I don't buy that argument. We shouldn't print money this way at all. If you throw money at every problem, pretty soon hyperinflation actually happens and historically that has never gone well.
Don't be disingenuous. "Germany turned their currency into wallpaper" as a result of a huge economic depression following a devastating war and a vindictive peace treaty that saw Germany pay large sums of money as reparations despite not starting the war.
$18 trillion a year in GDP, about 3 Trillion a year in taxes to the US Treasury, a net worth of about $130 Trillion. What's 2 Trillion to fix OUR country? We spent more than three times that on the fucking Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
Believe the number is more like 300 trillion in the terms that any reasonable person would use. They don't count most of the money they've committed to paying out in welfare and lucrative govt pensions
Bruh, we didn't spend $6 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan. The $6.4 trillion is for all US military operations post-9/11 as well as the domestic counter-terror operations since then. $1 trillion of that is the money spent on VA care for the veterans of these wars.
Precious metals are a good hedge against inflation and is a great tool for wealth preservation. Silver and gold are incredibly undervalued. Especially silver. Currently the dollar is being debased and becoming worthless. Debt will be wiped out but so will savings. If you want to learn more I'd recommend looking up hidden secrets of money on YouTube. Videos were made years ago but are accurately predicting the stuff happening right now.
I read a story from a survivor of the Bosnian wars.. he said that thousands of bic lighters and antibiotics are the most valuable things you have (for trade).
You can tame inflation by increasing interest rates. Infrastructure increases productivity and GDP if combined with America First trade deals. The worst thing is deflation, which will happen if you let people stay unemployed after the Kung Flu.
Finally somebody who gets it. We have a ZERO CASH RATE, we're about to stumble into a fucking deflationary trap and people are bitching about the one thing that can help us to avoid it. We're not in fucking Kansas anymore, there is almost NO aggregate demand and NO inflationary velocity when everything is fucking closed. We need to use the government to unfuck the mess that government caused to begin with, not because its fun or palatable but because its necessary. The debt is the least of our problems right now. Of course, if the dems try to pork it up, we can blow it up. Trump is calling the shots here, let's have some faith.
Economists who have never been right think they're right this time. He's full of shit. There's no historical precedent to getting out of a situation like this without an extraordinary shock. We're talking world war with the debt passed off to the loser, invention of perpetual motion, etc. Total game changer
It’s already done. The FED got $500B in the bill you all wanted to pass to backstop $4-$10T in new money printed. And on top of it the CARES Act blocked FED FOIA requests until the end of the year so we don’t know what decisions they’re making.
The debt will never be repaid. If you took all the money in the world, and converted it to US dollars, I don't think it would add up to a fraction of our national debt.
I think maybe the pede above you saw something about derivatives and the derivatives market. That is a number that adds up to a ridiculous sum - a quick search shows the modern number as 555 trillion. Read up on derivatives.
The amount of cash is 35 trillion and cash plus accounts = around 99 trillion.
well he said to convert all the "money" in the world to USD. i assumed all cash/securities but if you're just talking cash...
derivatives have value. someone buys them and someone sells them. for every option you bought that expires worthless, the guy who wrote that contract earned $$$
I still maintain that the debt is a lost cause. Unless divert 100% of government spending toward paying off the debt, and we enslave the entire American population for the next 50 years, taxing every single one of them at 100%, it will never, ever, ever be paid off. And maybe not even then.
If you were to go back in time to the day Jesus was born, and spend a million dollars every single day, for 2,000 years, by the time you got to the current date, you still would not have spent ONE trillion dollars.
The best part about this is that China is sitting on so many dollars, that if they were to cash them in, we’d see the market get flooded, and see the dollar collapse. This would be disastrous for them.
The last time. An infrastructure bill was passed, they came to my town and tore down 4 bridges. Only 2 had every been rebuilt. So, yeah... Can't wait... Maybe they'll finish them
Taxation pays for ZERO of the federal budget. Taxation goes to pay the interest on the loan of dollars from the Fed that the govt uses to pay its yearly budget. Tax dollars go straight to the Fed, not our govt.
Were that to end, and it is, the problem of being beholden to supra-national debt issuers is no more.
Edit: just realized I replied to the two parts in separate comments. This is part 2.
I intended to tell you the burden of proof is on you since you're so far off on something that should be considered common knowledge and there are no credible sources that support your argument. However, I stumbled across a close match to your number and realized exactly how you are wrong so may as well educate you. You're looking at the govts absurd estimate for social security and Medicare alone while ignoring the rest of the debt for 47T.
This Forbes story has the total over 200T. Most credible sources are 200-300T. Newer estimates bias high.
You can grow out of debt when you have a low gdp and aren't the unquestioned world power. We're now number 1 and there isn't enough gdp to reasonably make it happen. You're making an argument equivalent to comparing the debt to income ratio of a recent grad to a CEO. A recent grad can have 10x debt to income because they have room to grow while Trump would never dig himself out of that hole.
I'm sorry to doubt you but I'd like to hear some rationale for your belief that providing work opportunities for infrastructure projects is detrimental to the economy. The job multiplier on infrastructure is high up the food chain of scenarios which improve the work ecosystem. Auto manufacturing is the single greatest and that's why politicians love to focus on it but I strongly disagree with your assertion.
The Govt doesnt create jobs either and people would fare off so much better if they would stop looking towards Govt to fix their problems! Govt CREATES problems.
Much of which is fake interest on the artificially created federal debt owed to the Federal Reserve, which isn't federal.
Every penny of our unconstitutional "income tax" payments go to pay this phony interest.
The Treasury, according to the Constitution, is the only entity that can print our money. Instead, we let the Fed Reserve, a private bank, do it.
They print money for 1/20 of a cent for a $100 bill; then loan it to the Treasury for FULL FACE VALUE PLUS INTEREST—interest everyone knows can never be paid.
Purpose = to keep US (and every other country) in perpetual debt to central bankers.
If Trump were to, oh, I dunno, restructure or eliminate the Fed, then he might be able to say fuck that debt, we're starting over from zero.
I'm not an economist, so I'm sure there's a sizable flaw in here somewhere....
