Bond = Debt = Deficit, and SS Dollars

[BeFree]

We pay into SS a certain sum every paycheck.

That money is being and has been spent by the government, either to SS recipients or to cover general expenses.

When SS money is used to cover general expenses, an IOU, via a bond, is issued to the SS admins.

That bond is a debt.

The debt total owed to SS now, it has been said, is 2.5 trillion dollars.

That $2.5 T is now part of the deficit in the budget of the US government.

[dkf]

1. I recd you but you are still at zero.

Who in the world unrecs simple facts?

[jannyk]

2. me too.

[kentuck]

3. Who do they owe that 2.5 trillion to??

They borrowed it from us, the people. We paid into it from meager wages, in many instances.

We should not stand in line behind the Chinese, Japanese, the Canadians, or anyone else. We expect to be paid back. That is a fund for the working people of America.

We look at the US Treasury Bond as the most secure financial instrument in the world, at least to many, if not most, Americans.

Are we a government of We, the People? Or are we not?

[slipslidingaway]

5. During congressional testimony, Treasury Secretary Snow was asked...

whether the SS bonds were as secure as other treasury notes - his answer was yes. Now they just want to pretend that the 2.5 trillion in bonds do not exist. The general budget has a big problem, because they need to honor the debts to SS. To frame this as a problem of SS is just not true. Remember when all the Dems said to Bush that that SS is not a problem - where are their voices now that we had a Democratic president. And where were their voices when they voted for billions for Iraq and Afghnistan, they knew we were spending the SS surplus.

:shrug:

[BeFree]

6. Yep

The problem is NOT SS. The problem is that the government is, basically, in debt beyond all reasonable means.

How we get out from under that debt is going to be interesting to see, if we live that long.

Inflation is one option, raising taxes is another.

And I am sitting here wondering, where else could the $2.5 T been invested?

[kentuck]

8. Of course the bonds are as good as gold...

As long as there is a Fort Knox. We take the back seat to no foreign government when it is time to pay off those bonds.

[truedelphi]

109. Can you please look forward and quit looking back?

I mean, JEEZ, the fact that you, me and everyone we know contributed to a huge 2.5 trillion bucks in bonds for Social Security - all that is ANCIENT HISTORY.

Treasury Snow?

Please look forward to the new society of always looking forward.

Our Leader has already offered instrutions: "What belongs to the people is needed to pay the DoD and the Big Financial Institutions. What belongs to the Big Financial Institutions is needed to pay their bonuses come Christmas."

We know this is Obama's inner mantra - if it wasn't, Geithner would not be at the Head of Treasury.

[Romulox]

20. Who is "they"? There is no "they"...WE owe the money. Not a third party. nt

[kentuck]

23. They is who borrowed the money from us.

They are both political Parties, sometimes alone and sometimes together. They promised to pay it back.

[Romulox]

58. That "they" is your own elected representatives. They're your agents, and you are liable for their

actions.

[kentuck]

63. They never consulted me.

But I doubt any of them will say the money taken from the fund is junk, as you suggest..

[mkultra]

110. either you participate in democracy our you dont

if you do, then you are responsible. If you don't....then i guess you are just irresponsible.

[Matariki]

34. Yeah, but we were technically borrowing from ourselves.

and by 'technically from ourselves', I mean the for the benefit of the likes of Halibuton and Raytheon.

[Bitwit1234]

47. CORRECT and Reagan and Bush are the worst offenders

the government does not want to pay this back that is the problem. And it makes me madder than hell that Simpson gives the impression that we are getting welfare. If that money had been left in the social security account think of the interest it would have earned. Social Security would be solvent til the next century.

[slipslidingaway]

4. knr link ...

http://www.ssa.gov/OACT/ProgData/funds.html

And I remember back in the 80's when SS taxes were raised so that there would be SS when the boomers retired. We need to frame this as a general budget problem, not a SS problem.

But Medicare is the big problem, how do we pay for HC for all those boomers.

:shrug:

[texastoast]

9. This boomer is going to have the good grace to die

And not try to hold onto "life" while in severe poor health.

[slipslidingaway]

81. Me too, but when you have a chance at another 10-20 in relatively...

good health and it might cost several hundred thousand would you take it :)

[texastoast]

87. 10 or 20, maybe yes

3, no.

