$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('gego', 'W')hat do you mean by dollars? Do you mean these rectangular green and grey peices of paper we carry in our wallets and purses? If you mean these, then there are somewhere around $760 billion floating around.
These are actually bills of credit printed by the US treasury, but issued by the Federal Reserve Bank (FED). They are promises to pay (debts) of the FED, and are declared legal tender by the US government. If you took one of these to the FED and ask them to pay up, they would laugh at you since they are really promises to pay nothing, i.e., they are backed by nothing but the general assets of the FED. The general assets of the FED consist mostly of US government debts, debts of other banks, and supposedly some gold in Fort Knox. If you want something of value for your paper "dollars", then you must spend them which is sort of like passing the hot potato on to the next guy.
If you mean the money supply, rather than just the currency component of it, then there are different definitions. What it boils down to is, "How much of the debts of banks do you want to count?" All the money, except for the minor amount of coins in circulation, is bank debt. The Federal Reserve notes are the debts of the FED; your checking account is the debt of your bank; your savings account and certificates of deposits are the debts of your bank. If you want to stop here the total is in the neighborhood of $6.3 trillion.
Note that I used "$" in front of these numbers, but technically, I think this is incorrect since the dollar sign represents US dollars, and technically there are no US dollars in circulation, just bank debts, so the real answer to your question is zero.
PeakOil is You
THE US Economy Thread (merged)
Re: How many dollars do we really have?
by oilfreeandhappy » Sat 26 Aug 2006, 14:07:45
Good answers, Gego. You sound like you know what you're talking about on a subject that I know very little about.
Earth_Wind_and_Solar
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Coming Economic Meltdown
by uNkNowN ElEmEnt » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 11:12:57
Sorry its another long one. visiting the link is well worth the time IMO.$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', ' ')By Mike Whitney
<snip>
With wages stagnating since the 1970s, the increase in home equity has been the preferred method for most Americans to “get ahead.” Housing prices have steadily increased since the 1980s and skyrocketed in the last five years. This has created a feeding-frenzy for low interest loans and attracted millions of speculators and (traditionally) unqualified applicants to the real estate gold rush.
It’s been a great deal for the banks, too. Mortgages make up the bulk of the banks' loans in America, more than $400 billion last year alone. If it weren’t for the steady steam of mortgages, many banks would have seen negative growth in the last decade. Now that housing prices are flattening out and expected to fall (precipitously), the easy money has dried up and many over-leveraged homeowners are facing the dismal prospect of having to pay off an asset that is quickly losing its value. Economist Michael Hudson calls this phenomenon “negative equity,” that is, when the current value of the house falls beneath the amount that one has to pay on his mortgage. It is a predicament which now faces an estimated 30 million Americans who are drowning in red ink and skittering towards a life of indentured servitude.
The magnitude of the housing bubble is shocking and unprecedented. According to the Federal Reserve's own figures, “The total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006, up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion.”(Times Online) This tells us that the Fed had a clear idea of the size of the equity balloon their low interest policies were creating, but decided not to take corrective action. It also tells us that there will be no “soft landing.” When the market begins to fall, no one knows when it will hit bottom. Ten trillion dollars are more than a “little froth,” as Greenspan opined; it is an earth-shaking, economy-busting catastrophe that will put millions at risk of foreclosure, bankruptcy and ruin.
Greenspan and the privately-owned Fed played a major role in putting us in this mess by rubber-stamping the new system of precarious loans (no down payments, interest-only loans, ARMs) and perpetuating their “cheap money” policies. Greenspan admitted this a few months ago when he said that current housing increases were “unsustainable” and would have corrected long ago if not for the “the dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans . . . and more exotic forms of adjustable rate mortgages that enable marginally-qualified, highly leveraged borrowers to purchase homes at inflated prices.”...
From cato.org under "Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It"
The last total I saw is that business subsidies amount to 85 billion dollars of the federal budget. That kind of money could do very well to fund better domestic spending and to begin to cut into the out of control federal deficit.
The following list includes some of the more egregious taxpayer subsidies to industries and firms.
