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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (320347)	1/12/2007 6:50:10 PM
From: tejek	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1585969

Public, private, and corporate debt does not far exceed any previously known dimensions if you are measuring it as a percentage of the economy. If you measure it in nominal dollars then yes it does greatly exceed any previously recorded levels, but that isn't a very meaningful measure. Not true: zfacts.com Your link doesn't argue against my point. If you assume your link is correct (and I think it is), it proves my point. Well it doesn't quite prove it, because it only deals with federal debt, but it supports my point. Federal debt now, as measured as a percentage of GDP doesn't even "exceed any previously known dimensions", let alone "far exceed" any previous levels. Instead its roughtly similar to the early 90s, and well below the WWII peak, or the declining level of the early 50s. (Its also below some pre-WWII levels). Tim, the percentage now is very close to the percentage it was back in 1950. So we know federal debt is at or near its high; the gov't is forever telling us that consumer debt is at an all time high and it stands to reason that corporate debt probably is very high if not at its high. Hence the comments by the Germans that we are like a third world country in terms of debt. If you want to say that federal debt is at a relatively high level, then yes the graph at your link supports your case. But "federal debt is at a relative high level" is a very different assertion than "Public, private and corporate debt far exceeds any previously known dimensions." It's even further from the assertion that our country is "going into the 21st century like a poverty-stricken, Third World family, living from hand to mouth without any financial reserves whatsoever." That's your perspective........the Germans see it differently. I would suggest that you take an unbiased look at the issue instead of trying to defend it. I suspect the Germans are onto something. If all you want to assert is that federal debt is at a relatively high level, then I agree. From there perspective, we do look third world. Remember, Germans were the ones who required that there be a cap on debt for all new entries into the EU. I think it was 3-5% of a nation's GDP. 1 - 3% was the limit on deficits, not debt. I think every country in the EU has a larger public debt then 3% of their GDP. Sorry, I should have checked it. It had been a while since I had looked at those membership requirements. 2 - Germany, after forcing through the limit, had problems meeting it, and eventually got it expanded. 3 - Germany has a similar percentage of public debt as the US. In fact its slightly higher in Germany. en.wikipedia.org; I imagine then that there corporate and consumer debt is much smaller.