Debt isn't necessarily a bad thing: That's what enables most people to buy a house without paying cash up front, for example. What's really good is when you can get a mortgage at a low rate, and keep paying the low rate once inflation goes up. As long as you can afford those mortgage payments, you're fine.
And that's Trump's point: Hey, our borrowing rate is 0%, let's take advantage of that borrowing power to spend on things that actually improve our country.
If Trump were to, oh, I dunno, restructure or eliminate the Fed, then he might be able to say fuck that debt, we're starting over from zero.
If we do this, we will no longer be a creditworthy borrower. And that would be fine as long as we run a budget surplus... but not so good when a recession or major natural disaster hits.
When asked about the spending, he said that overall he was opposed to it after the insane spending in the previous administration. He said that in a business sense, thats usually fine because the implication is that the previous owner made a bunch of upgrades in order to sell it and you're now responsible for making it profitable.
But when he became president, he saw just how little the previous administration accomplished with all the money they spent. So he has to make the US profitable AND he is also responsible for the upgrades. He's happy with where we are now and will look at cost saving if re-elected. Sustainability is the goal.
I really think his statement is meant to boost the market. Dems aren't going to pass anything that benefits his administration, but he gets the benefit of promoting an America first agenda and outing them for their selfish behavior. We've seen this time and time again.
But this is one thing that has always bothered me about this president. The damn spending.
But if you're OK with the economy-strengthening measures he's taken, and the best unemployment numbers we've ever had, the best labor participation rate, the soaring, record-breaking capital markets, the incredible GDP numbers, etc., then maybe he has a plan you and I don't know about yet.
Honestly our country desperately fucking needs infrastructure improvements. Trump’s plan since he got into office was always to make infrastructure a 2nd term thing and we’re getting pretty damn close to that.
There’s a video out there where they interviewed the guy Trump tapped for infrastructure and he laid out exactly where he recommended Trump begin.
The biggest problem with concern trolls is that they've convinced some people that every disagreement with the President by a Trump supporter is a concern troll.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do major restructuring of our entire systems, and unleash the potential of America.
Would love to see the Administration ju-jitsu this crisis into eliminating the national debt, getting rid of huge swaths of government bureaucracy, creating wealth - reinventing retirement, health care, etc., using innovative free enterprise solutions. Bring manufacturing back - build the infrastructure for America 2.0.
That's how I see this. The American economy and Trump himself were attacked through the hysteria and panic generated by the media. This same panic has also provided an opportunity for him to do everything he could not easily do otherwise, like shut down the border and deport people, rebuild our infrastructure, and reshape our economy to domestic manufacturing.
Look at all the critical medical equipment and medicine we are now producing, and Trump talked about exporting the excess to other countries like Italy. I think this is a bold gambit by him to make this a permanent feature of America rather than a temporary move to combat the virus. He is going to frame it as "We can never let this happen again. We were unprepared and dependent on other countries, and that's why the virus has ravaged us. We must rethink how we do business to avoid repeating this in the future".
I love that this is one sign that he is already thinking about how to turn this into an opportunity to do big things.
Pretty soon he will begin painting a picture of how he will rebuild America, with very big and bold ideas. It's not the time yet, but hopefully the conversations inside the administration are shifting to what's next, how do we turn this into an advantage, what have we always wanted to do that we couldn't...that kind of thing.
"We can never let this happen again" is an extremely powerful persuasion device, and in this case almost irrefutable.
Yeah exactly. He is focused on addressing the virus for now, but when that calamity finally dies down, he will shift the focus to how we need to prevent it in the future.
Please remember to consider that Obama literally DOUBLED our national debt while in office and what do we have to show for it?
We can be against frivolous government spending all we want, and we should be. But at least with Trump we know we're going to see results from it. You can be certain that if Trump spends 2T on infrastructure, we're going to notice it. It's what the man does best.
He’s driving the fed off a cliff, and then converting our oil-based fiat system to a sound money system. In order to do that he needs to show that the old system doesnt work. In doing so, he will bleed it dry by reinvesting in america. Once the old fiat dollars are worthless compared to our new dollar, he will easily pay off the old debt and we will be left with a monetary system that Will leave us richer than ever- mostly because we wont be paying interest to central bankers anymore
Isn't it funny that the majority of people on here seem to think everyone's a dude. I'm constantly getting comments with dude or bro. I just smile and laugh. There's plenty of lady pedes on here.
Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't this cripple our economic competitiveness with the world? I guess I am not understanding the reasoning to bleed the fed dry.
You realize that the money for the infrastructure bill is going to pay American companies to build shit right? So you’re saying Trump is going to shaft these Americans by moving to the gold standard? lol, go back to Reddit.
I said nothing about trump shafting americans, if anything he is doing this to save america. The fed is a private org that threatens our national security
You are on the right track. He is going to swap Federal Reserve notes with Treasury bills and burn the Reserve notes. Thus swapping the debt directly to the Federal Reserve and Bankrupting it. lol Brilliant Then in bankruptcy court the Fed Reserve will have to tell the court where all the money they spent went. Get Your Popcorn.
The central bank has dropped interest rates to extremely low levels, which means that other banks and organizations can borrow huge amounts of debt for basically little interest costs. They can then serve this out to businesses. Trump appears to want to take advantage of the low interest rates in order to easily fund infrastructure projects.
My question is, isn't taking out another loan of 2 trillion dollars going to saddle the country with more debt and increase inflation? Even if you decided to actually take out that money, shouldn't it go to people in need or pay for medical supplies in this time of crisis?
The theory is that with infrastructure, you pay for value. So the roads, bridges, trains, power grids, etc... that the infrastructure bill buys will theoretically bring in more money than we spent, or allow companies to make more money that we spent using the new infrastructure. That’s the theory anyway.
Think if we had no roads, then the government built all the highways. Now our economy is pumping 100x harder than before because of these roads as a resource for the market.
If companies aren’t getting more value out of the use of infrastructure, then it’s a waste of spending, or purely a spend on luxury.
Yea... It makes a huge difference if we're modernizing transportation, communications, energy infrastructure, and--dare say--schools; versus green new deal crap. Unfortunately for an infrastructure bill to pass, it would require an obscene amount of the latter.
