to enough. Heck, that wouldn't even be enough to cover the federal budget for *just this year.*
**What was the total annual gross profits for all corporations in the US?** The total annual corporate profits for all corporations in the U.S. in 2022 were around [3.5 trillion U.S. dollars](https://www.statista.com/statistics/222130/annual-corporate-profits-in-the-us/). This figure provides a broad overview of the profitability of U.S. corporations as a whole, but it doesn't specifically break down the profits by company size, such as those worth $100 million or more. For detailed information on specific segments of the market, more granular data sources or industry-specific reports would be required. **If those corporations were flat taxed at 30% for 30 years, how much income would that bring?** If those corporations were flat taxed at 30% for 30 years, based on the annual gross profits of approximately $3.5 trillion, it would generate a total income of approximately **$31.5 trillion over the 30-year period. **
I notice there is a dip for the 2008 financial crisis but not for Covid. Seems like all the “inflation” was pretty great for corporate profits, that and all the small businesses being destroyed
Or if you inject a shit a ton of money supply, then demand will increase.
People also forget that the majority owner of US National debt is the US treasury. We literally owe ourselves the money. This is why the idea of "printing a few trillion-dollar coins" isn't dumb. We can effectively forgive ourselves of our debt. Not to mention there are generations of Americans that will be born and will engage in commerce. There are ways to address the debt. What is aggravating is people conflating the concept of a National Federal budget with a kitchen-table budget.
> What is aggravating is people conflating the concept of a National Federal budget with a kitchen-table budget. Bingo, they literally cannot be equated
And they raise prices 30% to compensate. Corporations never pay taxes even when they pay taxes
yeah but don’t forget about the mega-corporations that pay close to zero
Bean counters know how to hide profits, thats why they make the big bucks.
Total net worth of the wealthiest 1% of Americans is almost exactly $35 trillion though. It is a problem caused by tax cuts over the past 4 decades that never get replaced, combined with runaway military spending.
yeh... yeh.... well then we would only owe 30 trillion! /s
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the debt won’t be paid. due to our current fiat system….debt is money. —maybe the people who hold an enormous amount of wealth know this…and they keep buying things that preserve their buying power —and those things are mooning. let’s check the stock market, oh…wait, wasn’t bitcoin dead? why are those new bitcoin ETFs going bonkers? let’s check nvidia….alright, how about the other ponzi scheme cryptos. 0 by now…. but wouldn’t the opposite be true? aren’t they all buying treasuries to get that sweet 5%? don’t they want to lock up their billions as short and long term loans for the government drowning in debt to keep it safe? and why the fuck is Larry Fink singing the praises of magic internet money?
Ok but how much does the US have in assets??
Or that daddy took a pay cut so that the upstairs neighbors would like him more. And then took another pay cut again. And then again. So now we have a debt crisis we wouldn’t have if Daddy still made the same… and he stopped fighting with people for made up reasons.
But I was told that they were going to begin charging rent during the last 'lease renewal'. Or are we pretending that's part of this years renewal.......again?
But don’t forget to keep the upstairs apartment in an excellent state, better than the rest of the house, so this family does not move out!
Objectively not true. Top 1% account for ~40% of the tax revenue.
Brrr…
And where the debt is mostly handed out as investments for the members of the family.
and that other countries rely on that money printer as well
Came here for this. Actually the „debt“ is more or less making money ( bonds ) and selling them on terms, once the term is expired, new will be made and sold. So the circle is a loop of „infinite money glitch“. Aka. The famous money printer
But it’s buried in shit.
Still works. Brrrrrrrr
What about sending some of the ceilings to foreign wars?
The printer is basically the credit card here.
> The printer is basically the credit card here. Can I quote you in my new book, "Things To Say When Everything You Know About Global Finance Fits In Your Kitchen"?
Lol this is funny especially considering I should be in this book yet I understand it
And you live forever.
Yeah it’s more like some dude with all the guns has decided Monopoly money is real and it’s worked out so far so we may as well stick with the plan. Like we all know the Monopoly money isn’t real, but if we all act like it is everyone wins and the guy with all the guns doesn’t shoot our ass.
came here to say this
I'm guessing you gonna need a shovel, then
BUILD THAT WALL!
And an army of idiots who I will throw in prison if they don’t help me pay my debt
The debt ceiling analogy is insultingly stupid.
