Primer on the state of Global Financial Stupidity (Part 2)


Posted On: Tuesday - January 24th 2017 5:56PM MST
In Topics: 
  Global Financial Stupidity  China

(Continued from here.)

What does that $200,000 number, owed per taxpaying household to cover just the US Gov't current debt, mean? Imagine it were household finances. That would be the amount to square the family finances back to zero and be on a new footing. Let's be reasonable and assume that if the money could be seriously planned to be paid over a 10 year period, then that would assuage the worries of those that the money is owed to - people/organizations who "own" some of the debt, meaaning have money in Treasury bonds. That's reasonable, I think. Even allowing for 1-5% of households that could actually pay $20,000 EXTRA in taxes each year for 10 years what about the rest of the 95,000,000 households. There's no possible way! It's! inconceivable!, and yes, that word DOES mean what I think it means, bitchez!

My first thoughts on this 10 or more years back were probably somewhat like many others, especially when told we owe a lot of this money to the Chinese, as we pay in dollars for all of the consumer (and lots of industrial) goods from China. Hey, I figure the Speaker of the House - after all Congress controls this money of ours or lack thereof - could just tell Chairman Wen*:

American attache: "Listen, we don't have the money, sorry".
Chinese Cadre: "But, I can't tell my boss that!"
Chinese Cadre: "He's gonna kill me! Chairman Wen is gonna shit!"
American attache: "Well, what's it gonna be, dude, is the Chairman gonna shit or is he gonna kill you?"
Chinese Cadre: "First he's gonna shit, then he's gonna kill me!"

Wait, wrong movie.....

American attache (putting his arm around Chairman Wen to console him): "Cmon, Wen, you can't spend your whole life worrying about your mistakes - you fucked up, you trusted us."



Or, I might would have mentioned that all of the people in Peking and most of China would be speaking Japanese right now, if it hadn't been for the American military, especially the AVG Flying Tigers, and General Stillwell in Burma - so "hey, call it even. Now you know better than to lend any money to the US Feral Gov't. OK, which way back to the airport?"

OK, the China silliness being over now, the problem is, of course, that this debt to China and people and organizations the world over is not in the form of a few notarized notes like a mortgage, that can be ripped up, or shredded by the cat. The Treasury bonds are fungible and have been traded all over, just like, say 100 dollar bills.

This is where we will continue in the morning, with how all the debt is interrelated and why it is not a solvable problem without a lot of financial pain.


* Or bring a current-day team of Abbott and Costello along to Peking, yeah, just might work:
"When will get the money?"
"No, no money for Wen."
"Who will get the money?"
"No, Who's on foist!"
(OK, this routine is still being fine-tuned - lighten up!)

Comments:
No comments

WHAT SAY YOU? : (PLEASE NOTE: You must type capital PS as the 1st TWO characters in your comment body - for spam avoidance - or the comment will be lost!)
YOUR NAME
Comments