[Hannah Bell]

7. for which budget year is that? show me the $2.5 trillion line item in this "budget".

there is no such "budget" & your framing is false & misleading.

[mkultra]

111. no, the framing is exactly right

SS is a trust fund and all excesses are provided into the unified budget in exchange for bonds. These 2.5 trillion dollars in bonds are backed by the US government and can be drawn upon by the SST if the payouts start to exceed the revenues.

[girl gone mad]

10. Like I was telling you in the other thread...

the money is owed to the American people. Those bonds = the savings of American citizens. This is money that will flow back into the American economy.

Government deficits represent private sector savings.

Where is the crisis?

[BeFree]

12. It already flowed

It's gone. Under the bridge.

The money is on the books as a number in the deficit of the US. That's the only true representation of all that money. It's gone.

[girl gone mad]

38. Look on the other side of the ledger..

and you will find that the money has been accounted for in the retirement plans of tens of millions of Americans.

Deficits are our savings.

[BeFree]

53. Actually

You have it ass backwards.

Our savings have become deficits.

They took the savings, spent it, and wrote out an IOU which is now a debt.


In today's credit markets, we borrow from the future creating debts.

With SS they took wealth, and spent it, effectively replacing real wealth with bad debt that accumulates no interest. And that is why they are squirming.

[girl gone mad]

54. It's not that complicated, really.

Why wouldn't the government spend the SS surplus? Would you prefer that we had borrowed from foreign countries instead?

Storing the surplus would make as much sense as living in a beach house and saving grains of sand in a box in the attic, just in case.

Deficits always represent someone's savings. Likewise, a government surplus would represent the destruction of private savings.

If the debt in the SS trust fund is bad, then all of our debts are bad. I hope you don't own any dollars or dollar-denominated assets.

[mkultra]

112. thats baloney

the Bonds themselves are the record.

[juajen]

11. I wish Skinner would do away with unrecs. I also rec'd this thread

I'm getting tired of this game.

[pa28]

13. Presumably you and I have both paid heavily into the system.

We are creditors and should expect repayment or a fair settlement on default. When I hear this particular set of facts get trotted out I start to think there are two sets of US debt. One which represents equity the American people have paid and another which is owned by banks and foreign interests.

Do you have an opinion on which one is senior to the other?

[BeFree]

15. well

If we told China that they were gonna lose their money there might be war.

So they are trying to sell us on the idea that we, the people of the US, take it in the shorts.

After all, we did and do reap the benefits of all that money being spent on
roads, defense, NASA, etc.

[pa28]

16. That's exactly what Allan Simpson said.

Have you guys been comparing notes? I guess there is such a thing as stealing it fair and square.

[BeFree]

21. Is that right? Simpson said that?

I didn't know that. The question is: Is it true, or false?
Here, of course, it is just my opinion, developed over years of thought.

[pa28]

27. Well, yes.

You can check out the very interesting Alex Lawson interview here:

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2010/06/17/alan-simpson-cutting-social-security-benefits-to-take-care-of-the-lesser-people-in-society/


LAWSON: But what about the $180 billion in surplus that it brings in every year?

SIMPSON: There is no surplus in there. It’s a bunch of IOUs.

LAWSON: That’s what I wanted to actually get at.

SIMPSON: Listen. Listen. It’s 2.5 trillion bucks in IOUs which have been used to build the interstate highway system and all of the things people have enjoyed since it has been setup.

LAWSON: Two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy.

SIMPSON: Whatever, whatever. You pick your crap and I’ll pick the real stuff. It has to do with the highway system, it was to run America. And those are IOUs in there. And now there is not enough coming in every month. You’re paying in every month for me. I appreciate that, I really do.


I know you are a good Democrat and came to your conclusions through reasoned thought and belief but you just have bad company on this one. Simpson's narratives here are rooted in a destructive agenda.

[BeFree]

30. Is it true, or false?

Alan Simpson is a jackal. He can eat shit for all I care.

Know this: Politics makes for strange bedfellows.

Too: Obama appointed the SoB right? Well I didn't and wouldn't, so take your bitching to Obama, K?

[pa28]

Well you sure sound like him.

I was trying to be nice but your tourettes syndrome is your own business. Try reading a book sometime.

