[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') have nothing against social programs or subsidies. My only question is how much is it going to cost and who is going to pay? As for gun laws that is just common sense. In Canada they waste millions trying to register hunting rifles and shotguns, while for the most part handguns are in any case out of reach for the average person who does not belong to a gun club. Whereas in the USA the NRA opposes any sort of limitations on what someone can carry. Violent crime in Canada has risen as some of those guns have made their way into Canada. Sorry, but as a Canadian I believe more in law and order than in personal rights to bear arms.

[gnm]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('MrBill', 'I') have nothing against social programs or subsidies. My only question is how much is it going to cost and who is going to pay? As for gun laws that is just common sense. In Canada they waste millions trying to register hunting rifles and shotguns, while for the most part handguns are in any case out of reach for the average person who does not belong to a gun club. Whereas in the USA the NRA opposes any sort of limitations on what someone can carry. Violent crime in Canada has risen as some of those guns have made their way into Canada. Sorry, but as a Canadian I believe more in law and order than in personal rights to bear arms.

[threadbear]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '
')Your government depends upon guns to collect taxes for your socialist programs. It's inconsistent to be for socialist programs and "against" guns at once. Tax collection is violent crime.

[mattduke]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('threadbear', '')$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('mattduke', '
')Your government depends upon guns to collect taxes for your socialist programs. It's inconsistent to be for socialist programs and "against" guns at once. Tax collection is violent crime.

[AgentR]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', 'W')e all know the US is a technically bankrupt nation. What will happen when it becomes officially bankrupt? Can The US economy claim Chapter 12?

[patience]

AgentR,

Yup. Own physical assets, not paper, and only deal in physical assets. Hard to do; harder on you to not do it.

[virgincrude]

Tyler_JC: you think I'm missing the point? Hmmm. Well, more and more people are writing articles about the point of the thread: is the US about to default.

Did you read this article over at Roubini's page?

Or the first one I posted at the start of the thread, over at Leap2020?

Okay, you can disagree with these specialists and experts, I'm just sifting through the different opinions on this from those 'in the field'.

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'N')o creditor of the United States Federal Government will ever receive less than the face value of his or her bond upon maturity.

I would be willing to stake everything I own to this claim.

[virgincrude]

Tyler_JC, you claim I may have missed the point by saying, as others here have done, that the US can simply print its way out of debt, and that therefore, the US is good for all outstanding debt. I understand that the US can freely print as many dollars as it sees fit, and I think you're getting at the crux of the problem which is to say that the face value of those dollars will suffice to pay off the debt. Can you see how unlikely this is as a solution? The dollar will, (at the very least: i.e barring the introduction of some 'new' currency) be further devalued so as to make the actual printed $5.- bill worth only cents. Not its face value.

As mentioned in the article, printing your way out of debt is not a serious solution.


$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'D')efault is the failure to honour contractual obligations; in the case of debt, non-payment of interest or principal payments due to the lender. The financial impact of default is the loss suffered by the lender.
Lenders to the United States (“US”) government have already suffered significant losses. The losses have not been from non-payment but because repayments have been in a constantly debased currency – the dollar.
Assume a Japanese investor bought 30 year US Treasury bond in 1985 when the $/ yen exchange rate was $1 = Yen 250. Based on an exchange rate of $1 = Yen 105, the investor has lost 58% of the investment. The investor can take comfort that at the low of $1=Yen 84, the investor would have lost 66%. European investors who bought US government bonds in recent years would have also suffered significant losses. Based on the highest $/ Euro exchange rate (Euro1 = $ 0.85) and recent trading levels (Euro1 = $ 1.56), the investor would have lost (up to) 46%.
Given that in a typical sovereign default the investor loses 50% to 80% of the value of the investment, the losses suffered are not far short of default. Despite “strong dollar” official policies, a case can be made that the US is in the process of defaulting on its obligations via a systematic devaluation of its currency.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', 'I')n short: the crisis Obama faces, whether Biden and Powell are proven correct in that it arises from an outside source, is one of a country on the verge of insolvency- bankruptcy - default, call it whatever you like. And the treatment is going to be either another war, or an extremely painful period of adjustment, not just economic and monetary, but psychological

[virgincrude]

ReverseEngineer:

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'T')hat the US is Insolvent, while difficult to grasp for the population at large is I think within the grasp of most Peak Oilers.

[patience]

Looks to me like the US is about at the end of it's string:Liquidity Trap-Tickerforum

When we only get buyers for 8% of the TAF offered for sale, then the whole credit system is stuck. When this lockup extends to selling US Treasuries, we have a BIG PROBLEM. Like, who is gonna finance all the pork barrel and bailout stuff the govt has promised? China has its' own bailouts to pay for, and the Mideast oil revenues are down BAD, so who is buying Treasuries? Not much of anyone, it looks like.....

Now what?

edit: clarity.

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', 'I')t is just a tad exaggerated to claim the WORLD is insolvent when clearly this is not (yet) the case.

[virgincrude]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'W')hat happens when the dollar cannot be used as a reserve currency? How will all the intertwined obligations in dollar denominated liabilities be untangled?

[ReverseEngineer]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('virgincrude', 'I')t's called a Global recession. If the world was bankrupt there simply would not be things like 700 Billion dollar injections, or 10 billion Euro injections ....

[virgincrude]

ReverseEngineer: $this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'Y')ou are in serious denial.

[Chuckmak]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Nickel', 'W')hat astounds me is just how quickly, and utterly, the US has squandered what must have been the best hand ever dealt a nation in all of history. I was watching The World At War recently, some of the collateral stuff with Prof. Stephen Ambrose speaking, then in about 1975 or 1976. He remarked that, per capita, the US staked the least of any of the major combatants, and was the big winner of the war. Proportionate to its stake, he remarked, the big loser was probably Britain, for a variety of reasons he listed.

But the US came out on top of everything. It went from being a considerable leading nation up to 1940 to emerging as THE leading nation. The untapped potential it had were realized, it gained effective control over half of Europe and much of Asia, and for more than a decade, it was really the only major source of tertiary goods in most of the world. And all that was still largely the case when Ambrose was talking, 30 years ago.

Other countries started catching up, of course, and the US couldn't have retained that kind of solitude forever. But sometime in the Reagan years, I think, administrations just completely lost their sense of reality. Profligate military spending during peacetime, allowing — even chasing — non-military manufacturing out of the country, and going from a policy of internationalism and cooperation during a time when it was unrivaled to one of unilateralism at a time when allies and foes alike were much more powerful and verging on being peers, have all combined to unseat the US as a welcome leader in many spheres in much of the world. And this has all happened easily within the lifetime of people still alive. Some of it has the air of inevitability — things change — but a lot of it seems born of ignorance and arrogance.