In article . com, wrote:

You just stated that the number is meaningless, and in the sense that the
currancy is not related to anything real, you're correct. Any number of
games can be played with it.

The number is not meaningless. It's very meaningful if used and
compared with other relevant economic statistics, like the size of the
economy.

Comparing debt to the size of the economy is just a feel good for now
measure like you getting a raise in salary and then using that to borrow
more money so you can have a new bass boat when you were at your debt
limit prior to the raise. It's the ability to pay the debt that counts.
Where is the US federal government's ability to pay the debt? Or do you
think that the holders of the debt never want to be paid? Or that
interest isn't consuming ever greater percentages of revenue?

What's the problem with defining what "debt" you are
referring to? Better to rail against mysterious, vagues and evil
debt, I guess.

It's only mysterous to someone who doesn't have a clue.

The 9 trillion figure is federal government debt. If you had half the
clue you claim to have you would have known that.

Excuse me. You didn't specify which type "debt" you were referring
to. I'm supposed to be a mind reader now too?

I expect you to know some of the basics.

And in the context of
your complaining about foreign competition,

I haven't. Stop introducing strawmen.

What I responded to, is you writing 'don't worry about the debt, it will
appear much smaller in the future'.

Wrong, never said that.

Then what exactly were you trying to say?

I said the national debt, which you brought
up, is about the same in size relative to the economy that it was in
the 90s or mid 50's.

So when you earn more, do you go out and borrow more? This way you stay up
to your eyeballs in debt? Do you do that personally? Of course you'll say
you won't. Because it would be stupid to do that. Yet, you fully endorse
the US government running it's finances that way.

The only way that happens is when the
dollar buys less, inflation. Percentage of GNP is figures don't lie but
liars figure sort of thing. Just like your other figures, they are
manufactured and calculated in such a way as to get you not to worry.

Yeah, right. BTW, it's been GDP that everyone had used for decades
now. But I you wouldn't know that, cause you prefer to go by opinion,
rather than actual real data. Curse the darkness instead of lighting a
candle.

Actually the percentage of GDP figure for debt wasn't used to calm
the people until rather recently. But all that means in the end is
staying up one's eyeballs in debt. Shouldn't this GDP growth and revenue
growth been used to pay off the existing debt instead of being used to
qualify for more debt? You're acting like the US federal government
should operate like the guy who can barely make is car payment and so
when he gets a raise he gets a newer more expensive car so he can still
just barely make his car payment each month.

That's long term foolishness. But it looks good in the short term.

The
problem is there isn't enough revenue for the US federal government to
pay the debt and the US government isn't slowing down spending to pay it
back either. You cannot grow debt forever without consquences even if the
GNP keeps growing.

Wrong. It can go on forever as long as the govt can meet the interest
obligations on it's bonds. Back to the house example. I can go from
a $50K house, to a $100K house, to a $500K house as long as I have the
income to meet it. Same with the govt, which is why the size of the
economy is directly relevant.

The interest only loan. Don't you see how that impodes? Interest only
loans are something that morons and suckers get. Because the lender knows
that it will implode. The lender makes a ton of cash and gets the
property!

That's where the US government will end up. That is unless we start
paying a whole lot more (like most of our incomes) in income taxes. You
do know that's what the income tax pays don't you? The interest on the
debt.

And what about the bond market? You have the brightest minds in the
financial community, constantly valuing US debt, realtime, in the
market. Everyone, from major US institutions, to foreign central banks
own US Bonds. If the US is so loaded with debt and unable to meet
it's committments, it's rather peculiar that the long bond is at 6%
interest, instead of 16%, which it was in 1980, when total govt debt
was much less. Did everyone just become stupid?

And what happens if interest rates rise? Once again, you have no thought
of tommorow just today. Are you planing on being dead in the next two
years? I'm not, that's why I'm concerned about the government spending
like a drunken sailor and borrowing like a shop-a-holic with a huge house
and H1 hummer to pay for.

The Federal reserve has been growing the money supply and has now made
the figures there on secret.

Oh, really? Now all the basic monetary figures are a secret?