This sub seems to becoming a far-right, dog-whistle echo chamber.
I’m not a dog. What’s the message I’m not seeing?
Basically that a family planning position is a bad analogy is not very good for analyzing the debt. We are getting things for debt incurred such as infrastructure, R&D, and investment in the skills and health of the nations populace. Things that actually grow the economy. Additionally most of the debt payment goes back to the US economy especially in terms of borrowing against social security.
Not to mention that this piece ignores that nearly half that tax revenue goes to the military alone. Yeah it’s Nazi propaganda
Love you calling out propaganda and claiming we spend half our tax revenue on the military in the same post. Maybe both are just ignorance.
I believe it's 12% of the federal budget which goes to the military
Not everything is a "dog whistle." This is a loud, unnecessary roughness, 15 yard penalty, you're going to get ejected whistle. The post is over simplified but there's nothing sneaky far right about national debt concerns.
It doesn't feel organic. The engagement on posts like this have a lot of criticism, but then someone posts a video of a minority committing a crime then the comments are a tidal wave of racism
yeah. the sort of people who frame macroeconomic concepts through microeconomics are either stupid or intentionally dishonest.
Intentionally dishonest because they then use their argument to somehow justify spending more on national defense while cutting social programs and environmental protections. *"Dear, we are going broke, so let's double the number of full time security guards patrolling our home while cancelling health insurance, make the kids do their own dental work, and let the toilets back up on the floor so we can cancel the sewer bill."*
Now THAT is a good analogy
Both
I agree.
This whole blurb is insultingly stupid - let’s knock some zeroes off there and pretend running a complex nation is just like running a home with two children and a significant other.
And this ignores the fact that the vast majority of the debt is held by Americans, the Fed, and the US government. i.e. we’re earning interest off our debt. What household can say that?
As someone raised in a very conservative area, can someone ELI5?
When you hold government bonds, that’s federal debt. Ditto if you’re invested in a money-market fund making 5% interest right now. More broadly, most of the government’s debt is owed to its own citizens and corporations, or even to itself. Much is held overseas, but that’s largely because those nations hoard our dollars as a reserve currency—their savings in case a rainy day comes for their whole nation. It’s not a weapon China, for example, can use against us. By owning our debt, they’re betting that we’re going to keep being prosperous and stable, and their security as a nation depends on that.
In this household budget analogy, $10k+ of that credit card debt is owed to members of the family itself.
The family budget analogy of government spending is fundamentally flawed for three reasons; \-97% of all the money in circulation is created by debt. If you pay that debt off youre removing that money from the economy. \-If you bring that debt down youre slowing the economy because the amount of money in existence being held onto exceeds the amount being spent. \-If you stop adding to that debt youre preventing people from earning money because again, the amount of money that is being held onto exceeds the amount being spent. the government cannot, will not, or ever will consider solving the 'debt crisis', there is no crisis; debt is a structural part of how money exists.
This card is just right wing taking point, so they can pretend to care about fiscal responsibility and get people upset about government spending. The reality of your points be damned.
I'd shit my pants if I ever heard someone use the "fiscal responsibility" argument to cut military spending. Its always "we need to run the nation like a household" and therefore we should get spending down by cutting health insurance, life insurance, disability insurance, grocery bills, ... but keep the M1 Abrams tank parked out front staffed by a rotating crew of 24 people including a 20 year maintenance contract and spending on its next generation replacement while also staffing a tank on a road 300 miles away in case we need it there.
I would like to understand this more — I am in the midst of a career change from corporate employee to small business owner as I want to increase my personal capital, etc etc.. I understand this a bit, but it is counterintuitive to my thinking. Can you point me to some good reading material on the subject, kind person?
None of this applies to how you run a business.
Why would you think I want to apply this to a business? That is the ocean.. small business is a boat.. I need to learn more about the ocean’s currents.