*loan from whom? From the moon? No it’s a loan from ourselves to ourselves, that we can forgive with a debt jubilee. You may be surprised to see massive debt forgiveness happen in the second term
Maybe all those improvements will increase our efficiency and therefore our GDP. Maybe, if the improvements are necessary at some point anyway, we might as well do them NOW while the interest rates is 0 and people desperately need work. Maybe this will help bouy the stock market. Maybe the long term benefits of this will more than make up for the cost. I don't really know, I'm no expert at any of this stuff, but I've seen this president outfox EVERYONE who has gone after him so I'll just trust him on this instead of assuming he somehow went retarded overnight and that I somehow know better than him.
Lol do you even construction? Exactly how long are you expecting the roads to be empty for? It takes years to plan, design, and build massive infrastructure projects like highways and bridges
No, I don’t do construction. I was inferring more to the projects that could be done immediately. Fixing roads that have been neglected for years takes months when you can only close down lanes and work from 10pm to 4am, with empty roads you could safely and at a much faster pace work on the roads. Building a highway or bridge takes years but the design and planning of the projects could be done ASAP. I think mid-May is a good estimate as to when roads will get back to normal. That gives us some time.
Infrastructure increases productivity and GDP if combined with America First trade deals. The worst thing is deflation, which will happen if you let people stay unemployed after the Kung Flu.
There's some logic to this as much as I'm not a fan of runaway spending. At an average yield of around 0.5% across the Treasury curve, the yearly interest payments on $2 Trillion in debt would only be $10 Billion.
If an infrastructure bill increased GDP by even the tiniest of amounts, it would easily pay for this. Not to mention provide jobs when unemployment is surely going to be much, much higher for the foreseeable future.
I think spending even a dime more now may look bad with the 2B pork bill just signed, but this is part of the longterm plan to shift US back into being the powerhouse. With the rate this low, there isn't a better time, gotta ride the momentum now especially with the global race having a mini reset with this virus.
I think spending even a dime more now may look bad with the 2B pork bill just signed
Optics don't bother me so much. What does bother me is pork. The stimulus bill was awful. Fucking terrible. So much pork to so many un-needed places. I doubt this infrastructure one will be much better.
I hate how this entire system works. We can't just pass needed funding for something everyone agrees is needed without tacking on BILLIONS for completely unnecessary things. And when anyone bitches about it, they are told "Welp, that's how this politics thing works!"
I think there's no perfect path forward. I see it as trying to win a war without losing soldiers along the way, it's not possible. Hopefully Trump will see the best possible path forward and navigate through this mess.
There's a surprising amount of concern trolling in this thread. Do the top comments here not trust Trump to know what he is doing?
Not all spending is created equal. We are in a unique situation where the federal government asked businesses to turn down work in the name of public safety, and in this unique situation, it is absolutely worth spending taxes to compensate those businesses and rebuild the economy.
To anyone worried about debt or inflation - what do you think of the recent restructuring of the Fed? So far I'm seeing too many people take that monumental achievement for granted.
The system is not sustainable and won't last, we all know this (including Trump), but what we can do is rebuild all of our infrastructure and put us into a better position when the reset actually has to occur.
If you want to stop the out of control spending and pillaging, you need to return to a gold standard. Otherwise, you will get inflation. (you NEED inflation to offset the debt you are creating in a fiat currency system)
People are stuck in the mindset that we are a nation with a national currency. They don't seem to understand that we have a global currency that underpins trade for many nations, not just our own. Global trade would grind to a halt if people did not have access to dollars.
They don't seem to understand that we have a global currency that underpins trade for many nations, not just our own.
Exactly. Anyone worried about inflation could put their money where their mouth is, and invest in alternate currencies. But everyone here knows the dollar will hold its value far better than any other currency, especially the Euro. Same for commodities - anyone can trade dollars for gold, silver, or oil if they think the value of the dollar will tank relative to those goods.
I'm quite certain that simply dropping interest rates and flooding money out will just rapidly increase inflation, which hurts sensible people who save money.
You are?
Dammit, then I wish we'd elected you president instead of Donald Trump with his subpar knowledge of how money works.
is there a source for this about Trump being chairman of the fed now? Im just curious, i honestly havent been paying close attention the last week or so to the news
Unless you switch to using gold again, arguments about spending are totally useless. Inflation is just a fact of life with fiat money, so we may as well use it for something that would be beneficial.
Thank you. Obama increases the debt and we get nothing for it. Trump is planning to restructure our economy and the fiscal conservatives are out whining about the debt. When do we get to rebuild infrastructure? Never? It's always too expensive for them.
You see when you are talking about fiat money you have to look at the playing field of what's around you. The world's biggest consumer economy with the biggest and best military isn't a money that you balk at because the government has budget deficit. Your other options is the Euro whose government the EU is getting smaller and looks less and less likely to succeed. Moreover, the entire world economy is structured around American services and Americans buying shit. The rest of the world's economy is fucked if we don't, their central banks know this and behave accordingly. That's why we don't need to be concerned about the total deficit, we need to be concerned with the budget deficit growing bigger than some portion of GDP. Markets for US Treasuries and credit facilities with the FED will be our first signal here. Remember we are not leading in the unsoundness of our money, that's important. We absolutely CAN borrow trillions of dollars to do what Trump says. The only inflationary concern is that we spend the entire amount too quickly, because unlike the FED, the government spending things puts money into normal money circulation which will increase inflation. That's why other currency's get hyper inflationary, because the money goes from being productive, exchanged for an investment (like the FED does), or tied up in an asset in an account, to being circulated amongst the general population who often spend the new money recklessly with no expectation of a return. That is what increases prices.
THIS is going to be an un-expected and VERY welcome side-effect of all this . There is almost no doubt that the Infrastructure Bill will FINALLY be dealt with in 2020. It's to everyone's advantage, now.
The money is already printed, at this point the damage is done, you may as well fix infrastructure I guess.
I don't buy that argument. We shouldn't print money this way at all. If you throw money at every problem, pretty soon hyperinflation actually happens and historically that has never gone well.
Germany turned their currency in wallpaper in the 1930s. That's just a sad state of affairs for any country.
Communism: the only form of government that is actually worse for the people than literal Nazis
Don't be disingenuous. "Germany turned their currency into wallpaper" as a result of a huge economic depression following a devastating war and a vindictive peace treaty that saw Germany pay large sums of money as reparations despite not starting the war.
