Winged Wheeler

The system of public credit, i.e., of national debts, whose origin we discover in Genoa and Venice as early as the Middle Ages, took possession of Europe generally during the manufacturing period. The colonial system with its maritime trade and commercial wars served as a forcing-house for it. Thus it first took root in Holland. National debts, i.e., the alienation of the state – whether despotic, constitutional or republican – marked with its stamp the capitalistic era. The only part of the so-called national wealth that actually enters into the collective possessions of modern peoples is their national debt. [7] Hence, as a necessary consequence, the modern doctrine that a nation becomes the richer the more deeply it is in debt. Public credit becomes the credo of capital. And with the rise of national debt-making, want of faith in the national debt takes the place of the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, which may not be forgiven.



The public debt becomes one of the most powerful levers of primitive accumulation. As with the stroke of an enchanter’s wand, it endows barren money with the power of breeding and thus turns it into capital, without the necessity of its exposing itself to the troubles and risks inseparable from its employment in industry or even in usury. The state creditors actually give nothing away, for the sum lent is transformed into public bonds, easily negotiable, which go on functioning in their hands just as so much hard cash would. But further, apart from the class of lazy annuitants thus created, and from the improvised wealth of the financiers, middlemen between the government and the nation – as also apart from the tax-farmers, merchants, private manufacturers, to whom a good part of every national loan renders the service of a capital fallen from heaven – the national debt has given rise to joint-stock companies, to dealings in negotiable effects of all kinds, and to agiotage, in a word to stock-exchange gambling and the modern bankocracy.



Karl Marx, Capital (V.1, ch.31)

N2264J

Unfunded obligations: any liability or other expense that does not have savings or investments set aside to pay it.

Your numbers assume no tax revenue at all for 75 years. You're only looking at the
debit side of the ledger. It's an issue but it's not the cataclysm you're peddling.

Want to close the gap? Conscript capital during time of war. If war were a nonprofit venture, it would end unless it were truly justified. Stop corporate welfare. Close the loopholes and start taxing the huge corporations and the 1%ers. If that causes them
to leave the country like they always threaten to do, it will confirm for their
sycophants and apologists that they're just not that patriotic.

We need a strong government not owned by the corporation to fix this.

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jungle

Unfunded means taxes are expected to pay for future obligations, not that tax revenue does not exist. In this case obligations will exceed tax revenue for at least the next 75 years.

Try it again and see if you can understand it:The Medicare Part A (hospital insurance) payouts already exceed program tax revenues, and social security payouts exceeded payroll taxes in fiscal 2010. These deficits require funding from other tax sources or borrowing.[34] The present value of these deficits or unfunded obligations is an estimated $45.8 trillion. This is the amount that would have had to be set aside in 2009 in order to pay for the unfunded obligations which, under current law, will have to be raised by the government in the future.

In other words, much of the trillions in borrowing is devoted to paying these incurred obligations along with any available tax revenue. It does not assume no tax revenue, it only points out the giant shortfall in available funds.

N2264J

We can't vote against the interests of Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan or Bank of America.

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jungle

And you can't max out your credit card forever and expect to get credit.

N2264J

That's true but I don't have my own fiat currency either.

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jungle

That is all you have and it is being devalued while you wait, but don't worry about all those big numbers.

The incompetent and those not held accountable will manage it for you. Just like you, they cannot add a set of figures and come to a logical conclusion. Detroit, here we come.

galaxy flyer

Evidently you think currency, fiat or otherwise, is free. It is most assuredly not. The US dollar, or any currency, is merely a reflection if the economy on which it is based. If the Fed suddenly printed 17 trillion dollars would our economy double in size? Return to EC 101, please.

GF

Winged Wheeler

N2264J