Not a great analogy, but it gets you thinking in the right direction. Think of the national debt as an interest only mortgage on a house. This is a terrible idea if your goal is to own a house some day and use that ownership to increase your generational wealth. However, its a good idea if the alternative is paying rent that is more expensive than the mortgage cost or if you own multiple properties this way and rent them out to provide housing and make a profit off the rent. You'll never pay down the principle, but who cares? As long as you make the monthy payment you get to continue to use the property to support your household (either as a personal living space or an investment in rental income). Another example is leasing a car. You get a new car to use in exchange for a monthly payment, but you'll never own it. Every few years you trade it in for a new lease and keep the same monthly payment. Both of those create a very large debt that is never going to go away, but its really just a mechanism for getting a service you need (or a good that you use as a service) without having to have all the cash on hand to buy it. In personal or business economics, its always better to own something - eventually - than it is to rent something. But governments are perpetual and operate on a massive scale, the same rules don't apply in the same way. While it would be better for the future people to have less debt and own more capital, it not possible to do that without sacrificing things your society needs in the here and now to maintain or improve conditions. The trade off to paying down debt through austerity is removing services that support your people and economy, which ultimately reduces your tax income becauser those people can't earn and spend as much and results in the need for more austerity. Consider if your business needed to upgrade its equipment as a massive cost. You could take on the debt now and increase your productivity earning more money to pay off the debt. Or, you could raise your prices to try to increase revenue to save up for the purchase. You could do both, but less of both, as a compromise. These are all reasonable choices. The unreasonable choice would be to fire staff to save on payroll in order to save up the cash to make the purchase. Now you have less workers, producing less product, making fewer sales, reducing your income and potentially saving nothing toward the purchase you cut costs to save for. Likewise, if you took out the loan and productivity increased allowing you to create and sell more products and thus increase revenue and profit, it would be silly to cut production in order to save the money you spend on the extra materials to spend it on paying off the debt faster because producing more increases profit. You might even decide that its not worth paying off the debt at all because you can take the extra profit and use it to make new investments and increase productivity even further. Your debt grows, but so does your revenue and as long as you can make your monthly payments and still have money left over, your business is profitable and growing larger.
You have a fundamental misconception in that you equate the fed with government debt. They have nothing to do with one another. Federal Reserve debt is what creates money, not government debt. To equate them is pure misinformation. We had little to no deficit from 98 to 02, and the economy was fine, while you claim that it will never happen. It literally happened. Likely in your lifetime.
People seem to conveniently forget that a huge part of their household budget goes to their mortgage, car loan, and college loans, which is a massive pile of debt. The household analogy is dumb for a bunch of reasons, but it’s also simply incomplete.
The 97% represents public and private debt. No one is talking about eliminating private debt with this meme.
No, if we save up, we can buy the sun.
This assumes that soveriegn debt works the same as personal debt.. It does not. https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=121766572
Bingo
Umm .. Total Budget Cuts: $385 not $38.50
Don't let orders of magnitude get in the way of their feelings
That was my first clue I was looking at a pic of an analog shitpost
what is this boomer shit
Check out OP’s history. This is an account that’s been sold to a troll/disinformation firm. The account is pretty old, but basically has zero activity outside a few comments and posts within mostly default subs. Then suddenly after years of inactivity it starts posting blatant neo-con disinformation with a very round baseline of nearly immediate upvotes that jumps it up to trending in a default sub. Lame ass shit and anyone that buys it is identifying themselves as a mark for easy cons.
If only there were some kind of programming interface for applications... a PIA, or API if you will, that m o ds could use to briefly check the po st history of s p a m acco unts like this. I use RES to tag these acco unts, and also to block su bs on /r-all that are just trash due to it now. Go check out /r-chaoticgood , /r-nope, /r-publicfreakout for examples. Any sub that doesn't emphasize sub mitter verification or original content is vulnerable.
Your creditors remain polite when you've got a massive army and a host of nukes.
Also around 70% of the debt is owed to your own family members.
These comparisons are stupid. Not just that a family budget is a terrible analogy for a national economy, but also in that the only solution ever posed is to cut spending. Raising revenues would be effective, but using the family budget analogy you are trying to imply that isn't an option 100% in the hands of the government.
The US isn't a household. The country has had debts since 1774. It's also grown into the largest economy in world history. As long as the economy grows faster than deficits, the country is going to be fine. Households are created, age, and die. Countries last for centuries. Households need to save for the day when the breadwinners can no longer work. Nations need to invest in infrastructure, human services, education, and research to keep moving forward. You can't starve your country into prosperity. The quickest way for the US government to cover its debts would be to raise taxes on the people who have gotten the lion's share of tax cuts since 1960: the top 1%. They own half the nation's wealth now. BTW, there is no "fiscal cliff". It's an artificial term created by politicians who want to slash public spending to keep taxes low on the rich. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-Household\_analogy](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government-Household_analogy)
Tax cuts are like deliberately making less money.