[pa28]

31. delete

[BeFree]

32. I sound like him?

What a crock. I see you don't know enough to answer the question of is it true or not. So, obviously you don't know enough to have even a simple conversation about this matter.

[newspeak]

72. and who is Simpson trying to convince?

That money has been used to pay war profiteers, and for bogus wars, also for bailing out those who helped get the country in this mess. And, I wonder if it was intentional. They've been trying to screw SS for years, and Little Boot's was spending like a drunken sailor. Spending our money, to fatten his base's wallets.

Irresponsible complicity or intentional complicity, they have screwed us and need to be held accountable!

[kentuck]

17. China is the least of their worries...

if they try to rob the Social Security fund.

[scarletwoman]

26. Bull pucky. "...roads, defense, NASA, etc." That's what our income taxes are for.

It is income taxes that are designated for funding the general needs of our country and the government.

Social Security taxes are designated for one thing only, paying Social Security benefits.

They STOLE the money, and we are NOT reaping any damn benefits from their theft.

[BeFree]

29. Yes they took the money

One could say stole. What did they do with the money? They didn't give it back to the people who sent it in, no, they used it in the general budget.

Our income taxes were not enough to buy all that stuff and make wars. So they used the SS funds to pay for some of it, and they still ran up even bigger deficits. Well, Clinton, at the end, did not.

[girl gone mad]

41. It wouldn't make any sense for them not to have taken it.

Why is this concept so difficult?

The notion of a nation "saving up" its own fiat currency is absurd.

Clinton's obsession with paying down the deficit resulted in a recession, by the way.

[Recursion]

45. +1000

When your currency is not hard, money is debt. People forget that. Actually even when it is hard currency, money is debt too, just a different kind of debt.

[daleanime]

36. They had a chance to start addressing the debt last year....

they choose to instead fluff up Insurance Profits, why should any of us believe that our sacrifice will lead to any thing ofter then they benefit.:grr:

[Hannah Bell]

39. cause those chinese, man, they're so dumb, they can't figure out how money

& bonds & all that financial stuff works for themselves, we have to tell them.

but, lucky for us, we're just not gonna tell the bozos the terrible secret.

[scarletwoman]

14. So? Are we supposed to just roll over and die?

We are owed that money. They damn well better figure out how to pay it back.

[BeFree]

18. It's a problem

The spending is what did it. As I am sure you are aware, Clinton reduced the spending and the yearly deficits. The republicans raised hell with spending all our money and flat got away with it. So far.

Had the election not been stolen in 2000, we'd probably be alright. And some asswipes say there is no diff!

[Romulox]

19. Yep. Debt is not wealth. We are both obligor and obligee.

"I Owe Myself a Million-Gazillion Smackers!"

Now, as soon as I pay up, I'm set for life!

[kentuck]

22. That is true, but...

Both Parties have taken money from the SS fund because sitting in a moldy vault serves no purpose to anyone. Both Parties have promised that those bonds are as good as the US government. Otherwise, why issue any bond at all? Simply put your hands in the cookie jar and take whatever you want of the people's security any old time you want??

Some of it may be borrowed and invested in infrastructure. It pays itself back and more. Some of it is spent on military weaponry and it could be argued you get none of that back. Whichever the case, that money is borrowed from the fund to keep from asking the rest of America, the rich primarily, to pay for what they say we need, whatever the case.

[Romulox]

25. One cannot borrow money from one's self. That's the point.

The money was spent--it's gone. For any of it to be "repaid", it will have to be collected in taxes. It's as simple as that.

There is simply no third party obligor from whom we can collect; we owe the money (and this includes retirees and SS recipients!)

[kentuck]

28. Is it a Social Security fund by law?

Why was it created?

Is it simply a sly way to collect taxes from the poor with no intent to ever offer anything back in return for the money? Or do we just get wars and tax breaks for the wealthy as the middle and poorer classes continue to sink deeper and deeper into the quicksand?

The money was put into the trust fund, by law, for a specific purpose. It was taken out for other purposes. It would be illegal to take the money out without a bond or promise to pay it back. That would break the promise that was made to the American people 75 years ago.

[BeFree]

33. Ok

Lets say they put the money back, in the form of cash.

