Re: how to compare living standards

On Thu, 2 Mar 2006 16:55:22 -0500, "tonyp" <tonyp@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:

As I explained before, every man, woman, and child in America now owes $27K
to the government's bondholders.

The outstanding debt held by the public is currently $4,800 billion.
The US population is currently $296 million. So the per capita debt
is about $16.2K.

That every man, woman, and child in America owes that much to the
government bondholders is nonsense. The government rolls over its
debt and can do so indefinitely.

All government taxing and spending redistributes financial wealth.
The government currently spends about $2,500 billion a year, of which
about $174 billion is for interest payments on the debt, or about 7%
of total spending -- a relatively fraction. The largest spending by
far is that of the Dept of Health and Human Services and the Dept of
Defense.

Let's split the check. Let's explicitly
convert the _national_ debt into about 300 million _individual_ debts.
Assign each of us his own personal balance to service or pay down as he sees
fit. You could choose to pay down your balance (and not mine), or you could
choose to just keep paying interest on it and let your kids (but not mine)
inherit your debt. If "personal choice" is good for SS, why would it be bad
for the national debt?

Tax revenue in support of government spending, including interest on
the debt, is a function of taxable income. Those with small incomes
pay very little toward government spending of all kinds. Thus there
is no meaningful way to "split the check." And don't forget that the
debt is constantly varying as economic conditions vary. There is also
an growth bias in the debt that reflects the growth in the GDP.

Tony I'm surprised you are still pushing this silly concept.

.

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