Strawman. Didn't say 'all'.

LOL
If they did this, wall street would go nuts and the bond market, who
knows a whole hell of a lot more than you, would tank. Reference
please, and make sure it's not some kook website. I want a ref from
CNN, NY Times, WSJ, someone credible.

The M3 Money supply data is no longer released. Try and keep up with
things. For a cite, will the federal reserve press relase do? Horse's mouth.

http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/h6/discm3.htm

Is it important? Many think so...

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com...tionGauge.aspx

A growing supply of dollars means a weaker
dollar. Again, you seem way too focused on the here and now. Short term
thinking. What is being done is short term... the long term is being
neglected for the short. You seem to understand this as you avoid any
discussion of the long term issues. You keep focusing on the government's
'feel good and go to sleep' figures for the moment.

I've been hearing kooks like you predict the end of the world because
of a whole host of narrowly selected statistics for decades.

Projection.

And I;'m
not focused on the here and now. I showed you that govt debt, which
you brought into the discussion of foreign goods, is the same relative
to the economy today as it was in the mid 50's. and in the 90's.
That;s short term?

All you have stated as that the binging continues. At some point the
party is over. Or do you keep yourself at maximum debt load to your
income? If you don't do it personally, why not?

Again, check the facts before you jump to wild end of the world
predictions. Inflation is at 3%, well within the range that is
recognized as ideal. The period when savings were being eaten away by
inflation was the 70's and that's long gone.

So you're also a member of the 'it can't happen again crowd'. I am sure
people said similiar in the 1960s.... and then came the 70s and stagflation.

Of course it can happen again. Soon as we start trying to manage the
economy, adopt trade policies to try to protect ourselves from the real
world, have income tax rates at 70%, put a heafty extra tax on oil, and
have a FED that spewing out money, without regard to inflation, to try
to hide the effects of the above and keep the economy going.

Gee... that's just what it seems the fed is doing when it stopped
publishing the M3.

Just look in the
newspaper and you will find all the banks offering savings alternatives
of 5+%. With inflation at 3%, that 's a positive return, last time I
checked. But, then I check, instead of making stuff up.

Once again you refuse to look at the long term. The US is not making
things others want. Dollars are piling up overseas.

Dollars aren't piling up.

http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/...fx3147533.html

"China foreign exchange reserves top 1 trln usd"

That's called piling up to everyone but the dimwitted.

They are being reinvested here because this
country and our economy are very attractive investment opportunities.
And those investments create jobs.

Yeah.. and we'll all pay to drive on roads owned by foreign corporations!
Eventually there won't be anything left to sell.

Over time, they improve themselves, save, get better
jobs and move up the economic ladder.

They don't need to ruin the US manufacturing base to do so. China is a
large nation that could bring itself up on it's internal markets _ALONE_.

And if they could, they should do this instead of free trade, why?
Because you say so?

There is no free trade with china. China has domestic content laws. Try
and sell your made-in-USA widgets there and see how much tarrif is
slapped on them.

It's exactly what's happening
in China if you look at the real facts. Look at Shanhei. It's a
booming city.

I see a government that takes people's land and makes them homeless. Land
they've had in their families for centuries and then gives it to
corporate interests to profit from. It's tyranny. And now we have that
here in the USA given the New London decision.

Yeah, more doom and gloom that shows how far out of touch with reality
you are. Now you want to start ranting about emminent domain. I see
you don;'t want to talk about Shanghei.

I am sorry you are ignorant about how things work in China. You might
want to come up to speed on that.

Or look how the boogey men of past have improved their
countries, ie Japan, China. Compare that to countries that have
tried to manage trade the most, and they have failed miserably.

As I pointed out to you before, there is no comparison between Japan and
China. It's not the same on any level.

Yes, you're right. China is now at the point where Japan was in the
60's or Korea in the 80s.

You don't get it and never will. Or you do and want to remain ignorant.
In any case, the Japanese worker and US worker were not in wage
competition with each other. It was the Japanese company vs. the US
company. Both nations having significant labor and environmental
protections. A best-product-wins competition as it should be, a great
deal closer to the free/fair trade ideal. The US worker and the Chinese
worker are in wage competition with each other. If the US worker isn't
cheap enough the US company he works for will shut down the factory and
open a new one in China. Or bring in illegal aliens from Mexico to
replace him.