* Through Sematech, a consortium of very large U.S. computer microchip producers, the Pentagon provides nearly $100 million a year of support to the industry. But of the more than 200 chipmakers in the United States, only the 14 largest, including Intel and National Semiconductor, receive federal support from Sematech.<3> Originally designed to help U.S. firms compete against foreign competition, Sematech now subsidizes the largest producers to help fend off smaller domestic competition.<4>
* An estimated 40 percent of the $1.4 billion sugar price support program benefits the largest 1 percent of sugar farms. The 33 largest sugar cane plantations each receive more than $1 million.<5>
* Through the Rural Electrification Administration and the federal power marketing administrations, the federal government provides some $2 billion in subsidies each year to large and profitable electric utility cooperatives, such as ALLTEL, which had sales of $2.3 billion last year.<6> Federally subsidized electricity holds down the costs of running ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado, five-star hotels in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.<7>
* Last year the Forest Service spent $140 million building roads in national forests, thus subsidizing the removal of timber from federal lands by multi-million-dollar timber companies. Over the past 20 years the Forest Service has built 340,000 miles of roads -- more than eight times the length of the interstate highway system -- primarily for the benefit of logging companies.<8>
* The Department of Agriculture Market Promotion Program spends $110 million per year underwriting the cost of advertising American products abroad. In 1991 American taxpayers spent $2.9 million advertising Pillsbury muffins and pies, $10 million promoting Sunkist oranges, $465,000 advertising McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, $1.2 million boosting the international sales of American Legend mink coats, and $2.5 million extolling the virtues of Dole pineapples, nuts, and prunes.<9>
* Last year a House of Representatives investigative team discovered that federal environmental cleanup and defense contractors had been milking federal taxpayers for millions of dollars in entertainment, recreation, and party expenses.<10> Martin Marietta Corporation charged the Pentagon $263,000 for a Smokey Robinson concert, $20,000 for the purchase of golf balls, and $7,500 for a 1993 office Christmas party. Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Lancaster, New York, spent $243,000 of funds designated for environmental cleanup on "employee morale" and $37,000 on tennis lessons, bike races, golf tournaments, and other entertainment.<11> Such activities give new meaning to the term "corporate welfare."
"A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. " -- Elbert Hubbard
<snip>
With wages stagnating since the 1970s, the increase in home equity has been the preferred method for most Americans to “get ahead.” Housing prices have steadily increased since the 1980s and skyrocketed in the last five years. This has created a feeding-frenzy for low interest loans and attracted millions of speculators and (traditionally) unqualified applicants to the real estate gold rush.
It’s been a great deal for the banks, too. Mortgages make up the bulk of the banks' loans in America, more than $400 billion last year alone. If it weren’t for the steady steam of mortgages, many banks would have seen negative growth in the last decade. Now that housing prices are flattening out and expected to fall (precipitously), the easy money has dried up and many over-leveraged homeowners are facing the dismal prospect of having to pay off an asset that is quickly losing its value. Economist Michael Hudson calls this phenomenon “negative equity,” that is, when the current value of the house falls beneath the amount that one has to pay on his mortgage. It is a predicament which now faces an estimated 30 million Americans who are drowning in red ink and skittering towards a life of indentured servitude.
The magnitude of the housing bubble is shocking and unprecedented. According to the Federal Reserve's own figures, “The total amount of residential housing wealth in the US just about doubled between 1999 and 2006, up from $10.4 trillion to $20.4 trillion.”(Times Online) This tells us that the Fed had a clear idea of the size of the equity balloon their low interest policies were creating, but decided not to take corrective action. It also tells us that there will be no “soft landing.” When the market begins to fall, no one knows when it will hit bottom. Ten trillion dollars are more than a “little froth,” as Greenspan opined; it is an earth-shaking, economy-busting catastrophe that will put millions at risk of foreclosure, bankruptcy and ruin.
Greenspan and the privately-owned Fed played a major role in putting us in this mess by rubber-stamping the new system of precarious loans (no down payments, interest-only loans, ARMs) and perpetuating their “cheap money” policies. Greenspan admitted this a few months ago when he said that current housing increases were “unsustainable” and would have corrected long ago if not for the “the dramatic increase in the prevalence of interest-only loans . . . and more exotic forms of adjustable rate mortgages that enable marginally-qualified, highly leveraged borrowers to purchase homes at inflated prices.”...