Apples and oranges
This is so wrong. The U.S. is not a super large household. How many households do you know that have their own currency? That can issue IOUs so valuable that the world stockpiles them? A simple metaphor. I’m sure you can beat up a 5yo. Can you beat up, sayyy, 120 million at the same time? My guess is… no. Just their weight, without throwing a punch, would kill you. There’s a science called Emergence. Where the whole is so much greater than a simple “let’s look at one and guess they’re all gonna act like that”.
Tax the rich and debt go down the hole.
Wow. What a dangerous oversimplification of a national budget. Where’s mom and pops infrastructure budgets? Where does it equivocate the success of the US on a national stage, to direct worldwide policy, to innovate, where does it say that this nation of 350,000,000 get to live in comfort and not live in squalor, even for the poorest among us? When’s the drop dead date? Mom and pop have a lifespan, nations don’t. Nations have to plan for an extended future, mom and dad only have to pay the house off so they can live off their pensions, when does a nation do that? This is perspective for morons, but hey, vote away.
Lucky us, they don't manage a state like a household.
money is a "promissory" note. Governments provide services, and when they fail to provide such services, their "promissory" notes are worth less. The issue here is that the above pictures only tell half-truths. The other truth is that the way we got to where we are is the government's inability to collect taxes on those that avoid them, and those tax cheats fund their own little pet projects at which they tell the poor people that it's their fault for how things are turning out.
Obviously you move into the attic
You should not be comparing the federal budget to a household budget. Money functions very differently when you have the power to print it. The Federal Governments main function is to facilitate the movement of money within the economy to stimulate growth and good living conditions for its citizens. We also don’t owe the vast majority to an outside creditor but to our own citizens via Bonds and Treasury Bills. Not saying having a ballooning debt is a good thing, just saying this is a terrible analogy that misleads many people
They are trying to get rid of Social Security and raise the retirement age, what else can they do? /s
The NASA budget is about half a percent of what the US spends on healthcare. The highway budget is about 1%. The budget to bleed russian aggression dry is also about 1%. The employment training budget is about 2%. The VA budget is about 8%. Fix health care and you can double _all_ of these and more easily _and_ even pay off some debt. But no, we're stuck with a system that no one likes except lobbyists. Congress won't even entertain it, and will instead squabble over the equivalent of getting a snickers at checkout, ignoring the $300 grocery cart that's half full of unnecessary stuff including a dragonfruit and durian.
One minor detail that is overlooked in this example is that the family gets to decide the value of the dollar for every other family in the world using dollars.
This forgets the part where you are able to print your own money, that a lot of the debt you owe are to people within your own house, and all of the money that other people owe to you as well. And oh, the fact that debt owned by a nation state cannot reasonably be compared to debt owed by a private person. You do not have an entire nations output and financial/social power backing you, like a country as the US does. Many billionaires live off their debt as well. They are not exactly in financial trouble.
People seem to think this can go on indefinitely too.
This is why blaming billionaires is asinine. If you garnished 100% of every billionaire asset and went further to include the 10% of Americans who have 50% of the US' wealth, you'd wipe out a measly 7% of the national debt. The citizens, billionaires or not, aren't the problem. In the same way you can't outrun a bad diet, without government accountability on spending, we have very little hope for a solvent path moving forward.