First, where would the money come from? Another bond and run the printers?

And where would all that cash be placed? Buy gold with it? Put it in a vault?



But you got it: It is a broken promise.

[kentuck]

37. There is no maturity date..

It does not have to go in tomorrow or even next year but it has to go in as the people and the program need it. Right now, it is paying for itself. Soon, we will need to get some of that 2.5 trillion back. I would suggest a good place to look for it would be from the people that got it. Does that mean that they might have to pay a little more in taxes? Yes, if it is for the general welfare of the people.

That was the purpose behind the SS fix in 1983. They raised our taxes then. Well, some of our taxes. That money made a lot of people wealthy. Now, we are not supposed to ask for it back? We don't ask for it to be put in a vault. We ask that it be paid in benefits to those that need it.

[Hannah Bell]

43. uh, they would do it like they regularly do, whenever they redeem borrowings

from intragovernmental accounts.

it isn't all redeemed in a big lump sum.

[Hannah Bell]

42. "it's as simple as that" - uh, not. all workers pay social security taxes.

no capitalists do.

half of workers pay minimal income taxes. big capitalists pay the majority of income taxes.

Capital owes labor. not "we".

[Romulox]

56. Every time you're asked HOW we get the rich to pay their fair share, you got nothing.

You argue for the status quo. :hi:

[Hannah Bell]

60. why is uncapping fica so easy, but rescinding the bush tax cuts so difficult?

why cheer for what your enemies want?

[Romulox]

74. Those two things only stand in conflict in your own mind.

It's a completely bogus dichotomy.

"why cheer for what your enemies want?"

Because my "allies" are telling me that growth in productivity means that cuts of "only" 25% to my Social Security benefit are "no big deal", while a similar cut to their own benefit would be disastrous. That's only the first of my concerns, (the nonsensical "welfare" argument being another.) :shrug:

[Hannah Bell]

77. lol. not bogus at all. the choice = pushing capital to pay back what they stole or

continuing the reagan scam by increasing taxation of labor so capital can keep stealing.

[Yupster]

68. Most public schoolteachers

in California, Texas and many other states do not pay into social security.

That is the largest group that is outside the system.

Why?

I have no idea.

[girl gone mad]

44. The money does not have to be collected in taxes.

Our government is free to shore up Social Security at any time. They did it in 1982 when the assets of the trust fund were close to being depleted and Congress allowed the Old Age and Survivors Insurance Fund, which is the largest of the funds, to borrow from elsewhere in the system.

For what it's worth, a debtor's debts also represent the savings (wealth) of the lender. In this case our government's debts represent the savings (wealth) of the SS recipients

[Romulox]

57. Firing up the printing presses (or borrowing more) is a de facto tax on everyone

(including SS recipients.)

Again, if issuing IOUs to ones self and then printing (or borrowing) money to finance these IOUs is the path to prosperity, why aren't we all rich by now? :shrug: :hi:

[Hannah Bell]

61. not in a recession. not doing it = tax on everyone in the form of spiraling job losses,

wage clawbacks, & increasing poverty.

[Romulox]

67. That has not a thing to do with a discussion of SS. nt

[Hannah Bell]

78. just because you don't get the implications of your own recommendations.

[Romulox]

83. What a waste of time reading your two responses to me on this thread today!

Honestly, I'm not sure I believe you're for real, any more. :shrug:

[BeFree]

94. I am beginning to wonder myself

if it is real or AI gone awry.

[Hannah Bell]

102. did you figure out the difference between deficit & debt yet?

[Hannah Bell]

101. feel free to ignore & not respond.

[girl gone mad]

66. You're confusing two separate issues.

Misallocation of funds is the primary reason we haven't seen a huge improvement in the quality of our lives concomitant with increased spending.

When the government spent heavily on infrastructure and public works projects after the Great Depression, life did improve drastically for most. When the government poured money into expanding productive capacity during the war, the American standard of living once again rose.

I think this would be a case of be careful what you wish for. If the government were to stop spending and pay down debts, we would see equal declines in private sector savings. Not really a good thing in the midst of debt deflation, when the private sector inherently desires to net save.

[BeFree]

24. Thanks, Romulox

For being wise about this and plainly stating that fact so well.

People need to understand what is happening.

