OT. Household debt, 14 trillion +

[Dean Hoffman]

And yet the U.S. economy is doing fairly well. My parents grew up during the Depression. Borrowing was almost a dirty word for them.

[trader_4]

Yes, my parents were the same. And factor in that the share of the national debt for a family of four is about $250K. The Republicans used to be for balanced budgets and reducing the debt. That started to drift away during the Bush years, but now it's completely gone with Trump's takeover.

[invalid unparseable]

I used to think that the federal government should budget itself like the rest of us but found personal debt was just as bad.

[trader_4]

It's not just as bad. The average American family doesn't have $250K in unsecured debt, like the US govt does. And unlike the fed govt, there are limits on how much debt a family can tack on. If a family earning $60K had $250K in CC debt, do you think they could get another loan? So, if the govt started acting like a family, it would be a big improvement.

[gfretwell]

Something I inherited from my parents and why I could retire at 49. With no debt, own your home, cars and boats, you can live pretty cheap.

[Ralph Mowery]

You could always do like I did. Except for cars and a house I probably only put $ 1000 on credit that I did not pay off at the end of the month so no interist was charged.

I have a home equaty loan and several credit cards. I could probably charge over $ 100,000 with no trouble on just that.

LIke one of the get rich quick scheames I saw on TV. You apply for a bunch of credit cards, get big cash advances on them and invest the money in a house to flip.

Do you thing the big money men in this country are going to pull a big flip and sell the country to China ?

[gfretwell]

Republicans talked about it but they all raised the debt, (since Eisenhower who was the last one to actually lower it) including Reagan who almost doubled it. Democrats were worse. JFK introduced the idea of trickle down economics before it had that name ("a rising tide lifts all boats"). Clinton and Gingrich did try but when the dot com bubble popped all of their dreams of reducing the debt went with it.

[A noiseless patient Spider]

I'm puzzled why we always have money for welfare programs but can't seem to keep roads and bridges in repair so that taxpayers can drive to work.

Apparently Democrat politicians love their lazy welfare constituents.

[gfretwell]

The scary thing is that big personal debt used to be the mortgage and the car payments. Now it is likely to be a student loan and that is pure unsecured debt.

Even in the housing crash, a lot of the banks had the patience to wait and get their money back. I know the one that owned the house next to me did. (I was in the auctions for taxes, and the foreclosure). Everyone eventually got paid. That seemed pretty common in my neighborhood. I suppose in a more blighted area they may have taken a bath tho.

[Made in China]

Sure, just like most consumers buy the cheapest import crap they can get their hands on.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Roads don't vote. Welfare people do.

[Scott Lurndal]

What foreign country holds the largest slice of US Debt Obligations?

[invalid unparseable]

I have zero debt. House and cars are paid for and credit cards get paid in full at the end of the month. Frank Jr. is in the same shape.

[trader_4]

And apparently Republicans love to increase defense budgets and then use some of it for a wall. Are you puzzled about that too?

[Ralph Mowery]

Japan, China, United Kingdom.

I don't want to sound raceis, but one thing I heard was that two Jews could get together and trade a penny back and forth so much they were both millionairs.

Maybe it works like that. US borrows money from China, China from Russia, Russia from US and the cycle starts over again with a few of the smaller countries being involved.

[gfretwell]

Japan and China both hold about $1.1T with Japan having a slight edge. The bulk is still held by smaller countries tho.

[gfretwell]

I am not convinced. He probably would have just poured more money down that Star Wars rat hole.

[Terry Coombs]

  Our only debt is the mortgage on the house in Memphis , and we owe less on it than many people's credit card debt . And we have no credit cards at all . If I can't pay cash for something , I can't afford the item ...

[Clare Snyder]

Which would possibly still be "substantially different" when you get down to brass tacks

[trader_4]

You mean SDI, the research which helped provide us with the limited defense we have against ICBMs today? If OBama and now Trump had done what they should have done, we'd have a robust system today. And what they should have done is pour billions into it so that we have a system capable of dealing with anything NK launches. Instead, we have a half-assed system, cobbled together from various prototypes, that's failed a high percentage of threats. Add that to the list of presidential incompetence. Instead of Trump building a defense, he had his one sham meeting, kissed KJU behind, proclaimed KJU his love buddy, said he trusts him and that the threat from NK nukes no longer exists. KJU is building away and Trump ignores it.