They didn't start it, but they sure as shit did invade Belgium bringing in the British and then ultimately the Americans.
Those things you said are true, but they also tried to print their way out of the hole. So, they did have hyperinflation.
At this rate, our money WILL be TP.
$18 trillion a year in GDP, about 3 Trillion a year in taxes to the US Treasury, a net worth of about $130 Trillion. What's 2 Trillion to fix OUR country? We spent more than three times that on the fucking Iraq and Afghanistan wars.
A 2 trillion-dollar infrastructure deal has absolutely dick to do with a virus
We already were $26 Trillion in debt BEFORE all this. That's what.
Yeah but if we confiscate 100% of GDP for a year and a half we can pay it off easily! Think big! /s
Btw there's a Ludwig von Mises quote to the effect that the most dangerous words in political economy are "This time things will turn out different".
Believe the number is more like 300 trillion in the terms that any reasonable person would use. They don't count most of the money they've committed to paying out in welfare and lucrative govt pensions
Not really. The US national debt was $23.2 trillion as of 12/29/2019. Also, that's gross debt, not net debt.
https://www.thebalance.com/the-u-s-debt-and-how-it-got-so-big-3305778
People seem to be very hesitant to talk about the other side of that debt card: What the US is owed.
Map of 2016 foreign debt: https://www.titlemax.com/media/debts-owed-to-debts-owed-by-the-united-states.jpg
Bruh, we didn't spend $6 trillion on Iraq and Afghanistan. The $6.4 trillion is for all US military operations post-9/11 as well as the domestic counter-terror operations since then. $1 trillion of that is the money spent on VA care for the veterans of these wars.
https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/files/cow/imce/papers/2019/US%20Budgetary%20Costs%20of%20Wars%20November%202019.pdf?utm_source=Daily%20on%20Defense%20(2019%20TEMPLATE)_11/15/2019&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=WEX_Daily%20on%20Defense&rid=84648
Pretty sure Middle East wars from Bush was $1 trillion guy.
Our "money" has been TP since 1913...
we are just nearing the cardboard center.
Buy small gold pieces and silver, pedes. Be smart.
I'd add gold and silver to that list.
Beryllium, yo.
Space Force candidate with based Galaxy Quest drop
Are you saying username sarcastically checks out?
By Grabthars Hammer...what a savings.
Survivalblog.com has lots of articles on maintaining weath at a time like this.
paypal me and i will take care of it
gold, silver and lead.... precious metals
where is a good place to get these? a few of the places i tried are sold out or have a long waiting list.
infowars.com
nevermind. waiting list.
What are the benefits of buying gold or silver to stick back? I'm genuinely ignorant on this subject but would like to be enlightened.
Precious metals are a good hedge against inflation and is a great tool for wealth preservation. Silver and gold are incredibly undervalued. Especially silver. Currently the dollar is being debased and becoming worthless. Debt will be wiped out but so will savings. If you want to learn more I'd recommend looking up hidden secrets of money on YouTube. Videos were made years ago but are accurately predicting the stuff happening right now.
I'll check this out. Thanks.
I'd recommend people check into that on their own.
Are serious or do you just have a child's understanding of government finance? That would be akin to pissing on a forest fire dude.
I got a 2 oz trump silver coin for 34$.
Exactly. My "fiscal conservative" dad said the other day, "the national debt doesn't matter anymore. It's just an arbitrary number."
He's not wrong. It would take us millennia if we balanced the budget tomorrow with a 1B annual surplus, to pay it off.
Anyone who can do math can see this. Nothing changes until everything changes, and it won't be pretty.
Holding fiat currency in a bank is foolhardy. It s purchasing power can be diminished by inflation Invest it
You joke. That's what I did before even considering "precious metals"
You don't want money in bank when hyperinflation happens.... You want gold, guns and goods.
What the fuck am I gonna do with gold? Eat it?
Yall put too much trust in gold.
I read a story from a survivor of the Bosnian wars.. he said that thousands of bic lighters and antibiotics are the most valuable things you have (for trade).
Give it to FDR when he confiscates it?
I've seen The Walking Dead, can confirm.
You can tame inflation by increasing interest rates. Infrastructure increases productivity and GDP if combined with America First trade deals. The worst thing is deflation, which will happen if you let people stay unemployed after the Kung Flu.
Finally somebody who gets it. We have a ZERO CASH RATE, we're about to stumble into a fucking deflationary trap and people are bitching about the one thing that can help us to avoid it. We're not in fucking Kansas anymore, there is almost NO aggregate demand and NO inflationary velocity when everything is fucking closed. We need to use the government to unfuck the mess that government caused to begin with, not because its fun or palatable but because its necessary. The debt is the least of our problems right now. Of course, if the dems try to pork it up, we can blow it up. Trump is calling the shots here, let's have some faith.
ELIAOC
Uptrumped for maduro oblongata.
Economists who have never been right think they're right this time. He's full of shit. There's no historical precedent to getting out of a situation like this without an extraordinary shock. We're talking world war with the debt passed off to the loser, invention of perpetual motion, etc. Total game changer
Plenty of us get it. Deficit spending is bad, but mass unemployment and businesses failing all over is much much worse.
AGREED. DEFLATIONARY SPIRALS ARE DEATH.
We shouldn't use anything with "new deal". Never works out well.
We're already in a deflationary cycle.
So inflation should not be the concern.
And now you know why Democrat governors want everything to stay closed. They want shit to get bad so they can blame Trump, and push towards socialism.
It’s already done. The FED got $500B in the bill you all wanted to pass to backstop $4-$10T in new money printed. And on top of it the CARES Act blocked FED FOIA requests until the end of the year so we don’t know what decisions they’re making.
Let’s pay it back with the $500B yearly trade deficit with China.
Keep the bats though
You can bet for sure that the debt of ours that they "own" is going to be "renegotiated" in the next trade talks.
Then every other nation drops the dollar as a stabilizing currency/debt and our relevancy on the world stage is gone.
Good idea to use all that fake money to build real roads....
(then pull the carpet out from under them and go to a gold standard)
Tell the Wheimar Republic hello for me
And we owe debt to whom? Thats right, the fed. And why do we care about paying them back? Thats right, we shouldnt.