[Hannah Bell]

40. lol. better to "owe ourselves" than to owe jp morgan. & the debt to ourselves

is the same as a debt to a bank, & paid back the same way.

only in this case, the biggest debt "to ourselves" is the social security debt. which is really owed, not by "ourselves," but by capital, to labor.

& they got plenty of wealth.

[Recursion]

46. A conservative blogger (gasp!) proposed an interesting thought experiment

Imagine the social security trust fund were literally a physical stack of bonds being kept somewhere (it's not, but just play along).

One day the new intern is sent to go fetch the $2.5 trillion in bonds and accidentally drops it in the shredder. On the one hand, he's done something horrible by destroying all of Social Security's assets. On the other hand, he's done something great by reducing the national debt by $2.5 trillion.

The fact that FICA levies paid into the general revenue before doesn't change the fact that honoring those bonds is going to require raising income taxes (or other revenue sources) and/or cutting spending.

[girl gone mad]

48. That's the dumbest thing I've heard in ages.

just the type of nonsense I would expect from a "conservative blogger".

[Recursion]

49. Shrug

An asset for Social Security is a liability for the Treasury. It's a fair point.

[girl gone mad]

51. And this particular Treasury liability is an asset to working Americans.

What other debt obligations should the Treasury start shredding? Do you want to shred Granny's savings bonds, too? How would that impact our economy? Have you put any thought into this at all?

[Recursion]

52. WTF makes you think I want to defund social security?

Seriously, where did you get that idea? I want to massively raise taxes to pay for a lot of things.

[Romulox]

59. It's a liability to working Americans, too. You can't pretend the debt away.

:shrug:

[girl gone mad]

64. Where, specifically is the liability to working Americans?

[Romulox]

84. Working Americans are where the government gets the bulk of its revenue.

Jeesh. :hi:

[girl gone mad]

104. Taxes don't fund spending at the federal level.

[Hannah Bell]

106. oh, bull. the top 1% pays 40% of income taxes; the top 5% pays 60%.

and they ain't "working americans".

[Yupster]

69. If they unite the social security trust fund with the general treasury

couldn't theyu then cancel out the asset and liability (you can't owe money to yourself), and then magically just with accounting alone, the $ 2.5 trillion will puff, disappear.

[Recursion]

73. Except we do owe money to ourselves

Imagine you had a piggy bank you put your tips in, saving up for retirement. Every time you wanted to buy a pack of smokes, you took some of the money out and replaced it with an IOU. When it comes time to take money out of the piggy bank for its purpose, you're going to have to come up with a different revenue stream to pay those IOUs.

[girl gone mad]

105. But we're talking about the federal government, not a personal pigy bank.

If you were the issuer of the currency in which the IOU's were written, it wouldn't matter that the money had been replaced with IOUs. In fact, it would probably be foolish to keep any money in a piggy bank in the first place.

[Hannah Bell]

79. figures that a conservative blogger would spout nonsense. does your "gasp"

signify you believe conservative bloggers are worth paying attention to?

[Fool Count]

99. That intern did something terrible for the people whose

golden years those bonds were intended to ensure. He did something great for the people
whose productive years' efforts will have been taxed to pay that debt. That is exactly
what this SS debate is all about. Who deserves that money more, the retirees or their
children and grand children? It is really hard to argue that the contributors are not
entitled to, at least, getting their money back. On the other hand, many millions of
contributors did expire long before they had a chance to reclaim their contributions,
that's where the surplus comes from. Is it fair now to go ahead and spend that money
on those who did not put enough money in? In my own view, it is fair, since they were
promised that much and the promises must be kept. But I don't see how is it an obligation
to keep that scheme going in its current form for all future generations.The question
is how to make that time cut-off while transitioning to the new more sustainable formula.
But there is no question that the trust fund obligations must be honored. Apparently
the SS Commission Chairman thinks otherwise. That is a purely political question which
will be ultimately decided at the ballot box. I don't see how the retirees with all
their political clout can lose on that one. What happens after the trust fund is exhausted
is another matter.

[girl gone mad]

108. Future generations are not harmed by SS.

No one is robbing from the future.

If you want to be concerned for the children and grandchildren, it's better to focus on actual problems, not imaginary ones.

