Bluegrassrivals

The National Debt now stands at 17.3 Trillion dollars.

Trying to wrap one's head around how much money that is, is no small task. I came at the idea from several different angles but, this is the one that made the most sense to me. Let's say for the sake of this discussion only, that the earth is really only about 7 thousand years old. If that were indeed the case, that would mean that so far, a mere 220.75 billion seconds have ticked by since the day the earth was made. (the actual number would be 220,752,000,000)

The national debt number by comparison when in alignment, is 17,293,019,654,983. That means, using our model, that history has used up slightly over one quarter, of only one trillion seconds since the creation. While our national debt is over 68 times that amount. Therefore, if we paid back a million dollars a second starting from the time the debt ceiling is, without doubt, extended, it would take the US 548,358 years to pay it back WITHOUT INTEREST. That number is 78 times greater than the length of time since the creation! So at a million dollars a second, we could say that we'd be able to pay back an interest free principle of 17T plus, by the year 550,372 AD. To say that is mind boggling doesn't quite cut it. Even though the time of earth's creation is in dispute, we still know that there has been likely only about 7,000 years worth of recorded history. So, even at that, we are talking about an impossibly large number here.

So, in anticipation of another budget bru ha-ha, up steps United States Secretary of the Treasury Jack Lew, to condemn what he calls Republican brinksmanship and tell us that if we don't raise the debt ceiling again, it will be an example of immoral and profoundly bad stewardship, along with an unconscionable rejection of our national responsibility.

Maybe one can douse a fire by throwing gas on it, I would say otherwise. What say you?

now that just cant be true nicker:

after all

[Image: liberal-logic-101-509.jpg]

WideMiddle03 Wrote:now that just cant be true nicker:

after all

[Image: liberal-logic-101-509.jpg]

Well, you may need to introduce the Obama of 2008 to the Obama who is now President, because they are evidently two different people, LOL.

Excerpt from a campaign speech from then Senator Obama on July 03, 2008---- "The problem is, is that the way Bush has done it over the last eight years is to take out a credit card from the Bank of China in the name of our children, [SIZE="5"]driving up our national debt from $5 trillion [/SIZE]for the first 42 presidents -- number 43 added $4 trillion by his lonesome, so that we now have over $9 trillion of debt that we are going to have to pay back -- $30,000 for every man, woman and child.
That's irresponsible. It's unpatriotic."

Clearly Senator Obama had a different view that does President Obama. :biggrin:

It is so difficult for me to wrap my head around those kinds of numbers....to even try to fathom the enormity.

Granny Bear Wrote:It is so difficult for me to wrap my head around those kinds of numbers....to even try to fathom the enormity.

It's difficult for anybody Granny. The Democrat debt pushers take a sublimely simple tack on all this. They claim to understand money well enough to safely navigate the US fiscal ship of state out on the rough and uncharted seas of global finance. Insisting America can survive, even if she pushes on through the 20 trillion dollar debt mark by 2016. It's just numbers they say. A decidedly irresponsible and arrogant position to be sure. While at the same time, justifying such naïve aspects of their own behavior with a Peter Pan like awe and faith in the greatness of the United States and her ability to generate so much wealth. A position that sort of mixes knowledge and magic, like Peter Pan if we only believe strongly enough, we can fly. The idea is that the financial strength of the US economy is resilient enough to absorb any mistake they could make, even though supposedly, they know exactly what they're doing because, I suppose, said economy has a life of it's own. The two concepts mentioned, are mutually exclusive 'inmates' of a sort, which could only reside together in the minds of true believers. The result of a kind of secular faith based, self delusion. How can one say he is a master of economics, if he completely rejects out of hand the very mechanisms and wisdom that packed the vault he inherited, with all that cash in the first place? Therefore, the afore mentioned Keynesian kooks think the reality of the 80's and 90's in which, the US was flush with cash, was somehow an aberration, and undeterred by the steely missiles of reality, they are none the less, very comfortable in foregoing the tried and true, opting instead for an all-in strategy, in order to try it 'their way' for a while.

The only problem is, they're using the wealth of the nation to go all-in. They're playing with the money that is the substance of our life's work. The savings accounts, pension funds, social security, disaster relief, entitlement funding, our right to remain a sovereign nation through our combined military might, you know, all of our national wealth, our life's blood. And, as they say, "the life is in the blood", there is therefore a threshold that once crossed, from which there is no return. Only so much blood can reasonably be taken, as an individual, or a nation. After that point, recovery is impossible and it's over.

Now, this is what I find so conflicting about the liberal thought process. On the one hand you have the conditions outlined above in which supposedly we have, thanks to the idea of Keynesian Economics, a conveyor belt of endless money coming from La-La Land. :eyeroll: A situation they believe, is sort of guaranteed by the greatness of our nation, it's power, military might, ability to print money and generate new wealth. On the other hand those very same Keynesian adherents, propagators of the movement, are liberals who are equally committed to bring America down from her perch, into a new world order, (It is at this point they like to play John Lennon's lyric from his "Imagine" album; "A Brotherhood of Man" ---LOL) in which, she is to take her rightful place as an also-ran among the nations, with no more than an equal voice in global economics. If we give up the very authority we now have as the world's premier super power, how are we going to be in a position from which to dictate the terms under which we are going to pay back this impossibly vast debt? I mean, we would at that time be just another voice in the crowd ruled by the United Nations, right? :igiveup:

Hence the axiom, "You can't have it both ways". :biggrin:

Rather than John Lennon, another song by R.E.M. comes to my mind.


That's great, it starts with an earthquake
Birds and snakes, an aeroplane, and Lenny Bruce is not afraid

Eye of a hurricane, listen to yourself churn
World serves its own needs, don't misserve your own needs
Feed it up a knock, speed, grunt, no, strength
The ladder starts to clatter with a fear of height, down, height
Wire in a fire, represent the seven games
And a government for hire and a combat site
Left her, wasn't coming in a hurry with the Furies breathing down your neck

Team by team, reporters baffled, trumped, tethered, cropped
Look at that low plane, fine, then
Uh-oh, overflow, population, common group
But it'll do, save yourself, serve yourself
World serves its own needs, listen to your heart bleed
Tell me with the Rapture and the reverent in the right, right
You vitriolic, patriotic, slam fight, bright light
Feeling pretty psyched

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine

Six o'clock, TV hour, don't get caught in foreign tower
Slash and burn, return, listen to yourself churn
Lock him in uniform, book burning, bloodletting
Every motive escalate, automotive incinerate
Light a candle, light a motive, step down, step down
Watch your heel crush, crush, uh-oh
This means no fear, cavalier, renegade and steering clear
A tournament, a tournament, a tournament of lies
Offer me solutions, offer me alternatives, and I decline

It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)
I feel fine (I feel fine)

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)

The other night I dreamt a nice continental drift divide
Mountains sit in a line, Leonard Bernstein
Leonid Brezhnev, Lenny Bruce, and Lester Bangs
Birthday party, cheesecake, jellybean, boom
You symbiotic, patriotic, slam but neck, right? Right

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)

It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it (It's time I had some time alone)
It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine (It's time I had some time alone)

(It's time I had some time alone)

nothing to see here folks. It will be passed and raised with out thinking twice

You are correct!

But can we gripe and complain just a little??

nky Wrote:nothing to see here folks. It will be passed and raised with out thinking twice

Isn't that the truth! Likewise, I will not have to think twice when I vote to flush these bozos. :biggrin: