Are you worried about the National Debt?

[AzCivic]

I used to be...like many Americans I fell for the scare tactics that some politicians like to use concerning the "huge" national debt. I mean think about the number, 8.something TRILLION dollars. It IS huge, a number the human mind almost can't manage to make sense of.

But lets take a different look at it. As my accounting teacher would always say a number by itself is usually meaningless. Is a $10million net income good for a company? It all depends, what was the net income before? What kind of net income do other companies in the industry make? How does this relate to debt? etc. As you can see the number is practically meaningless by itself, just like the number that represents the national debt. How does this debt compare to our GDP? Take a look:
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/thumb/8/8d/National_debt_as_a_%25_of_gdp.jpg/800px-National_debt_as_a_%25_of_gdp.jpg

Does it look so bad now? Not really. Yeah it has gone up in recent years, but thats what tends to happen after we get attacked on our own soil. Fact is our economy is so damn big that a 8.something trillion dollar debt isn't really all that bad.


On another related note, do you think we spend too much on defense? You probably do, again a result of the scare tactics some politicians and their brainless followers like to use. Lets take a look:
http://www.optimist123.com/photos/uncategorized/wsjchartcomments.gif

[ChrisCantSkate]

yeah i agree, i usta think it was a problem but then i learned a little about economics and as you said, accounting. but even on top of that the money that "we" owe is out doing something right now, not just an idle 8 trillion dollars the government spent with no regard at all. it does need to come down, but its not a huge problem like we are sometimes lead to believe. just sounds good around november.

[IALuder]

with the economy rising and people spending more money i really dont see it has a problem. the government has their way to get amounts of money to lower it every year. well just see what happens till the redo the budget.

[AzCivic]

yeah i agree, i usta think it was a problem but then i learned a little about economics and as you said, accounting. but even on top of that the money that "we" owe is out doing something right now, not just an idle 8 trillion dollars the government spent with no regard at all. it does need to come down, but its not a huge problem like we are sometimes lead to believe. just sounds good around november.

yeah, it's not like money is being spent and we have nothing to show for it. I could care less if the debt is run up if it's spent protecting our country. The debt was pretty low in the 70's and what are the 70's known for? bell bottoms and slow ass domestic v8's. :op

the ratio of debt to GDP could use some help though, i agree. However, maybe rather than trying to pay down the debt we could focus on the bottom side of the fraction and increase the size of the GDP. Or a little of both I guess.

[ChrisCantSkate]

heh every country wants to increase their gross domextic product every year as much as possible, so that isnt very realistic to raise it a whole lot without a backlash effect when we cannot sustain that level of production. the budjet just needs to be closely watched and set long term goals, maybe over the next 10 years to have it back on the decline. the only problem is long term financial planning usually dosnt plan for wars, natural disasters and anything of those likes which easily can cost billions of dollars overnight, and many times that in the recurring years

[AzCivic]

here is something I found interesting on the idea of paying down the debt:
http://www.optimist123.com/photos/uncategorized/_paydown19.gif

I'm not saying it's true, but it's something to make you say "hmmm".