Humor of the serious side.......

[DeltaT]

Gotta give this guy credit for saying it like it is................

[jmac00]

there are two things that have me worried, the national debt and inflation. Booth are going to cause taxes to go up

[DeltaT]

there are two things that have me worried, the national debt and inflation. Booth are going to cause taxes to go up

Yep, and especially the fact they one is a product of the other.

[printer2]

Canada was in the same situation in the early 90's. The government at the time said that if we do not pay off our debt we would have the IMF come in and tell us what cuts we had to do to otherwise our money would be worthless.

Just to put things in perspective our dollar was worth about $0.60 US at the time when in the 70's it was worth a little more than the US buck.

At the time the right wing party of the country was in disarray and the Liberals were in power and were not in any fear of loosing it.

They cut spending on programs across the board. Everything took a hit, health care, defense, infrastructure...

They cut enough that they balanced the budget and had some surplus left over to pay down some of the principal. This went on for a number of years. Business and those on the right said that we should cut taxes now that we have no more deficits and eventually we will outgrow our debt.

Thankfully the Liberals followed the advice of their Finance Minister and lowballed the amount of revenue they would get every year. The right said that was money that would be better served in the pockets of the taxpayer. And every year the surplus was used to pay down the debt.

Now we are financially better off than the rest of the G7 and most of the G20 countries. Our dollar floats around the value of the US dollar, took a hit because of Greece this last week when everyone went and ran to the US dollar as a safe haven. Funny when Greece's debt is about 115% of GDP, the US is about 90% and Canada is about 50%.


Canada has a lot more wiggle room financially because we had a government that took the tough choices and cut programs and kept the tax rate up. It was only till the right wing party got into power that taxes were lowered and now we are looking to be in a deficit position for at least five years. So much for fiscal resposibility.

So the big question is would the US be willing to make sacrifices to get out of debt?

[alpha480v]

I like Peter Shiff. I listen to what he says more then most of the other so called "experts"

[DeltaT]

So the big question is would the US be willing to make sacrifices to get out of debt?

Here's my simplistic take on this: Between now and November obama and congress have no reason to suddenly become realistic and responsible. Nor do his followers.

If the US tax payers, the ones that actually work and pay for this foolishness, back up their words with action at the election box, obama and congress will get a strong message to act responsible.

obama will not nor will congress. All that will happen is that The White House and Congress will become at a stand-off and we will continue to slide down a slippery slope.

And that is not to say that in store for both of our countries there awaits some future financial and physical surprises, which are not going to be good.

Unlike your story of your country where processes stepped in for correction, we have a Titanic captain whose most important vision is one of his own self.

[printer2]

Here's my simplistic take on this: Between now and November obama and congress have no reason to suddenly become realistic and responsible. Nor do his followers.

If the US tax payers, the ones that actually work and pay for this foolishness, back up their words with action at the election box, obama and congress will get a strong message to act responsible.

obama will not nor will congress. All that will happen is that The White House and Congress will become at a stand-off and we will continue to slide down a slippery slope.

And that is not to say that in store for both of our countries there awaits some future financial and physical surprises, which are not going to be good.

Unlike your story of your country where processes stepped in for correction, we have a Titanic captain whose most important vision is one of his own self.

The big problem I see is that both political parties will do whatever it takes to get elected and leave the problems to the next guy. Whereas we saw where we were going and stepped back I think you may be rushing to the edge much faster and the stop will be much harder.

I think it comes from the idea that the US is the biggest and the best and that the rules that apply to others are not relevant. Hopefully Europe will wake some people up.

More than likely we will have another crash due to government debt levels and only then will politicians tackle the problem. The people will be up in arms and things will get ugly. The current monetary system probably will be shaken up with most people losing. Hope I am wrong.