The debt will never be repaid. If you took all the money in the world, and converted it to US dollars, I don't think it would add up to a fraction of our national debt.
Where did you get that figure?
I think maybe the pede above you saw something about derivatives and the derivatives market. That is a number that adds up to a ridiculous sum - a quick search shows the modern number as 555 trillion. Read up on derivatives.
The amount of cash is 35 trillion and cash plus accounts = around 99 trillion.
well he said to convert all the "money" in the world to USD. i assumed all cash/securities but if you're just talking cash...
derivatives have value. someone buys them and someone sells them. for every option you bought that expires worthless, the guy who wrote that contract earned $$$
heres one source
https://www.credit-suisse.com/about-us/en/reports-research/global-wealth-report.html
Okay, so I stand corrected on that.
I still maintain that the debt is a lost cause. Unless divert 100% of government spending toward paying off the debt, and we enslave the entire American population for the next 50 years, taxing every single one of them at 100%, it will never, ever, ever be paid off. And maybe not even then.
If you were to go back in time to the day Jesus was born, and spend a million dollars every single day, for 2,000 years, by the time you got to the current date, you still would not have spent ONE trillion dollars.
WE ARE 24 TRILLION DOLLARS IN DEBT
He said money, not wealth
The best part about this is that China is sitting on so many dollars, that if they were to cash them in, we’d see the market get flooded, and see the dollar collapse. This would be disastrous for them.
We've needed an infrastructure bill for a long time, it can be bipartisan and it will create lots of jobs. This is the one of the best times to do it.
Username checks out.
Well bipartisan as long as they fill it with pork
I thought Muslims didn't like pork
Democrats have wanted an infrastructure bill for a while.
No, we need to hand Trump a super majority in November. That way the dems can piss and moan about not having any of their green new scam in it.
The last time. An infrastructure bill was passed, they came to my town and tore down 4 bridges. Only 2 had every been rebuilt. So, yeah... Can't wait... Maybe they'll finish them
Edit.. didn't realize how terribly I englished.
Sounds like they’ll come tear down those two and build one new one this time.
efficiency
Government ingenuity
Any truly bipartisan bill will be a pork loaded disaster.
Sorry, Drumpfy, but the Chinese don't pay the Democrats and RINOs to actually build up this country. Not how it works.
Do it
I think you are right. This is a “you give me this loan and give me a Hail Mary, or you get nothing. Your risk your bet.”
Taxation pays for ZERO of the federal budget. Taxation goes to pay the interest on the loan of dollars from the Fed that the govt uses to pay its yearly budget. Tax dollars go straight to the Fed, not our govt.
Were that to end, and it is, the problem of being beholden to supra-national debt issuers is no more.
https://twitter.com/Ir0nbelly/status/1243635945045479426?s=20
Here you go!
Why do you all of a sudden believe the opinion of some cuck in the fake news media when it's something that you like?
we have already crossed the Modern Monetary Theory bridge
Yes and that led to top earners/producers being taxed at 70% to 90%.
You mean the event that left every civilized country in the world devastated except us? How does that apply here?
What about the actual debt? Our unfunded liabilities are more than 10x the reported fake debt. We owe hundreds of trillions.
Edit: just realized I replied to the two parts in separate comments. This is part 2.
I intended to tell you the burden of proof is on you since you're so far off on something that should be considered common knowledge and there are no credible sources that support your argument. However, I stumbled across a close match to your number and realized exactly how you are wrong so may as well educate you. You're looking at the govts absurd estimate for social security and Medicare alone while ignoring the rest of the debt for 47T.
This Forbes story has the total over 200T. Most credible sources are 200-300T. Newer estimates bias high.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/johnmauldin/2017/10/10/your-pension-is-a-lie-theres-210-trillion-of-liabilities-our-government-cant-fulfill/
You can grow out of debt when you have a low gdp and aren't the unquestioned world power. We're now number 1 and there isn't enough gdp to reasonably make it happen. You're making an argument equivalent to comparing the debt to income ratio of a recent grad to a CEO. A recent grad can have 10x debt to income because they have room to grow while Trump would never dig himself out of that hole.
You can't shutdown society and walk away. We need serious resuscitation.
Shovel Ready Jobs are placing an anvil on the chest, not doing CPR. Yes, this comment will be deleted too.
I'm sorry to doubt you but I'd like to hear some rationale for your belief that providing work opportunities for infrastructure projects is detrimental to the economy. The job multiplier on infrastructure is high up the food chain of scenarios which improve the work ecosystem. Auto manufacturing is the single greatest and that's why politicians love to focus on it but I strongly disagree with your assertion.
The government does not create wealth.
The government cannot create wealth.
All debts are paid. Either by the borrower, or the lender.
The Govt doesnt create jobs either and people would fare off so much better if they would stop looking towards Govt to fix their problems! Govt CREATES problems.
We heard that talk in 2008....
Yes and?
FOLLOW-UP RETWEET
Cuomo: People are stealing medical supplies from hospitals Trump: People are stealing medical supplies from hospitals Cuomo: I have no idea what Trump is talking about (@dbongino)
True mafia style
His pharma buyers won't allow it.
Art of the deal. He's trying to buy the markets another couple of weeks. Even the thought of another stimulus bill will keep them from cratering.
Also, by throwing out such an enormous number , it will be hard for the Dems to one up him
The ole Price is Right bidding strategy!
you can't out spend Dems.
This. States will have to match the money which will be a long process.
It will jump start a dead economy and actually benefit Americans.
Money printer goes brrrrrrrr
KEK
Yeah, it needs to be revised. We're going to spend $4 TRILLION in a couple of months?? Holy...
That's what, 20% increase in our existing debt? All at once?
Much of which is fake interest on the artificially created federal debt owed to the Federal Reserve, which isn't federal.
Every penny of our unconstitutional "income tax" payments go to pay this phony interest.
The Treasury, according to the Constitution, is the only entity that can print our money. Instead, we let the Fed Reserve, a private bank, do it.
They print money for 1/20 of a cent for a $100 bill; then loan it to the Treasury for FULL FACE VALUE PLUS INTEREST—interest everyone knows can never be paid.