From cato.org under "Ending Corporate Welfare As We Know It"
The last total I saw is that business subsidies amount to 85 billion dollars of the federal budget. That kind of money could do very well to fund better domestic spending and to begin to cut into the out of control federal deficit.
The following list includes some of the more egregious taxpayer subsidies to industries and firms.
* Through Sematech, a consortium of very large U.S. computer microchip producers, the Pentagon provides nearly $100 million a year of support to the industry. But of the more than 200 chipmakers in the United States, only the 14 largest, including Intel and National Semiconductor, receive federal support from Sematech.<3> Originally designed to help U.S. firms compete against foreign competition, Sematech now subsidizes the largest producers to help fend off smaller domestic competition.<4>
* An estimated 40 percent of the $1.4 billion sugar price support program benefits the largest 1 percent of sugar farms. The 33 largest sugar cane plantations each receive more than $1 million.<5>
* Through the Rural Electrification Administration and the federal power marketing administrations, the federal government provides some $2 billion in subsidies each year to large and profitable electric utility cooperatives, such as ALLTEL, which had sales of $2.3 billion last year.<6> Federally subsidized electricity holds down the costs of running ski resorts in Aspen, Colorado, five-star hotels in Hilton Head, South Carolina, and gambling casinos in Las Vegas, Nevada.<7>
* Last year the Forest Service spent $140 million building roads in national forests, thus subsidizing the removal of timber from federal lands by multi-million-dollar timber companies. Over the past 20 years the Forest Service has built 340,000 miles of roads -- more than eight times the length of the interstate highway system -- primarily for the benefit of logging companies.<8>
* The Department of Agriculture Market Promotion Program spends $110 million per year underwriting the cost of advertising American products abroad. In 1991 American taxpayers spent $2.9 million advertising Pillsbury muffins and pies, $10 million promoting Sunkist oranges, $465,000 advertising McDonald's Chicken McNuggets, $1.2 million boosting the international sales of American Legend mink coats, and $2.5 million extolling the virtues of Dole pineapples, nuts, and prunes.<9>
* Last year a House of Representatives investigative team discovered that federal environmental cleanup and defense contractors had been milking federal taxpayers for millions of dollars in entertainment, recreation, and party expenses.<10> Martin Marietta Corporation charged the Pentagon $263,000 for a Smokey Robinson concert, $20,000 for the purchase of golf balls, and $7,500 for a 1993 office Christmas party. Ecology and Environment, Inc., of Lancaster, New York, spent $243,000 of funds designated for environmental cleanup on "employee morale" and $37,000 on tennis lessons, bike races, golf tournaments, and other entertainment.<11> Such activities give new meaning to the term "corporate welfare."
"A conservative is a man who is too cowardly to fight and too fat to run. " -- Elbert Hubbard
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uNkNowN ElEmEnt - Expert
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Re: Coming Economic Meltdown
by clueless » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 11:58:34
Big Deal ? The economy has always been ran by bubbles. Is this new news ? And why the obsession over the housing bubble ? If your hopes are to come in after the crash and buy for 10 cents on the dollar it isn't going to happen. The Govt. is going to continue to inflate the currency until the middle class is completely bankrupt, and by that time it will be too late.
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Re: Coming Economic Meltdown
by uNkNowN ElEmEnt » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:04:37
Hey clueless... I'm not even in your country.. If it were news I'd have submitted it to the news editors. I already own my own home CLEAR so I don't need to come in and buy at 10 cents on the dollar. Who pissed in your cornflakes? Isn't the majority of the middle class already bankrupt?
Some of us like different perspectives on what's going on. That might turn out to be a pretty good news source... but why am I bothering.
Some of us like different perspectives on what's going on. That might turn out to be a pretty good news source... but why am I bothering.
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uNkNowN ElEmEnt - Expert
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Re: Coming Economic Meltdown
by clueless » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:07:51
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') already own my own home CLEAR so I don't need to come in and buy at 10 cents on the dollar.
Me too ! But big deal - Try not paying your property taxes and see what happens to your "Clear" home.
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Re: Coming Economic Meltdown
by clueless » Thu 14 Sep 2006, 12:13:02
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I')'m not even in your country..
Oh - And this makes no difference also, No country is on a "Gold Standard" anymore, so all currencies are inflating not just the US.
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