Never said that was my plan. All I said is you have to put any
economic number in perspective. To rail about some debt number
without comparing it to anything else, like the SIZE OF THE ECONOMY,
renders it just about meaningless. As an example of that, I gave you
the case of grandpa's house, but that went right over your head.

No, you just didn't understand the implications of what you stated. Do
you run your personal finances ever increasing your debt load as your
income increases? Pretty stupid way to run one's finances don't you
agree?

No, I don't agree. If you look at any countries that are advancing,
you will see a steady increase in total debt along with income, GDP,
wages, etc. It's a great sign of economic progress.

So you're up to your eyeballs in debt personally and when you get a raise
you borrow more money to get a nicer car or whatever?

Gee... what happens when hard times come and you end up out of work? You're
****ed. That's what will happen to the USA if hard times come... we'll
all be ****ed. That's why it's a poor way to run one's finances.


Always growing one's debt load, keeping it maxed out? It's a
stupid way to run personal finances and even worse when a government's
finances are run that way.

Well, it;s not maxed out, as I told you debt as a percentage of GDP was
twice what it is today during WWII. Now, am I in favor of reducing
it? Sure, whenever they're ready to reduce the growth of federal
spending.

During WW2... nice extreme example. However GDP isn't as important as the
revenue the government takes in.... take a look to see where the income
tax goes....

Plus that federal debt doesn't even include the future liabilities that
there is no projected funding for.

Yeah... you ignore that... any reasonable person doing the finances would
consider such things....

Nice strawman. I haven't argued free trade is bad....

Not a strawman, I was just trying to figure out what the economist you
referenced has to do with anything under discussion here.

Um no you weren't. You were assigning an argument to me as usual.

You provide a reference to a nice little article from 5 years ago about
an economist who won the Nobel prize and I'm supposed to do the poking
around to figure out what the hell the relevance is? LOL.

Yes, you've made it clear you need everything spoon fed to you since
your arugments thus far have been a regurgitation of what Rush Limbaugh
says.

Since when is it neo-con spin to point out that the tax cuts worked and
the economy is doing nicely? Cutting taxes in times of recession was
accepted as core liberal Keynsian economic fact for most of the last
century. It apparently was accepted and worked when JFK did it. But
now, for some peculiar reason, it's now a bad idea. I guess Bush
should have raised taxes, so we could have had plunged the economy into
the calamity you desperatley want.

It is when your arguments sound like the Rush Limbaugh show. You keep
harping on the same things and have the view that long term mismanagement
is fine.

Free trade is where we don't listen to guys like you and try to lock
out foreign competition on the faulty notion that everyone is going to
be better off.

Again, strawmen. I never stated anything of the sort. Free trade doesn't
exist. Plain and simple. US and China trade is not free, fair, or
anything else of the sort. That's a fact. It doesn't mean I want to lock
out oreign competition or anything else, it's a fact, there is no such
thing as free trade. Tarrifs, local laws, etc and so forth exist all over
the world. There is no such thing as free trade.

Now you want to argue fine points of definition? Seems Bush41,
Clinton, Congress and most economists understand it well enough though.
They all supported NAFTA.

Not my fault you fall for image.

I'm the one for FREEDOM, including trade.

You're arguing pro-china. China is an oppressive modern police state
where there is no such thing as conflict of interest. Where corporate
CEO, government offical, military general, and high ranking party member
can be all the same guy.

I'm not pro China. I'm pro free trade and recognize that there are
huge benefits from it.

There is no free trade with china. Try selling US made widgets there.

And I think I entered this thread by saying
that low cost imports are not all bad. You have to look at both sides
of the ledger. They provide low cost products that everyone,
including and maybe especially, the lower income receive benefit from.

Yeah, his job is overseas... he wasn't low income before... but now he
can buy the crap with his unemployment check!