Purpose = to keep US (and every other country) in perpetual debt to central bankers.
If Trump were to, oh, I dunno, restructure or eliminate the Fed, then he might be able to say fuck that debt, we're starting over from zero.
I'm not an economist, so I'm sure there's a sizable flaw in here somewhere....
I want a lot more info on this type of stuff. Time to start digging.
Read “The Creature From Jekyll Island”.
Debt isn't necessarily a bad thing: That's what enables most people to buy a house without paying cash up front, for example. What's really good is when you can get a mortgage at a low rate, and keep paying the low rate once inflation goes up. As long as you can afford those mortgage payments, you're fine.
And that's Trump's point: Hey, our borrowing rate is 0%, let's take advantage of that borrowing power to spend on things that actually improve our country.
If we do this, we will no longer be a creditworthy borrower. And that would be fine as long as we run a budget surplus... but not so good when a recession or major natural disaster hits.
Yes, it seemed too easy...that's why I said "MIGHT" be able to say fuck it, and that there was sure to be a flaw somewhere
I would only advocate saying fuck it if it were debt owed by the govt to itself
This stuff is mostly over my head, so in that sense also,...fuck it :)
Lol honestly fuck it at this point it’s a Hail Mary play. We’ve already proven that money clearly isn’t an obstacle with this stimulus bill.
I'm with you. About 10 percent of the Republican party gives a shit about the debt, the rest might as well be Democrats when it comes to spending.
Per Trump's Town Hall (paraphrased from memory):
I really think his statement is meant to boost the market. Dems aren't going to pass anything that benefits his administration, but he gets the benefit of promoting an America first agenda and outing them for their selfish behavior. We've seen this time and time again.
But if you're OK with the economy-strengthening measures he's taken, and the best unemployment numbers we've ever had, the best labor participation rate, the soaring, record-breaking capital markets, the incredible GDP numbers, etc., then maybe he has a plan you and I don't know about yet.
i dont think the debt ever gets repaid so whatever. Who wants to collect?
Virtually all of our debt is held by China. We don't owe China shit.
About 5% of our debt is held by China.
https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
$23.6T debt, might as well blow $2T on America First so our country doesn't turn into a shithole like the countries major cities.
My thoughts too
Honestly our country desperately fucking needs infrastructure improvements. Trump’s plan since he got into office was always to make infrastructure a 2nd term thing and we’re getting pretty damn close to that.
There’s a video out there where they interviewed the guy Trump tapped for infrastructure and he laid out exactly where he recommended Trump begin.
Every time I check .win there are more and more concern trolls.
They ALWAYS take a position against Trump.
They want to punish you, insult you, and downvote you for defending Trump.
Their goal is to drive Trump supporters away from .win.
Their ultimate goal is to turn .win into what we feared would happen at t_D - have it filled with anti-Trump posts.
Very low energy, as usual. You can always tell from their attitude and tone. Right out of /politics.
I think fiscal conservatives have a right to be concerned about spending 4 trillion dollars in two months.
They can, but they don't really understand how the modern economy works.
The biggest problem with concern trolls is that they've convinced some people that every disagreement with the President by a Trump supporter is a concern troll.
Do you really think this is the proper place for you to express all of your disagreements with POTUS? You have the rest of the internet for that shit.
Check out his post history. Mr New Account argues the biggest concern trolls are those worried about concern trolls lol.
This is called healthy discussion. Not everyone is going to be cheerleading all the time.
Rule 1: Trump Supporters
This is The Donald. Our community is a high-energy Trump rally. There are no exceptions.
Folks, be aware that this is done with the concept of 'National Debt' to a central bank going the way of the dinosaur. The Fed will be nationalized.
America has always been the biggest fish in the pond, and now with Trump at our helm this fish has teeth.
We might want to increase his security detail.
Hopefully you’re correct.
Well, I'd like to know that for sure before spending $4 trillion in a couple of months?
And only Congress has the power to end the fed, so...
Huh? Where did you see this?
https://thedonald.win/p/FMJZsxfy/trump-unveils-genius-plan-to-end/
So... Vote Trumpublican and Trumpocrat in November!
This is the time to THINK BIG.
This is a once in a lifetime opportunity to do major restructuring of our entire systems, and unleash the potential of America.
Would love to see the Administration ju-jitsu this crisis into eliminating the national debt, getting rid of huge swaths of government bureaucracy, creating wealth - reinventing retirement, health care, etc., using innovative free enterprise solutions. Bring manufacturing back - build the infrastructure for America 2.0.
Think BIG.
That's how I see this. The American economy and Trump himself were attacked through the hysteria and panic generated by the media. This same panic has also provided an opportunity for him to do everything he could not easily do otherwise, like shut down the border and deport people, rebuild our infrastructure, and reshape our economy to domestic manufacturing.
Look at all the critical medical equipment and medicine we are now producing, and Trump talked about exporting the excess to other countries like Italy. I think this is a bold gambit by him to make this a permanent feature of America rather than a temporary move to combat the virus. He is going to frame it as "We can never let this happen again. We were unprepared and dependent on other countries, and that's why the virus has ravaged us. We must rethink how we do business to avoid repeating this in the future".
You get it.
I love that this is one sign that he is already thinking about how to turn this into an opportunity to do big things.
Pretty soon he will begin painting a picture of how he will rebuild America, with very big and bold ideas. It's not the time yet, but hopefully the conversations inside the administration are shifting to what's next, how do we turn this into an advantage, what have we always wanted to do that we couldn't...that kind of thing.
"We can never let this happen again" is an extremely powerful persuasion device, and in this case almost irrefutable.
Yeah exactly. He is focused on addressing the virus for now, but when that calamity finally dies down, he will shift the focus to how we need to prevent it in the future.
Please remember to consider that Obama literally DOUBLED our national debt while in office and what do we have to show for it?
We can be against frivolous government spending all we want, and we should be. But at least with Trump we know we're going to see results from it. You can be certain that if Trump spends 2T on infrastructure, we're going to notice it. It's what the man does best.
Let him work!
A trillion here, a trillion there....pretty soon you're talking about some real(monopoly) money.
this type of stuff is way over my head. cliff notes?
