The Missing Money - Trillions of dollars are missing from the US government...

[bridgit]

Who is responsible for this? Would your banks continue to handle your bank account if you behaved like this? Would your investors continue to buy your securities if you behaved like this? View documentation and coverage.

http://www.solari.com/learn/articles_missingmoney.htm

[leftchick]

1. wow!

from one of the links, and it is over a year old...

<snip>

Experts have calculated that the country's long-term "fiscal gap" between all future government spending and all future receipts will widen immensely as the Baby Boomer generation retires, and as the amount the state will have to spend on healthcare and pensions soars. The total fiscal gap could be an almost incomprehensible $65.9 trillion, according to a study by Professors Gokhale and Smetters.

The figure is massive because President George W Bush has made major tax cuts in recent years, and because the bill for Medicare, which provides health insurance for the elderly, and Medicaid, which does likewise for the poor, will increase greatly due to demographics.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "This figure is more than five times US GDP and almost twice the size of national wealth. One way to wrap one's head around $65.9trillion is to ask what fiscal adjustments are needed to eliminate this red hole. The answers are terrifying. One solution is an immediate and permanent doubling of personal and corporate income taxes. Another is an immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. A third alternative, were it feasible, would be to immediately and permanently cut all federal discretionary spending by 143pc."

The scenario has serious implications for the dollar. If investors lose confidence in the US's future, and suspect the country may at some point allow inflation to erode away its debts, they may reduce their holdings of US Treasury bonds.

Prof Kotlikoff said: "The United States has experienced high rates of inflation in the past and appears to be running the same type of fiscal policies that engendered hyperinflations in 20 countries over the past century."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2006/07/14/cnusa14.xml

[pacalo]

2. We taxpayers are the bank, but we have no lender's rights.

[bridgit]

21. the bulk of laws are signed to protect the old money of lenders that is sad but true...

[gumby]

3. The neo-con's dream come true.

Just ask Grover Norquist.

Bankrupt the government to eliminate it. Simple.

[rodeodance]

4. lots of black holess in US -and Iraq

[bridgit]

9. great place to launder money Iraq...

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. Look inward.

We are all to blame for those missing dollars because we TOLERATE far too much backroom wheeling and dealing, even if we don't realize that's how it came about.

[bridgit]

11. she now i don't know about that, that's part of Sugar Smack & me's 15min plan...

just give us 15min and we'd have had the whole mess turned around in less than 3 :headbang:

[The Backlash Cometh]

15. The problem is that we, as a society, have insidiously allowed this

kind of bartering to take place. It runs deep in the mores of our daily life. This is how I see it, because I have really seen it.

The City, for example, wants more tax dollars coming into the city. They prefer those tax dollars coming from commercial enterprise, because it requires less public upkeep than residential. (If there are no people, there are no parks or recreation or schools to spend public money on. Also, there are fewer people complaining, or voting against you.)

However, residential enterprise is okay IF it involves high real estate. High real estate means more private subdivisions. More private subdivisions means less public infra-structure to upkeep, and more people who are willing to cart their kids out to exclusive private lessons or schools, so, no need to worry about public parks. That's the theory. (I'm not going out on a limb on this one. I actually read that in a City's Comprehensive Plan.) So, in walks a developer, willing to develop a problem swampland and put in expensive housing. All kinds of crap happen during the planning and development stage that shouldn't happen, but you know what, no one can stop it, because the "pillars of the community" are stopping the criticism coming from average people because they want fru-fru neighbors and high real estate.

See, they've made a trade-off, already. They are willing to look the other way on too many things that will impact negatively on the unsuspecting homeowners, because in the end, they have convinced themselves that everybody who buys in that neighborhood, will be wealthly enough to fall on their feet and too naive to believe all the crap that went down that got them in the mess in the first place. The "pillars of the community" blame the City for all the bad building decisions, and the City blames the "pillars of the community," for applying the wrong kind of influence. The homeowner, if he's smart, will not take sides, but will blame both of them.

However, the average homeowner is not so smart. He would rather take sides with the "pillars of the community," and believe that the City is a reflection of all the ills of the world. The City, however, is nothing but a reflector pool. It reflects what you already have in the community. It can be good, and it can be evil. Unfortunately, our capitalist system rewards too many who opt for evil.