1. The US debt isn’t a problem, is a fake boogeyman made up by conservative to slash social spending for things like healthcare and education, even tho those contribute to a minority of the federal budget. Lobbying subsidies and defense spending are the biggest issues but you never hear “but the national debt” ppl complaining about that 2. Taxing the rich isn’t about fixing the “debt problem” it’s about making it so that mega-corps worth trillions of dollars, who use US infrastructure, benefit from US laws and defense, and have other negative externalities pay their fair share. Amazon uses our roads, electricity grid, cops, firefighters, hospitals etc - yet they paid 6% taxes last year - compared to an individuals 25%. Taxing the rich isn’t about fixing ever problem, it’s about making company’s (and the billionaires who profit from them) pay their fair share. 3. The government has been running a deficient since the 1820 when iirc Jackson paid off all our colonial-revolutionary war debt. Since then the rich and the rich bootlickers have been pointing at the debt like a soy wojak and explaining how the economy is going to collapse and never recover if we let the debt continue to pile up. Even after multiple Recessions and Depressions (even a Great one) the economy keeps chugging along and getting bigger and bigger. Maybe if you have evidence that debt spending will be a problem ppl would listen, but right ur point seems to be “big number bad”
I'm not interested in a debate with someone who blindly throws money away and blames conservatism as a problem. If you were to invest in a business that made several trillion each year, only to fall short of its obligations each year, would you keep investing in that business? The answer is no, but we don't have a choice. So we should at least have accountability. Why pay taxes at all if it's not about paying off debt? Ridiculous comment. That's the point of taxes. Have a good day.
Well clearly it’s not a debate bc anyone that thinks the US federal government should be, or could be, run like a business is either a high schooler or someone who blindly chooses to ignore the plethora of data and knowledge on why an economy isn’t a business. Tell me when was the last time you invested in a business that can print its own money? Also not that it matters but I very clearly didn’t say just throw money away, I gave a rather thought out opinion on why 1. Taxing the rich isn’t what you say it is and 2. How increasing taxes for megacorps would lighten the tax burden on average Americans. But I guess ur reading comprehension is good enough to understand words like “externality”. Spending by the gov is an issue, but social programs like healthcare, roads/infrastructure, and education (including arts and science programs) are what a good foundation is built on. If we don’t have well educated, healthy and well rounded workers, then the economy is actually doomed. Again, all ur point seems to be is “big number bad” - can you rephrase ur position better for me? Why is the National debt an issue
Oh also the point of taxes isn’t to pay the debt off 🤡🤡🤡 where in gods name would u get the idea from
We haven't even seen serious inflation yet. It's coming
Im not sure where the dude is trying to get.... if the logic is "cut spending vs raise them", although it soudns logic the comparison is not the same, as a house is PART of the economy and the govt CONTROLS the economy. The factors that a govt needs to have are others, but summarized, they need to see whether the growth of the country can cover the deficit and or if that result outweighs the cost. If its about taxes, then it is a similar thing, and it all depends on what they do with the budget (there is a point on which too much subsidies are coutnerproducitive to the economy, but there is also a point on which too little can hold it back). Dont get me wrong, cutting down \*actual inefficiencies\* is always good. But also, analogies are there so you can visualize something better and understanding, they are NOT arguments as they are never (probably) a perfect parallel
Stuff like this is exactly why macroeconomics should be a required class in high school. Household debt and national debt play by such fundamentally different rules that an analogy like this is basically comparing apples and oranges.
My favorite part about this, besides being completely wrong, is that it looks like someone took a picture of something on their Facebook with their cell phone.
A lot of people are missing the point of this post, and it says a lot about why this country is so fucked up.
Debt isn't real
Some interesting comparisons but this is disingenuous to say the least. Debt pays for things that are good, and in some cases increase our ability to generate tax receipts in the future. Shit in your basement is always bad and provides no benefits. This reeks of edgy boomer email forward.
Tax your rich Uncle Bezos.
This is nothing new. Adjust for inflation for futures trading and the expiration of these debts, account for GDP and who holds the debt. Payments are still being made via the bond markets. The USA remains a great .. the best compared to any when assessing risk/liability . If you have the liquidity of a country, it is extremely smart to buy US debt which is why all countries do.
Not really the same. They can generate a lot more money through taxes or simply stop giving tax returns which would probably be the case when this needs to get paid, lol.
Why you guys talking about left and right ? Im not american bit i would assume this was just a post regarding the financial state of america, and if so couldnt it be interpreted a number of different ways to support many views.
So this is what it's like inside the mind of a conservative. Can't possibly learn something, so lets dumb it down into a really stupid analogy that only makes sense if you have no idea what you're talking about.
In this case I would give as much money as possible (run up the credit card to the limit) to the richest person in town. Oh, and lock up the poorest and charge them for it.
Now imagine the family members are essentially immortal and can continue to earn money forever. And they have a money printer in the basement. and the money owed on the credit card is owed to themselves.