Ecological and environmental destruction, for example, pose a serious threat to future generations. Likewise, passing on a country with high unemployment that can't actually produce enough to meet its own needs will cause real harm.

[Common Sense Party]

35. What I love is how Congress does NOT have to play by their own rules.

Case in point: ERISA laws.

There are strict laws and stiff penalties preventing an employer from dipping into the company pension or 401(k), and taking that money that has been earmarked for employees' retirement and using it, say, to prop up the business during a weak economy or a sales slump.

Yet, Congress (who wrote ERISA, by the way), sees NO PROBLEM with dipping into the Social Security till for the last 40 years and spending the surplus, willy-nilly, wherever they see fit.

Does this make sense to anyone?

[girl gone mad]

50. Yes, it does make sense.

As long as our government was going to spend, it was wise to borrow from SS. There is no good reason for the issuer of fiat currency to keep a surplus of fiat money. It would make even less sense to do so while borrowing on the open market and, particularly, borrowing from foreign savers.

[Common Sense Party]

55. Then the government shouldn't have been deficit spending.

Because the debt must eventually be paid. Now cuts in services will be even deeper--or the debt will grow larger.

[girl gone mad]

65. Government debt is not true debt.

I think you are thinking that government debt is just like household debt, but it's not.

Our government spends money into existence. If they didn't spend anything, you would never have any dollars in your pocket.

At the macroeconomic level, reserves that are transferred to banks through electronic government disbursements are used to buy treasuries. When a treasury is bought, this involves a transfer of reserves from the buyer’s bank reserve account at the Fed to the government’s account.

When the treasuries are sold or redeemed, the reserves that were “stored” at interest are simply switched back, creating a deposit again. It’s pretty much the same as buying and redeeming a CD. It’s just a switch from demand in time back to demand in a bank account, and a switch between reserves and securities at the government level. That is to say, the government doesn’t have to draw on revenue (tax), borrow, or sell assets to cover its “debt,” as households and firms do. It’s just a matter of electronically crediting and debiting accounts on the (consolidated) government books. It may look as if there is a financial relationship occurring between the Central Bank and the Treasury Dept. due to the accounting, but it’s just a fictional relationship.

The key to understanding or modern monetary system is this horizontal/vertical relationship. Currency issuance through government disbursement is used to increase non-government net financial assets, and taxation withdraws net financial assets from the non-government balance sheet. Debt issuance by the Treasury is a monetary operation for draining reserves to permit the Central Bank to hit its target rate.

Once you understand this, you will know why the economy appears to be functioning contrary to the predictions of neoclassical theory. Deficits and debt are not cause for alarm and our government cannot default.

You may not like this system and you may take issue with many of the political consequence of the system, but it is what it is. I think once more people understand what it is, the people will have better capacity to control economic policy and use our monetary tools to improve the lives of most citizens.

[BeFree]

76. In short

If I steal $100 dollars from you, I am increasing my wealth by $100.

They stole $2.5 T from us and it made them wealthier. I think we all get it.

[Romulox]

85. If it's all a fictional on a government ledger, why not add a few zeros to every SS check, and

we'll all be rich?

Perhaps your explanation leaves out a few limiting factors--otherwise let's fire up the Univac, transfer the bits about, and we'll all be rich. Right? :hi:

[girl gone mad]

103. We are still constrained by the threat of inflation, but..

at this point inflationary risks are at a minimum.

There are a few reasons why just adding zeros to SS checks wouldn't be successful, as both Bush and Obama have discovered since their respective helicopter money drops failed to stimulate the economy in the manner intended.

Our focus should be on restoring productive capacity and getting people back to work. A payroll tax holiday would be the quickest solution, imo. We also need a national jobs program to guarantee a minimum wage job for anyone who is willing and able to take employment.

There are many good social reasons to tie money to work rather than gift it through welfare or windfall checks. Importantly, we need to consider the society we are leaving to our children and grandchildren. It would be a mistake to hand them an economy with 20% unemployment and massive capacity under-utilization - essentially an economy where people are unable to make the things they need and want, with a labor and engineering force that can no longer compete with foreign manufacturers.

In short, we still need to carefully consider how to spend. Helicopter money drops won't help long term, and in the midst of this debt deflation and repudiation cycle, they likely won't even give us much of a short term boost.

