Journal tomhudson's Journal: i-month US budget deficit hits record $221bn 30
The US government recorded a budget deficit of $221bn (£147.6bn) in February - the largest monthly deficit in its history.
The total deficit since the beginning of the fiscal year in October now stands at $651.6bn, the figures from the US treasury show.
That puts it on track to beat last year's record annual budget deficit of $1.4tn.
So last month, the feds managed to spend more than $2k more than they took in, for every family. Very scary.
Meet the new boss, same as the old boss (Score:2)
Skewed (Score:2)
I expected better of you Tom.
Re: (Score:2)
HAHAHAHAHA -- very nice.
Funny how Hudson always manages to overlook the existentially important details, or lack thereof, eh?
But in regards to the post: heh, that's kinda scary eh?
Re: (Score:2)
I admit it had me going for a second :-)
The whole deficit out of control thing is just downright scary. I don't have a clue where it will end.
Re: (Score:2)
I have a theory on that: One world currency.
Of course, I'm a paranoid nut-job with all those tendencies, but my therapist and shrink seem to think I'm OK, just a little overly perceptive at times.
But if you consider, in the wake of everything that's happening, and the world-bank failures that are possible, it makes good sense to consider that this may be a result.
If all the nations bankrupt themselves (currently ongoing, Greece being the most recent "victim"), and if we can introduce one-world legislation (
Re: (Score:2)
One world currency? Absolutely not. Let each country have their own - you screw up, you pay the price, rather than drag everyone else down like Greece is doing in the EU.
Banks may fail in the US, but banks have always been failing in the US because your banking system is totally retarded, open to political manipulation, and corrupt to the core.
Look north - the country with the worlds #1-rated banking system. 2 small regional bank failures since before the Great Depression. The difference included no to
Re: (Score:2)
Oh no, you misunderstand. It's not about what's right, it's about what secures power for the uppermost echelon (ya know, the ones that have the power to move us to a one-world currency in the first place).
Banks failing in the US used to only affect the US, now they affect everyone's banks, thanks to the likes of the NYSE and the interlinking of all the exchanges, plus the fact that most banks are also large trading houses. We invest in foreign markets, and foreign markets invest here. So the risk has been s
What is worse (Score:1)
There's absolutely no credible way to ever get out of the mess short of massive hyperinflation, to just "pay off" all this debt with useless coupon money. They completely hosed the wealth making aspects of the country over a 30 year time span. And it ain't coming back either, because the conmen who did it are still running things. They have also been running the shredders at the Fed and are still resisting any audits. They do not want the US people to ever actually know how bad they got ripped off.
This is t
Re: (Score:2)
A 7% value-added tax, applied to everything (including new homes and cars, and stock transactions), the elimination of HMOs and reverting to a single-payer health-care system so as to cap medical costs, the decriminalization of recreational pharmacology (and the taxation of same) would more than eliminate the deficit - it would start paying down the debt. Remove the home mortgage tax deduction (it doesn't work - just makes houses more expensive for the next generation and discriminates against renters),
T
Re: (Score:2)
A 7% value-added tax, applied to everything (including new homes and cars, and stock transactions), the elimination of HMOs and reverting to a single-payer health-care system so as to cap medical costs,
I have no objection to the former and I could not possibly be more in support of the latter (though not just for the reason you gave).
the decriminalization of recreational pharmacology (and the taxation of same)
I'm not convinced that legalizing it would actually make much revenue for the state. Currently people who want to buy know where and how to buy, and their sellers are doing pretty well for themselves under this system. I don't see how we would encourage the sellers to suddenly start collecting and paying taxes for their products... The only way that I see it becoming a r
Re: (Score:2)
The elimination of a couple hundred billion an year in enforcement and incarceration costs is a pretty good financial gain.
Legalize it and tax the sh*t out of it, while continuing to come down hard on illegal suppliers (same as moonshiners).
Re: (Score:1)
You regulate drugs and sell them right next beer in your local grocery store.
Taxing doesn't create wealth (Score:2, Informative)
It never has either, only transfers wealth from one person to another. The big problem is we no longer produce much wealth. And any all tax schemes are still just rearranging deck chairs. And that's why none of them will work.
Now, if you want to maintain the fiat currency game, there is one way to boost the economy..complete elimination of all income taxes, just stop with the magical formulae of taxes, that stuff is just slap silly and ridiculous under a fiat currency system, combined with a carved
Re: (Score:2)
read it again (Score:1)
I addressed funding and emphasized that government is critical in some aspects. Government services still get paid under my proposal, *directly*, and this is *also* the way new currency starts to get into circulation, as opposed to loaning it with interest via private banks, which is the current model which I think sucks.