If a low income family can buy a foreign product cheaply, that is a
positive. Without foreign competition, inflation would be higher and
we would have crappy products. Again,. the classic is the US auto
industry. If they did not have oreign competition, we would still be
buying crappy cars.

Strawman. There is foreign competition and then there is 'free trade'.
There is no free trade with China. It's wage competition between the US
worker and the Chinese worker. Not competition in the free market.

Your the one that find
something wrong with folks in China providing some products which we
get an good prices and that help them improve their lives by working up
the economic ladder.

Another strawman.

That seems to be your favorite word, instead of any rational argument,
backed by facts. And it's not a "strawman". This happened in Japan,
Korea, Singapore.... Try reading.

You keep assigning arguments to me then knocking them down. I call it
what it is. Japan was an industrialized nation before WW2. US companies
did not relocate factories in mass to Korea. South Korea isn't operated
like China either. You don't understand the fundamental differences
between the nations and how you're attempt to draw a parallel is in error.

I find a problem with US corporations making everything in china for
sale in the USA. I have a problem when China is being used to drive down
the wages and crush the middle class of the USA.

Yeah, I'm sure they all feel crushed when they buy a fan made in China
for $15, instead of one made here for $40.

No jobs, POS $15 fan that falls apart in a few months vs. jobs and a $40 fan
that lasts decades. hmm...


I have a problem with
putting a great deal of economic power over the USA in the hands of an
oppressive police state. I have a problem with that US corporations have
no problem spewing pollution in china when they know better.

The real question is, other than complaining about, what exactly do you
want to do about it?

The US federal government needs to drastically cut back spending. The
chinese currancy needs to float. their tarriffs need to be removed or
the US should enact similiar domestic content laws in response. That
would be a good start.

Nice avoidance of the fact that your 'the good jobs stay here' argument
just got shreadded.

No, it didn;t get shredded at all. Last time I checked Airbus is a
European consortium, not a US conpany.

Guess you don't know who boeing's major competition is.

How is that argument going to hold up when Boeing, to
compete with Airbus moves their production to China? It isn't. Nobody, no
job is safe.

Wow, no job is safe? You really think so? Welcome to the real
world.

Especially when 'free trade' advocates like yourself consider free trade
the ability to drive down wages and one way trade barriers.

Do you think you can live here in the USA on the wages of a
worker in China? Why don't you try that, since you're all into
competition and thinking it's all fair. You should undercut the chinese
guy that does the same thing you do, right? Think you can live on that?

Why should I or anyone else labor away to make a fan or a shirt, when
there are far better jobs and opportunities available for anyone that
cares to apply themselves?

Doing what you do today in the USA but earning the typical salary for
that function in China. Guess reading is a problem for you. Can you
compete with the Chinese guy doing your job in china?

Whatever it is you do for living, whatever it is you want to do, there's
a guy in China who can do it for less than you can because he can live on
far less than you can and with far less than you do.

Japanese quality and manufacturing concepts that they used effectively
came in large part from an american US corporations laughed at and
wouldn't listen to. Your ignorance is astounding.

My ignorance? "came in large part from an american US corporations",
what the hell does that mean? LOL

Read the whole thing. It seems now you're either a total moron or just
playing usenet games. Read the whole sentance rather than complaining
that a segment of a sentance doesn't make sense. OF course it doesn't.
Then again, you did that on purpose.

Real economic numbers? US federal government debt. US federal government
future liabilities. Weak dollar. T-Bills and dollars held by China. Trade
deficits. Those are real economic numbers. They point to a long term
problem. One you'd ignore because the manipulated political type numbers
of the short term look good to you.

Spouting out the above, without a chart, historical trends, comparing
it to the size of the economy, or anything else proves what? It's
like saying company X made 1 Billion in profit last year. Without
comparing it to their sales, other similar companies, etc, it doesn;'t
say much at all.

Oh I forgot... you need everything spoon fed to you. Why don't you go
listen to Limbaugh some more?

You're quite clearly a be happy and spend today, who cares about tomorrow
type.

And you're a guy who when presented with fact, says "Strawman!" World
still sucks!

You make up arguments for me, those are strawmen, not facts.