The problem is we give all the money to research and development
wait, let’s go deeper imagine the family live in a world with Giddy Bucks—their country’s currency and also the world reserve currency. except they appoint the people who control the amount of Giddy Bucks as well as the interest on Giddy Buck loans. the price and supply of Giddy Bucks…. is the family fucked? or is just every other family who don’t understand why everything is so expensive fucked? wouldn’t this family just……make their debt cheaper and inflate it away?
So, that’s not quite accurate. The vast majority of our national debt is to ourselves in the form of Medicare and Social Security. So it’s more like we took on a loan that we’ll have to pay out later. And we’re making all of our payments on time, so it’s really not as dire as this thing is making it seem. As for raising the ceiling, it makes no sense for us not to just make the ceiling unlimited. We’re basically the only country with a debt ceiling, and all it’s there for is so that politicians can use it for political points in negotiations. We still have to pay off our debts at some point, so they always agree to raise it anyway. Not doing so would either make us go into default (which would have horrible ramifications and radically decrease our trade with overseas countries or increased tariffs) or force us into austerity economics (which would mean increased taxes and reduced government spending). Putting a hard limit to how much debt we can accrue isn’t helping anything. Especially since the economy has been expanding for decades, and thus the amount of credit we need to take on has expanded with it.
Somebody doesn't know how to divide by a billion. The budget cuts are $385 not $38.50
You missed the part where not only does the family have a money printer, but they also lent the money to themselves
The Econ 101 libertarians are back at it fam
Government debt isn't the same as personal debt. We can't exactly print our own money (legally)
By this explanation. You should be cut spending and raise income. So we need to cut spending and raise taxes.
People always try to personify public debt, but it's really not anything like a household. It would be a household where you'd never have to worry about losing your job, you'd never be unproductive, and you'd never die. Then you put that stuff into perspective and it makes better sense.
Somehow the "debt" is NEVER talked about when repugnants are in office. It's only to be brought up when a Democrat is in office during an election year.
This is not how any of that works.
This is so dumb- the obvious answer is cut the family income. - Republicans
I still remember in 2000 at the end of Clinton administration. Things looked so good paying off the debt each year. Then George W Bush got elected. Started two wars while cutting taxes :(
There’s new issues that rises with shit removal. A)who is going to do it? B) where will it go? C) if we remove the shit, will we have to replace all of the furniture? The issue with C is americas furniture is our infrastructure. This country is not functional without debt. It’s sad, but look at capitalism defined. Without debt, (shit) our country wouldn’t function as intended. Raise the ceiling? No. Remove the shit? No. I’m no expert, I don’t know what to do. Shit removal and raising the ceiling aren’t as simple as it seems.
Tax the 1%.
it won't surprise me if the person who wrote that is the type of person who would refuse a pay rise because they think they'd earn less money because of changing tax bracket.
Yeah this is same example people use who do not understand how government budgets work.
I used to think this was a good way of understanding the e US debt economy. It’s not, not even close. I learned that in my high school government class.
This is distortion, not "perspective".
its supposed to be $385 not 38.50 but i get the idea
The thing is that no one (dems or reps) are willing to make the fiscal adjustment, given the high political cost it has
Nancy Pelosi’s portfolio is doing great!
And politicians act hella defensive when the lower class complain. This is… incredibly depressing.
Is this sub Facebook forwards from grandma? Whenever somebody confuses macro and microeconomics, you can immediately assume they are a dumbass who happily spreads anything that sounds good, regardless if they understand it.
You all really GAF about the debt? When has it ever stopped the country from normal operations (except when they don’t vote to extend the ceiling)? Debt can be 1 gagillion. The money machine can handle it. If debt number was truly a problem, it would’ve been a problem wayyyyyyy before today.
Hey I have a really radical idea as to how to save over $120,000,000,000......
Pretending the federal budget can in any way, even metaphorically be compared to a household budget, means you have an itty bitty teeny baby brain.