I just disagree on the necessity of taxation when you can go to direct funding of government instead. I see taxation under fiat currency systems to be coercive social enginee
Re: (Score:1)
The people who review federal financial aid forms for University students. An activity which you can trace a straight line from Government Employee to Creation of Wealth for America.
Likewise many government jobs ARE important. Keeping trade secrets of US companeis secret against international espionage. Helps ensure R&D funding of US corp
Some clarification here (Score:1)
I never said some government wasn't necessary. All shared commons activity can be traced to wealth creation, but only as a precursor and facilitator, not as the direct activity, and my post was more on how this necessary part of government gets funded, not the minutiae of this or that governmental job, which would require an encyclopedia to list them all and their pluses and minuses. Just really don't have the time nor inclination to get into it right now on a case by case by case example. University fundin
Re: (Score:1)
The most lectures I ever attended are the ones where the professor went completely off plan and just started talking.
I also learned almost as much talking to my professors in their offices as I did in class.
E-Learning has a place in society. Computers CANNOT replace face to face interaction for every single topic. Yes in some small scale experiments where you have someone teaching a class who is highly motivated and
Re: (Score:2)
opm.gov has lots of this information. Yes, most of the people making the most in the government are in DC, NY, and LA. Why? Because there are area differentials, with those three cities being the highest.
$170,000/yr is a weird sounding amount. I suspect it was cherry picked to appear ominous. Perhaps between the two years being compared, a large chunk of people moved up a step.
And I'd like to know which feds are getting these generous pensions. Most feds who had the old pension system are retired. The rest
Re: (Score:1)
Looking at OPM, only scientists and executives can make anywhere near $170k.
Nifty site btw, thanks for the link. :)
Re: (Score:2)
Working as a contractor and having looked for work with the fed means I've looked at it a few times. If nothing else, weather related closures are listed there for work :D
Re: (Score:1)
No spelung arrers, jiss one grammartopically arrer I scene ;)
Hey, you worked hard, good for you, especially that not wasting your time over partying. I still think college education is way too expensive and they could cut the costs down more.
Bwaa, I can't afford to even take cheap classes at community college. Maybe in a few more years.. maybe. I graduated HS with an associates in science equivalent, but never went for the paperwork. I had all my HS credits by 14 years old so they let me take
Re: (Score:2)
Read a book a month on a topic, and in 10 years you're an expert in that topic, unless its something that changes rapidly.
I which case, read 5 books a month on a topic to condense it down to two years.
My only question - how many cubic butt tons in a Library of Congress?
Ha! (Score:1)
I'd have to guess on answering that question. If it is slashdot's favorite redirect guy..I guess it is a one for one deal there..
Debt visualization (Score:2)
I have provided links to sources and bundled everything into a Google Doc. If you find an error or a better or additional way of visualizing this I would appreciate any and all feedback.
Google Doc:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/ccc?key=0AmfLkI3jKthqdHZkdjhJTkFNTDFVT284T0RXU1RkcHc&hl=en [google.com]
Here are my sources:
U.S
Re: (Score:2)
[here's an umbrella for your parade]
Interesting spreadsheet, but I'm not sure about the usefulness of "cords of wood". Aside from the formula error (You divided pounds (B5) by grams per pound (E5) again), a "cord" isn't determined by weight. Technically its a surface area (the face of a stack of wood 4ft by 8ft) but some people estimate a volume by assuming the pieces of wood are 4 feet long. A cord of dollar bills would be a single line of stacks of dollar bills, 8 ft long and 4 ft tall, probably stacke
Re: (Score:2)
It should now be modified to reflect actual weight and size. "Cord of wood" references are now eliminated.
What would really get attention, though, is if you tracked down the salaries of the top 100 people or something like that, then figured out how many years it would take to pay it back if the government taxed them at 10
Re:Debt visualization - other measurements (Score:2)
Barrels of oil?
Or if each dollar were a grain of sand, how big a sand pile you'd have? And how fast the sand would be flowing in the hourglass?
How many minimum wage slave-years it would take to pay off?
If it were a stack of $100 bills, how high a pile it would be?
LOC - Libraries of Congress - if it were == $1/word, how many LOC of books would it represent?
At $100 million a mission, how many Apollo moon trips it represents - just February alone could have put 4400 people on Clarke moonbase