That's how I see it. We are all part of this mess, we aren't able to see how we add to the problem when we admire people for the wrong reasons.

[bridgit]

19. sure, and so slowly like some fungal mold or rust, we have forms of eminent domain...

that are to be interpreted in the favors of commercial enterprise for the support of municipal tax-based revenue i.e. your high value real estate you've mentioned above, over what used to be understood, and sometimes more easily agreed with, as access for the likes of freeways, highways and such maybe a public park or school...maybe...still not good though in the aggregate as it exists today, not to mention bankruptcy reforms while knowable-as-predatory lenders are sending out ever more high interest offers to ever lower income folk...also not good; not caring to understand 'the fine print' over just wanting, what is empathetically understood as a roof over ones head, a semblance of home...

how does it happen? i say apathy; and the ill-will of self serving lawmakers & politicians

even here, some say we are attentive enough offering ourselves as proof, sadly though & regardless, the new world template is upon us nonetheless

[rman]

6. It is inevitable in a system

where the only money available is borrowed and has to be payed back at interest; the amount of money that is the interest also has to be borrowed - which then also has to be payed back at interest. With such a system the borrowers will for ever be in debt of the lenders, and the debt inevitably increases. I don't think it is very likely that this is accidental - it benefits the same interests that created the system.

[bridgit]

8. you may have something there, rman, it is said if even as an allegorical offering...

that with all the sin around him at the time; Jesus acted his displeasure out first upon the money changers, his only physically proactive (that others have characterized as violent) intervention O8)

[rman]

16. I love that scene

with the money changers in "Jesus Christ Super Star"


"The trade of the petty usurer is hated with most reason: it makes a profit from currency itself, instead of making it from the process which currency was meant to serve."
- Aristotle, ca 350 BC

[bridgit]

26. that's a great quote, and thanks for it...

El Greco – Jesus and the Money Changers

“And Jesus went into the temple and began to cast
out them that sold and bought in the temple, and
overthrew the tables of the money changers” -- Mark 11:15

[rman]

36. and thank you

for the bible quote (i was looking for it),
and the picture.

[Selatius]

33. That's a problem with fractional-reserve banking and the Federal Reserve.

You'll never get out of debt to lenders under such a system. The Federal Reserve is NOT a public institution. It is a privately owned corporation. Its interest is to serve the shareholders, and that's not the same as serving the interests of the people.

[rman]

37. I think the problem isn't so much with fractional reserve

If the value of the economy increases you can do one of two things: increase the value of the money, or print more money. The idea that money needs to be backed up by anything other than the value of goods and services that are being traded, is in my opinion a red herring.

You need only enough money to represent the value of the economy, so that trade can take place - that's the purpose of money. So you just need to monitor the economy to make sure enough money is in circulation. The only standard that's needed is how much of a product can be bought for a certain amount of money.

[Selatius]

42. No, I'm not arguing against fiat currency per se; I favor that, actually.

Switching to a gold standard or a silver standard, that would be devastating to the economy.

I think fiat currency is the way to go; it's just I disagree with the practice of fractional banking because it inevitably leads to inflation, which can be considered a form of regressive tax on the economy. Colonial Scrip was a form of fiat currency that was not backed by any gold or silver, but the English Parliament lobbied by European bankers outlawed such activity with the Currency Act.

"We issue it in proper proportion to the demands of trade and industry to make the products pass easily from the producers to the consumers. In this manner, creating for ourselves our own paper money, we control its purchasing power, and we have no interest to pay no one."

-- Benjamin Franklin

The problem with Federal Reserve and fractional banking is the idea that you could ever pay off your debt in terms of the federal government. You can't under this system. You can under full reserve banking, and that's what Colonial Scrip basically was, which is why bankers had it outlawed.

[rman]

43. ok, but doesn't fractional banking mean

that the amount of money that a bank lends is only partially backed up by something of value - ie gold or silver?
Maybe i got this wrong but it seems to me that fractional banking is equivalent to partial fiat banking. And then of course there's the issue of paying back at interest the money that has been borrowed, but i think that's a separate issue.
Imo the only 'backup' that's needed is the value of the economy (and no more than that should be borrowed), and of course we have to get rid of the paying back at interest.

