tom,

You are correct, not the best forum for this, particularly as it is an emotionally charged issue that seldom has thought involved when discussed. I promise to throw out my couple cents to reply to you and a couple other posts and then attempt to keep quiet!

I agree with your comment on paying back the debt. I don't see it happening unless the govt just decides to print x dollars and pay it off. (a treasury that prints its own money could, in theory anyway, do just that.)
For that matter, I don't see the world debt ever being paid off. All the standard powers keep jumping through hoops to keep the current system staggering along hoping it doesn't implode on their watch.

For what it's worth, since money in and of itself has no value, I have become convinced that the current debt spiral in the world, as well as the USA's, is just the manifestation of the tightening squeeze of natural resources and the plundering of the world's labor. It just shows up as a money issue, but the real cause is :
1.diminishing net energy worldwide
2. labor (those whom produce the surpluses that the financial world lives off of) not getting their share of productivity increases

Stay well and thanks for the civil exchange

paid,

WTI bounces 90 to 100/bbl.
The USA still imports slightly less than half of it's daily oil needs, and is a net importer of natural gas as well.
The imported oil is by and large at Brent rates which bounce from 100 to 110/bbl.

Last year the CEO of Shell oil stated that each new barrel of oil that Shell produces costs them about 95$/bbl. Even if somewhat overstated, the point is significant.

USA oil production is up largely due to tight oil. Due to the nature of how quickly these type of wells decline in production it takes a huge amount of drilling to keep the production up. This means a great deal of capital investment and a poor return on the net energy(for the nation) actually extracted. It has done wonders for our economy, but it isn't a given that it is either profitable or long term.
The Bakken has all the earmarks of a bubble, with profits coming more from the inflow of investors money than from actual operations.
Personal predication,(which unfortunately involves the future, which often doesn't agree with my predictions): tight oil will begin a decline in production which will leave a large number of investors who rushed to invest in the "future saudi arabia!" holding the bag, while all the initial operators take the cash and retire in Monaco or Belize.
Why do you think there has been such a shrill hype about this coming boom in the various financial editorials? They need the hogs to come running to the slaughter.

We have problems, but isn't the deficit getting better? It's only 2.8 percent (492 billion this year) of the GDP. Pretty low.
And really, it doesn't have to be paid back. Ever. For instance, aren't we still paying for WWII?

By law we don't export our oil or natural gas, though there are many who wish to change that so as to take advantage of higher world energy prices. (some minor exceptions)
We do export a significant amount of refined products due to excess refining capacity

We are extracting/depleting our oil and gas reserves as fast as we can. Kind of like shoving the throttles up when low on fuel so as to get to the airport before one runs out...same logic/thought(less) process at work

Cgfalcon,

You sold those jobs to Comair for your own selfish reasons. Don't blame others for your own mistakes. After you sold those jobs for your own personal gain the pilots that fly those planes do NOT owe you anything! You are no longer entittled to those jobs.

Your first 2 posts on APC and you got nothing but flame bait. We've been over the debacle that was Comair and the RJDC 6 months ago. I guess you missed it. I ignored your first post, but since you insist on popping-off, you must be a former Comair pilot..so here's a little perspective for you.

If you want to pretend that we sold scope so you can sleep better at night, knock yourself out. But you sure didn't pay for it..and you certainly benefitted from it for over a decade.

Just remember that if you had allowed furloughed DL guys sit in the right seat to swing gear for you, every single Comair pilot would have a preferential interview at DL, a stack of recommendation letters and wouldn't be able to buy a beer in the presence of a former furloughed DL pilot. Instead, you gave us the middle finger. Fine..but don't come back now and whine about it after logging 1000's of hrs of TPIC at our expense.

Remember, you were more than happy to strap on that shiny new jet and undercut us for your quick upgrade and non-rev benefits to Paris. How fast of an upgrade and how many new shiny jets will it take for some other RJ guy to undercut you? Oh wait..we already know. Payback is a b!tch, isn't it?

Crawl back under your rock until you've got something to add to the conversation. You're not helping anybody by coming on APC and spewing crap.

And don't bother calling me out again cause I won't waste any more time on you.

Have fun being a tough guy on an anonymous web board, cause I'm sure you're writing your manifesto as fast as your fat little fingers can type. Should be pretty funny to read, "Francis"..or should we call you "psycho"?

Listening to pilots debate economics is like listening to flight attendants debate aerodynamics.

Stay humble, gentleman.

That's a great first post! We'll weight it accordingly. :D Welcome to Airline Pilot Central.

Ron Paul had an interesting suggestion in that Congress could just pass a law wiping the debt free.

I'm not an aviation historian but my understanding of the whole RJ deal was 1.) mainline pilots thought they were too good to be flying small jets around and 2.) if there was any selling of scope, Twisted Mind might be wrong by telling you personally that you sold it but was there not a contingent of pilots above you that essentially "sold" this for their own benefit? Point 1 still stands today, if it didn't you would have any extra 4000 pilots below you on your seniority list flying RJs providing you with more job security. If your pilot group wanted this to happen in the next contract there is no reason why they couldn't make it a reality.