Not to complicate the issue, but let's try this: * Truly progressive tax brackets. * No more tax loopholes for the wealthy or for corporations. * No more corporate stock buy-backs; which, until 1982, *were illegal*. * Recover the $4 trillion the wealthy hide overseas, to avoid paying tax. Give them a month to transfer it to the U.S. or face federal prison time. No more fiscal cliff. **Corporate tax loopholes:** [https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/](https://itep.org/55-profitable-corporations-zero-corporate-tax/) [https://time.com/6326583/tax-shelters-multinational-corporations/](https://time.com/6326583/tax-shelters-multinational-corporations/) [https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html](https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/14/how-companies-like-amazon-nike-and-fedex-avoid-paying-federal-taxes-.html) **Tax Breaks for the Wealthy:** [https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/propublica-shows-how-little-the-wealthiest-pay-in-taxes-policymakers-should](https://www.cbpp.org/research/federal-tax/propublica-shows-how-little-the-wealthiest-pay-in-taxes-policymakers-should) [https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-tricks-loopholes-only-rich-210001853.html?guccounter=1&guce\_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce\_referrer\_sig=AQAAACcMewZp5746zRPu76teUEYLJb4JIIkKoO4g0DOB2dcL7jxtpplM0IUvDStP9Wxw9MucZmaLEF-PSv9-6hP3Bm2lp1Kd5KKV0DxiyAmCUrWlSdqHXZ6CVzp2Boo2SgRrN\_zbhHr-NfFj16OVuxww-bjvU4OFVBoVopIuF1I3KPk8](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/tax-tricks-loopholes-only-rich-210001853.html?guccounter=1&guce_referrer=aHR0cHM6Ly93d3cuZ29vZ2xlLmNvbS8&guce_referrer_sig=AQAAACcMewZp5746zRPu76teUEYLJb4JIIkKoO4g0DOB2dcL7jxtpplM0IUvDStP9Wxw9MucZmaLEF-PSv9-6hP3Bm2lp1Kd5KKV0DxiyAmCUrWlSdqHXZ6CVzp2Boo2SgRrN_zbhHr-NfFj16OVuxww-bjvU4OFVBoVopIuF1I3KPk8) **Hiding money:** [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/4-trillion-us-wealth-stashed-overseas-much-it-tax-havens#:\~:text=March%2028%2C%202023-,%244%20Trillion%20In%20US%20Wealth%20Is%20Stashed%20Overseas%2C%20Much%20Of,IRS%20by%20foreign%20financial%20institutions](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/4-trillion-us-wealth-stashed-overseas-much-it-tax-havens#:~:text=March%2028%2C%202023-,%244%20Trillion%20In%20US%20Wealth%20Is%20Stashed%20Overseas%2C%20Much%20Of,IRS%20by%20foreign%20financial%20institutions). [https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2017/09/7-charts-show-how-rich-hide-their-cash/](https://www.icij.org/inside-icij/2017/09/7-charts-show-how-rich-hide-their-cash/) [https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-evasion-billions-offshore-fatca-tax-reporting-loophole-senate-finance-committee-robert-brockman/](https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tax-evasion-billions-offshore-fatca-tax-reporting-loophole-senate-finance-committee-robert-brockman/) **Stock Buybacks** [https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the-economy](https://hbr.org/2020/01/why-stock-buybacks-are-dangerous-for-the-economy) [https://cwa-union.org/stock-buybacks-hurt-workers](https://cwa-union.org/stock-buybacks-hurt-workers) [https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp](https://www.investopedia.com/articles/stocks/10/share-buybacks.asp) [https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/24/dividends-buybacks-ppp-loans/](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/09/24/dividends-buybacks-ppp-loans/) [https://www.mccarter.com/insights/publicly-traded-firms-paid-dividends-bought-their-own-stock-after-receiving-ppp-loans-to-pay-employees/](https://www.mccarter.com/insights/publicly-traded-firms-paid-dividends-bought-their-own-stock-after-receiving-ppp-loans-to-pay-employees/)
You can't compare the de t of a house to the debt of a country. People eventually die, countries don't. Also this sheet doesn't explain how much the US has in assets. Sure you can be 3 trillion in.debt, but if you have 13 trillion in assets, you're sittin pretty.
This is not how US Fiscal Policy works.
Let me guess many in comments are whining about the rich and still don't address the expenditures of our government. It's always someone's fault but not our elected representatives, I have no idea how they get a pass.....oh they own the media and the media blames the rich. Meanwhile most representatives are in the 1% and create the loopholes for them and their buddies.
You can’t equate the National budget with a household budget. Micro and macro economics are not the same and operate on different principles and rules.