[kickysnana]

7. Annex the Caymans get our money back from the Neocons! n/t

[bridgit]

10. i like those ideas & welcome to du, kickysnana...

:toast:

[leesa]

12. Ask Dov Zakheim, Rumsfeld and the boyz at the DOD.

[TahitiNut]

13. The economic collapse we forced upon the Soviet Union is a boomerang.

The most fundamental error was made during Bush41 ... an abysmal failure to restructure federal spending away from the military and into HEW and infrastructure. Coupled with the tax preferences given to unearned income and the rich, it has been a recipe for the same disaster we saw in the Soviet Union.

[Junkdrawer]

17. The Soviet Union got bogged down in Afghanistan...WE wouldn't...

spend ourselves poor trying to win a pointless war...would we? :shrug:

[mirandapriestly]

14. The records were conveniently destroyed on 9-11

Now ain't that a coincidence. It was used as the excuse as to why they couldn't produce records back then, and the section hit was the section with budget analysts, accountants, etc...Gee, what a coincidence... wasn't that thoughtful of the "terrorists"? You know, the "terrorists" that couldn't pass a test to fly a single engine cessna, but flew a plane in a style describes as using "military precision" by an atc before hitting the Pentagon (in footage that the defense dept won't show us)?
(all information derived from respected or main stream news articles)

[Beam Me Up]

27. Yes, the same terrorists who managed to destroy the SEC

even without hitting it with a plane.

Amazing, hugh.

[file83]

18. Cynthia McKinney was asking about this stuff years ago, directly to Donald Rumsfeld -->VIDEO

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RvLL--vSsA

She asks a couple of other questions too, amazing questions, even more amazing responses!

[Gabi Hayes]

20. Oh, come one....they tell us she's crazy, unhinged, a terrible person

and representative

how can you take anything she has to say seriously

after all, everybody knows she's not a good American, acting the way she does, assaulting policemen, asking treasonous questions

how dare she?

[KoKo]

29. Yes....she was just a clueless Cassandra...a "radical/troublemaker."

:-( No one should worry...she's gone now... "Capitol Police" took care of her.

[annabanana]

40. Such inconvenient questions, indeed.

No wonder she was trashed.

[druidity33]

22. didn't Rumsfeld...

have a press conference the day before 9-11 where he talked about 3 trillion dollars that were unaccounted for?

I think there's been missing money for a long time...............................

[bridgit]

23. sadly, these things always seem years behind any real-time curve...

i think that is very much a part of what 'the players' are counting on :thumbsdown:

[chimpymustgo]

24. All the way to the bank...criminals. nt

nt

[Vidar]

25. The federal government's chief function is money laundering for

corporate welfare

[Bernardo de La Paz]

28. "A billion here, a billion there, pretty soon you're talking real money".

[mahatmakanejeeves]

30. The money isn't "missing;"

you just haven't checked the right pockets.

[bridgit]

31. heh-heh, good one, damn deep pockets anyhow......

:rofl: :thumbsup:

[Imagevision]

32. I remenber the 8 Billion that simply, "disappeared" before Bremmer left and it was

never found or accounted for!

[Cleita]

34. If you don't balance the books, meaning that you have to do

double entry bookkeeping, then the stealing is easy. Our government does neither in a meaningful way. We need outside auditors to keep our government honest. There is the ACLU. We need something like that to audit government money transactions.

[leftofthedial]

35. over a trillion was missing when Clinton took office

he opted for a positive approach to rebuilding America rather than more investigation and prosecution of repuke criminal thieves (this was shortly after george the first pardoned all his Iran Contra co-conspirators; conventional wisdom was that the public suffered from scandal fatigue)

they took heart, used some of the stolen money to persecute the Clintons for 8 years, and staged a coup in 2000. Since then, they've stolen even more.

And now the congressional Democrats once agains refuse to hold them accountable.

[timtom]

38. Isn't this a Dov Zackheim issue?

See
http://cleveland.indymedia.org/news/2005/01/14509.php

[moondust]

39. Pssst.....look in Texas. n/t

[Disturbed]

41. I have no doubt that the Congress will start with

immediate and permanent two-thirds cut in Social Security and Medicare benefits. They will cut where their contributors will complain the least.