[thelordofhell]

62. They took all that money and gave tax cuts to the rich

It's that simple.

[Yupster]

70. Wouldn't the $ 2.5 trillion be part of the government's total debt,

not deficit?

[BeFree]

75. Isn't our debt part of the deficit?

The debt each year, unpaid and carried over year to year, adds to the overall deficit.

Seems to me the bonds are a debt and if the debt owed to ourselves is $2.5 T, then that $2,5 T is part of the deficit.

So.... if they can get that 2.5 T off the books, then the deficit decreases by 2.5?

[Hannah Bell]

80. no, the deficit adds to the debt. you've got it backwards, per usual.

[BeFree]

82. This oughtta ring a bell

Definitions

Debt: liability or obligation to pay or render something

Deficit: Amount by which a sum of money falls short: shortage

First we incur a debt, and then being short of the money creates a deficit in a budget.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

91. My rent is five hundred dollars, but I can only afford 495.

So I've got a 5 dollar deficit this month. I can borrow five dollars, but that will only add 5 dollars to my 10,000 dollar debt that I have with various lenders.

[BeFree]

92. Your rent is a debt

It starts with a debt, and when the debt can't be paid, it becomes a deficit.

In other words, if there is no debt, there can be no deficit.

[HiFructosePronSyrup]

98. If I don't pay it and owe back rent, it's a debt.

Otherwise it's just an expense.

[BeFree]

107. Right

If you can't pay your debt, it is because you have a deficit.

You can have a debt and no deficit. But you can't have a deficit if you have no debt.

So, again, debt comes first, then you may, or may not, have a deficit to pay that debt. If you overcome the deficit and pay the debt, the debt goes away.

If you continue to have a deficit the debt remains.

Debt comes first. In this case the SS bonds. The government can't pay the debt instrument - bonds, so it has a deficit of money to pay back SS.

Again: If you have no debt, no deficit can exist. If you have a debt and it can't be paid because you have a deficit of funds, the debt remains, and you have a deficit.

[Hannah Bell]

100. no, the budget deficit is the shortfall in the yearly budget, the national debt is the total

smount owed.

Government debt (also known as public debt, national debt)<1><2> is money (or credit) owed by any level of government; either central government, federal government, municipal government or local government. By contrast, annual government deficit refers to the difference between government receipts and spending in a single year. Debt of a sovereign government is called sovereign debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Government_debt

backward, as per usual.

[newspeak]

71. Reagan gave the wealthy a nice tax cut from 66% to 28%

Little Boots gives his "base" a nice tax cut, so our income taxes are supposed to be paying for infrastructure, then there was Little Boot's fabricated war so he could give his "base" more of our money (war profiteers). So the money we paid into SS was "borrowed" because his greedy fatcat friends apparently don't need to pay for the infrastructure. We can suffer while they reap--because that Bullshite excuse that lowering the tax on the wealthy didn't work!!!! Little Boot's has the worst job creations record since the depression while giving his friend's a break.

Truly fekked up and sick!!!

[earth mom]

86. It all boils down to theft to pay for the genocidal wars that line the pockets of the rich

while the holy rollers rejoice at the annihilation of muslims from the holy lands while they wait for the rapture.

:argh:

[RandomThoughts]

88. Waiting for the rapture is selfish for most people.

[earth mom]

89. Being a greedy sociopathic a$$hole is just as selfish if not more. nt

[RandomThoughts]

90. Everyone is a little selfish.

I guess it is about what you are willing to do or give up to get something.


As I have said, I will have the good things due to me, but wont do anything I disagree with to get them.

So it has two components to it. What you think you should have, and also what you are willing to do to get it.

[earth mom]

93. Greed is the root of all evil. nt

[RandomThoughts]

95. If you blame it all on greed.

Then you fall into the same trap of people that say having a beer is the root of all evil, or some sex thing, or some other thing thought wrong.

[earth mom]

96. We can debate this all day, but at this point, I'd say greed tops everything. nt

[RandomThoughts]

97. Greed is an expression of selfishness.

So is part of many things. People wanting to own someone for self reasons for example, has a form of greed in it also.


In that greed is a subset of selfishness, you do make a valid point on it having worse effects then some other things.