He’s driving the fed off a cliff, and then converting our oil-based fiat system to a sound money system. In order to do that he needs to show that the old system doesnt work. In doing so, he will bleed it dry by reinvesting in america. Once the old fiat dollars are worthless compared to our new dollar, he will easily pay off the old debt and we will be left with a monetary system that Will leave us richer than ever- mostly because we wont be paying interest to central bankers anymore
Girls can math, too 😘
Girls can be guys too though
/s
52 genders
Isn't it funny that the majority of people on here seem to think everyone's a dude. I'm constantly getting comments with dude or bro. I just smile and laugh. There's plenty of lady pedes on here.
Fact. Otherwise, we'd have caught cooties by now!
i call girls dude and bro all the time...nothing gendered about it.
Reeeeeeeeeeeeee
"there's no girls on the internet" because the only reason to point it out is to be special for being one
Dude is a non gendered word these days imo
LOL my wife bangs on me whenever I accidentally call her Dude
But not if I call her "man" as in "I won't forget to do the dishes, man! No way!"
That's because the rules of the internet say there are no girls on the internet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tU7G8cR4D2U
This is an interesting perspective, one that a few on here may disagree with. But interesting to ponder, nonetheless.
This is very good explanation of the situation, very well done.
Pardon my ignorance, but wouldn't this cripple our economic competitiveness with the world? I guess I am not understanding the reasoning to bleed the fed dry.
Because they are evil and they deserve it.
Dude...
You realize that the money for the infrastructure bill is going to pay American companies to build shit right? So you’re saying Trump is going to shaft these Americans by moving to the gold standard? lol, go back to Reddit.
I said nothing about trump shafting americans, if anything he is doing this to save america. The fed is a private org that threatens our national security
You are on the right track. He is going to swap Federal Reserve notes with Treasury bills and burn the Reserve notes. Thus swapping the debt directly to the Federal Reserve and Bankrupting it. lol Brilliant Then in bankruptcy court the Fed Reserve will have to tell the court where all the money they spent went. Get Your Popcorn.
The central bank has dropped interest rates to extremely low levels, which means that other banks and organizations can borrow huge amounts of debt for basically little interest costs. They can then serve this out to businesses. Trump appears to want to take advantage of the low interest rates in order to easily fund infrastructure projects.
My question is, isn't taking out another loan of 2 trillion dollars going to saddle the country with more debt and increase inflation? Even if you decided to actually take out that money, shouldn't it go to people in need or pay for medical supplies in this time of crisis?
We have a bill for the crisis
Every dollar spent on labor is a dollar not spent by Unemployment, Welfare, and Relief funding.
This creates good paying blue collar jobs across the country and makes sure the demand for labor remains high during the covid recovery
The theory is that with infrastructure, you pay for value. So the roads, bridges, trains, power grids, etc... that the infrastructure bill buys will theoretically bring in more money than we spent, or allow companies to make more money that we spent using the new infrastructure. That’s the theory anyway.
Think if we had no roads, then the government built all the highways. Now our economy is pumping 100x harder than before because of these roads as a resource for the market.
If companies aren’t getting more value out of the use of infrastructure, then it’s a waste of spending, or purely a spend on luxury.
Yea... It makes a huge difference if we're modernizing transportation, communications, energy infrastructure, and--dare say--schools; versus green new deal crap. Unfortunately for an infrastructure bill to pass, it would require an obscene amount of the latter.
*loan from whom? From the moon? No it’s a loan from ourselves to ourselves, that we can forgive with a debt jubilee. You may be surprised to see massive debt forgiveness happen in the second term
From your keyboard to God's eyes to Trump's pen
That's the Fed's problem.
An old saying goes, "If you owe the bank $100, that's your problem. If you owe the bank $100 million, that's the bank's problem."
He's bleeding the fed dry.
BUILDING BRIDGES IS JUST WANT PUTIN ASKED FOR! Reeeeeeeeeeee
My democrat (not liberal) girlfriend just said this exact same thing
People out of work, roads need to be fixed.
Make it so Number 1.
Maybe all those improvements will increase our efficiency and therefore our GDP. Maybe, if the improvements are necessary at some point anyway, we might as well do them NOW while the interest rates is 0 and people desperately need work. Maybe this will help bouy the stock market. Maybe the long term benefits of this will more than make up for the cost. I don't really know, I'm no expert at any of this stuff, but I've seen this president outfox EVERYONE who has gone after him so I'll just trust him on this instead of assuming he somehow went retarded overnight and that I somehow know better than him.
comments by a bunch of shills.
after 4 years you people are still questioning his reasoning? amazing
Surprisingly, some republicans are still fiscally conservative, and spending 4 trillion dollars is very concerning
Explain an alternate option; Dems won’t go out their way to make Trump look good...
after shilling for every war ever, who would have thought there are actually fiscally conservative Republicans
It's possible to be opposed to both. I'm saying this as someone pretty receptive to the idea of a big infrastructure bill.
And the reply to you is a new account whose first two comments involve the spending being "very concerning".
Let it rip. Hard to devalue the dollar if the rest of the world is in the same mess economically speaking.
Also the roads are empty, let people safely work on our roads and we can come back from this on new roads and better bridges.
Being reserve currency has its privileges.
Lol do you even construction? Exactly how long are you expecting the roads to be empty for? It takes years to plan, design, and build massive infrastructure projects like highways and bridges
No, I don’t do construction. I was inferring more to the projects that could be done immediately. Fixing roads that have been neglected for years takes months when you can only close down lanes and work from 10pm to 4am, with empty roads you could safely and at a much faster pace work on the roads. Building a highway or bridge takes years but the design and planning of the projects could be done ASAP. I think mid-May is a good estimate as to when roads will get back to normal. That gives us some time.
Infrastructure increases productivity and GDP if combined with America First trade deals. The worst thing is deflation, which will happen if you let people stay unemployed after the Kung Flu.
There's some logic to this as much as I'm not a fan of runaway spending. At an average yield of around 0.5% across the Treasury curve, the yearly interest payments on $2 Trillion in debt would only be $10 Billion.
If an infrastructure bill increased GDP by even the tiniest of amounts, it would easily pay for this. Not to mention provide jobs when unemployment is surely going to be much, much higher for the foreseeable future.