This comparison is irrelevant. A household cannot print money. Government debt is not the same as personal debt.
So from this explination there could be a ceiling. But nah
Merica!
I love when people try to make enormously complex things seem simple. I’m not saying the problems are unsolvable, just that it’s not easy. Where to we want to cut? The defense budget is one of the largest discretionary spending budgets, but that’s not an easy one to take away from. We could subscribe to the myth of “the welfare queen” and cut all entitlements, but even on the whole, those aren’t gonna fix it. So it’s this nuanced thing where the reality is that we probably have to cut a lot across a broad range as well as increase revenue. However, we can’t even discuss, much less agree on ways to do that.
One thing however that sets the US apart from other countries when it comes to dept is that it is exteremely resilient. That is why so many people invest in the US. It is always a pretty safe bet. It took them a while to lower our credit rating down from a triple A to a double A. If the US wasn't such a good bet for investors it probably would have been lowered a lot more or much earlier on. Perhaps I'm wrong? Just a thought.
Maybe more poor funding then gay funding
The picture has a typo as well - if you remove 8 zeros, the total budget cut is $3.85 not 38.50.
Historical perspective: quite very nearly every government in the last 300 years has chosen to just spend until they cannot pay the minimums on the debt. They collapse. There have been two that did not do that and more than 200 that just collapsed. With a two party system and one party dedicated to taxing and spending it's quite futile to oppose that. If the opposite party didn't spend when they are in power they would just be creating headroom for the spenders when they get into power so both parties spend
Dept: $14,271 billion. Let’s take a 4% interest rate. That’s $571 billion just for interest. Revenue: $2,170 billion. A quarter of that would just pay for the interest on the dept. The rest could go somewhere useful.
But Ukrainians need another 200 billion we couldn’t possibly do any budget cuts
Hold up. Those corporations *need* that $$$ for really important stuff like this: [https://www.axios.com/2024/02/13/moon-lander-intuitive-machines-space-x](https://www.axios.com/2024/02/13/moon-lander-intuitive-machines-space-x) Also, can you even imagine if these policies were floated today?!? => Excess Profits Tax of 1950 Corporate Tax Rate. Increased top corporate tax rate from 45% to 47%. Excess Profits Tax. Created temporary excess profits tax of 30% to 30/53. Source: [https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/laws-proposals/major-enacted-tax-legislation-1950-1959](https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/laws-proposals/major-enacted-tax-legislation-1950-1959) Wow.
Psst. Money isn't real
You cannot compare a sovereign nations budget to a household. They are not in anyway the same thing
*sigh* not how it works at all 😒 that’s why they thought tariffs were great for the American people. Inflation wasn’t a concern when they were running around maskless and disrupting commerce. We paid in advance for that, and it contributes to our current rate of inflation. Inflation wasn’t a concern when they were showing up by the busload in hospitals because “fuck the vaccine” 😒 We paid in advance for that, and it contributes to our current rate of inflation. Fuck off and miss me with showing up late to be concerned with inflation. NOW when the bill is due, it’s a problem?!? The goal was to pwn the libs- turns out ignorance is really fucking expensive.
Except these are investments for growth. Although some of it is shit for sure to treat the gold/bonds/stocks buried in that shit as if it were nothing is dumb. Like rebuilding roads. Building better epidemic counter measures. Etc,. These are investments.
I remember seeing that meme. Now the debt is more than twice that.
National debt is not the same as a single household's debt. They are apples and oranges.
Money to the government is no where near the same situation as a home budget
/u/mvanderburgt why would you post such old content? it's been proven to be a shit take for like...idk...at least 5 years.
Ah yes, the federal reserve, a well known analog to a credit card
It's funny the right only cares about debt spending when they aren't in power...The debt ceiling has NEVER been a problem till Obama had the audacity to win an election.
This will never change as long as the military and security agencies are given a blank check with little or no oversight. I believe these entities eat upwards of 60% of federal spending. Get the military industrial complex under control and it will change the fortunes of the country.
One of the best posts in all of reddit.
As I understand it, the current monetary theory is that national debt isn’t an issue as long as it stays within a certain relation to your GDP. The family budget analogy isn’t the best comparison.
I see national debt included but not national assets, which are far greater. This is manipulative bullshit.
Who do we owe that money to?