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Politics : Sarah Palin For President 2012 -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: RMF who wrote (357)	9/11/2008 10:48:44 AM
From: TimF	2 Recommendations Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1832

I believe in 1980 we were the biggest Creditor Nation in the World and today we are the biggest Debtor Nation in the World. And what's your point based off that fact? We are the largest nation in economic terms, when we are currently a "creditor nation" its likely that we will be the largest, and when we are a "debtor nation" its also likely that we will be the largest. Also the net credit/debt position is distorted by older American owned assets overseas not being fully revalued, while newer foreign owned American assets are closer to fully valued (in fact very recent examples may well be overvalued on the books and in official statistics). If you compare the income stream from the assets its pretty close, which would seem to indicate that if you fairly valued the assets we wouldn't be much of a "debtor nation" we also have unfunded "future debt" of almost $60 Trillion from Medicaid and Social Security, right at the time when the Baby Boomers are going to be retiring. That's not actual debt, its promises of future spending. If your point is that we have promised too much spending in the future, than I agree. Also we aren't alone in this. Many other wealthy countries have even larger promises of future spending (as a portion of their economy). The Debt is THERE, future GDP growth is not necessarily there. Future growth in GDP is not certain, but its at least as likely as paying out all those trillions in planed future entitlement payments.