Infrastructure spending is always too expensive
Can't not do it
I think spending even a dime more now may look bad with the 2B pork bill just signed, but this is part of the longterm plan to shift US back into being the powerhouse. With the rate this low, there isn't a better time, gotta ride the momentum now especially with the global race having a mini reset with this virus.
Optics don't bother me so much. What does bother me is pork. The stimulus bill was awful. Fucking terrible. So much pork to so many un-needed places. I doubt this infrastructure one will be much better.
I hate how this entire system works. We can't just pass needed funding for something everyone agrees is needed without tacking on BILLIONS for completely unnecessary things. And when anyone bitches about it, they are told "Welp, that's how this politics thing works!"
It's utter bullshit. All of it.
Does Trump know this?
What if he does?
Might he have a strategy in mind that few of us here are smart enough to figure out, but that he is?
I think there's no perfect path forward. I see it as trying to win a war without losing soldiers along the way, it's not possible. Hopefully Trump will see the best possible path forward and navigate through this mess.
Fuck it, make it 20 trillion.
Gotta pump those numbers up, those are rookie numbers
The Art of the Deal, in action
There's a surprising amount of concern trolling in this thread. Do the top comments here not trust Trump to know what he is doing?
Not all spending is created equal. We are in a unique situation where the federal government asked businesses to turn down work in the name of public safety, and in this unique situation, it is absolutely worth spending taxes to compensate those businesses and rebuild the economy.
To anyone worried about debt or inflation - what do you think of the recent restructuring of the Fed? So far I'm seeing too many people take that monumental achievement for granted.
The system is not sustainable and won't last, we all know this (including Trump), but what we can do is rebuild all of our infrastructure and put us into a better position when the reset actually has to occur.
If you want to stop the out of control spending and pillaging, you need to return to a gold standard. Otherwise, you will get inflation. (you NEED inflation to offset the debt you are creating in a fiat currency system)
People are stuck in the mindset that we are a nation with a national currency. They don't seem to understand that we have a global currency that underpins trade for many nations, not just our own. Global trade would grind to a halt if people did not have access to dollars.
Exactly. Anyone worried about inflation could put their money where their mouth is, and invest in alternate currencies. But everyone here knows the dollar will hold its value far better than any other currency, especially the Euro. Same for commodities - anyone can trade dollars for gold, silver, or oil if they think the value of the dollar will tank relative to those goods.
This is a great fucking idea.
Man, China owes us a lot of money
Haven’t seen it slow down and we are on lockdown.
Yes. This is one of the main reasons I voted for him.
Infrastructure is overdue and will cost us more if not addressed. Do it while unemployment is high and rates are low, never a better time.
Just not Fauci
If we stop giving foreign aid, then how are Biden and the other swamp things supposed to get their kickbacks?
Basically, he's bleeding the fed dry, people need to chill out, Trump knows exactly what he's doing, this been a long time coming.
↑ God, just boatloads stacked upon boatloads of THIS. ↑
They're saying he's ready to sacrifice the fiat dollar's value and issue a new gold-backed dollar.
Of course it's all in their imagination but that's what everyone here has agreed upon apparently.
Next year it will be something else. People love to dream.
We haven't fucked the dollar because there's no where else to go. What are people going to buy Euro? RMB? The pound? Nope, sticking wit the dollar.
no, that’s what all the Ron Paul’s of this board think. I guarantee you that’s not Trump’s thinking.
I fail to see how that is a good thing. The fed will literally crater this nation if is allowed to exist any longer.
Seems about right.
Knowing Trump he'll still call it the "dollar", though, because America.
America has a spending problem and tge only time a party has an issue with it is if the other party is spending.
Against it in 2015? When we had an economy (As feeble as it may have been) still? You don’t say.
You are?
Dammit, then I wish we'd elected you president instead of Donald Trump with his subpar knowledge of how money works.
is there a source for this about Trump being chairman of the fed now? Im just curious, i honestly havent been paying close attention the last week or so to the news
Unless you switch to using gold again, arguments about spending are totally useless. Inflation is just a fact of life with fiat money, so we may as well use it for something that would be beneficial.
Pedes, please deport each and every shill in this thread. There are a lot of them. Over the target.
Thank you. Obama increases the debt and we get nothing for it. Trump is planning to restructure our economy and the fiscal conservatives are out whining about the debt. When do we get to rebuild infrastructure? Never? It's always too expensive for them.
This looks like a win-win. Fix the sagging infrastructure and put people to work outdoors in the fresh air and sunshine.
Hmm, not so sure about this. I was told #OrangeManBad
We are going to turn inwards away from globalism and fix up the place or else we are toast. Let's do it.
POTUS going all in!
The democrats are not going to pass this next one without a lot of lefty sugar.
Yup, this must be why San Fran Nan caved so easily on the last bill. She's gonna do everything in her power to get Ballot harvesting in this bill...
If Nancy tries to hold up for more pork, get rid of her.
You see when you are talking about fiat money you have to look at the playing field of what's around you. The world's biggest consumer economy with the biggest and best military isn't a money that you balk at because the government has budget deficit. Your other options is the Euro whose government the EU is getting smaller and looks less and less likely to succeed. Moreover, the entire world economy is structured around American services and Americans buying shit. The rest of the world's economy is fucked if we don't, their central banks know this and behave accordingly. That's why we don't need to be concerned about the total deficit, we need to be concerned with the budget deficit growing bigger than some portion of GDP. Markets for US Treasuries and credit facilities with the FED will be our first signal here. Remember we are not leading in the unsoundness of our money, that's important. We absolutely CAN borrow trillions of dollars to do what Trump says. The only inflationary concern is that we spend the entire amount too quickly, because unlike the FED, the government spending things puts money into normal money circulation which will increase inflation. That's why other currency's get hyper inflationary, because the money goes from being productive, exchanged for an investment (like the FED does), or tied up in an asset in an account, to being circulated amongst the general population who often spend the new money recklessly with no expectation of a return. That is what increases prices.
THIS is going to be an un-expected and VERY welcome side-effect of all this . There is almost no doubt that the Infrastructure Bill will FINALLY be dealt with in 2020. It's to everyone's advantage, now.
ARE YOU TIRED OF WINNING
This is the f'ng best thing Ive heard all week