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The United States is Broke

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
Post subject: The United States is Broke
Posted: Fri 22 Dec , 2006 5:53 pm
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It's happening faster than I thought it would.

The United States is Insolvent
Quote:
Prepare to be shocked.

The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our combined federal deficits now total more than 400% of GDP.

That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn’t just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I’ve yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter.

But, hey, I understand. A report is this bad requires all the muffling it can get.

In his accompanying statement to the report, David Walker, Comptroller of the US, warmed up his audience by stating that the GAO had found so many significant material deficiencies in the government’s accounting systems that the GAO was “unable to express an opinion” on the financial statements. Ha ha! He really knows how to play an audience!

In accounting parlance, that’s the same as telling your spouse “Our checkbook is such an out of control mess I can’t tell if we’re broke or rich!” The next time you have an unexplained rash of checking withdrawals from that fishing trip with your buddies, just tell her that you are “unable to express an opinion” and see how that flies. Let us know how it goes!

...

1) There is no way to ‘grow out of this problem’.
2) The future will be defined by lowered standards of living.
3) Every government facing this position has opted to “print its way out of trouble”.

--more--

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Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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ToshoftheWuffingas
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Posted: Fri 22 Dec , 2006 8:19 pm
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Well, you lot wanted independence. :D

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Dindraug
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Posted: Thu 28 Dec , 2006 1:04 pm
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Do you need some glue?

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Lily Rose
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Posted: Thu 28 Dec , 2006 3:31 pm
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haven't alarmist types been saying dire things like that for years????

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Cenedril_Gildinaur
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Posted: Thu 28 Dec , 2006 5:06 pm
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Ever since we saw it coming. The difference is that the warning is no longer "it's coming" but "it's here". We are no longer approaching the event horizon, we are starting to fall in.

We're only in the early stages of it right now though.

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It is a myth that coercion is necessary in order to force people to get along together, but it is a persistent myth because it feeds a desire many people have. That desire is to be able to justify hurting people who have done nothing other than offend them in some way.

Last edited by Cenedril_Gildinaur on Tue Feb 30, 2026 13:61 am; edited 426 times in total


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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Thu 28 Dec , 2006 7:44 pm
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I was looking for something about this on google news, and the closest I got was this article on USA Today : http://blogs.usatoday.com/oped/2006/12/post_1.html

Apparently, 52% of US Debt is now owned by foreigners.

Good thing we are a country and not a business. :Q

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Thu 28 Dec , 2006 11:50 pm
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Do you still post on Manwe, MH? Someone should cross-post that article (and statistic) on their thread since someone there made the opposite claim.


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Dindraug
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Posted: Fri 29 Dec , 2006 1:50 pm
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Cenedril_Gildinaur wrote:

We're only in the early stages of it right now though.
Ha!

The information about how broke America is is only just leaking out in dribs and drabs, the full story would be alarmist and cause the same sort of depression as it always does.

Hopefully the story will fade soon as when you go, we go and really don't want to be there right now.

PS, were broke too, and run out of things to sell on :bawl:
Quote:
Someone should cross-post that article (and statistic) on their thread since someone there made the opposite claim.
Was it Gordon Brown or George Bush?

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TheMary
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Posted: Fri 29 Dec , 2006 6:21 pm
I took the stars from my eyes, and then I made a map, And knew that somehow I could find my way back; Then I heard your heart beating, you were in the darkness too - So I stayed in the darkness with you
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A big fat DUH! for this thread.

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MariaHobbit
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Posted: Fri 29 Dec , 2006 7:01 pm
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Dave wrote:
Do you still post on Manwe, MH?
Once in a while, if I remember to look over there. I don't have time today, and won't remember next week, so please feel free to do it yourself, Dave. :)

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Tue 23 Jan , 2007 5:42 pm
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Pfizer announced yesterday that it will be laying off 10,000 employees. This is less that a month after the same company provided its disgraced former CEO with a >$180 million "retirement" package. Something is deeply wrong here.


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Dave_LF
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Posted: Mon 13 Aug , 2007 9:58 pm
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Andy Serwer, editor of Fortune Magazine, says The World Almost Ended Last Night (8/9). Won't be able to keep dodging those bullets for a whole lot longer, IMO.


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vison
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Posted: Tue 14 Aug , 2007 4:39 pm
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Interesting. And, in fact, China holds more than $470 billion US. It is over $800 billion. Sabre-rattling is going on, but that's enough to make people nervous.

And still no good news out of Japan.

Well, fasten our seat belts, eh? It's going to be a rough ride.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Tue 14 Aug , 2007 4:56 pm
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The US Comptroller-General issued a rather gloomy assessment of our situation today:

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/80fa0a2c-49ef-1 ... fd2ac.html
Quote:
Learn from the fall of Rome, US warned

By Jeremy Grant in Washington

Published: August 14 2007 00:06 | Last updated: August 14 2007 00:06

The US government is on a ‘burning platform’ of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.

David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations”.

These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.

Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government”.

“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”

Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.

While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent – such as the one containing his latest warnings – are initiated by the comptroller general himself.

In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume”. Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with”.

“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. “As comptroller general I’ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.

“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.

The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt”.

“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.

Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path”.

“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”

Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.

“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably”.
These red flags always seem to come in waves, and a bunch of them are going up right now. Seems to happen every August, like clockwork. Maybe it's the heat?


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Ara-anna
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Posted: Thu 16 Aug , 2007 10:59 pm
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I did not vote for Bush.


The only hope I can see now until the election of a new adminsitration is that the Wal-Street tycoons will become nervous and start pressuring the president. I am thinking he won't listen to anyone else, maybe the money players can make him listen, as it seems they are getting hit too at this point.

Anyway here's Jim Cramers clip.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SWksEJQEYVU


One wonders what will happen to the world if the US tanks and China takes over being the superpower. Maybe we can all move there. I like Chinesse food.

And the US-China holdings is exactly why the US is doing nothing in Sudan, with all the China intrest in the oil of Sudan.

I miss that blue dress.

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Thu 16 Aug , 2007 11:21 pm
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The roots of the situation we find ourselves in go back farther than George W. Bush. His priorities have exacerbated things to be sure, but we'd still be in trouble if he'd never been elected, and we'll still be in trouble when he's gone.


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Iavas_Saar
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Posted: Sat 18 Aug , 2007 12:16 am
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Interesting times to be working for America's biggest mortgage company..

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vison
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Posted: Sat 18 Aug , 2007 2:11 am
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Savings and Loan debacle, anyone?

For the luvva pete. :rage:

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Dave_LF
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Posted: Wed 19 Sep , 2007 9:54 pm
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The Saudis have run for the exists. Will it trigger the stampede everyone's always talking about?

Telegraph


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Jude
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Posted: Wed 19 Sep , 2007 11:21 pm
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Feeling existentialist today, Dave? Or did you mean "exits"? :Wooper:

Hey, if you guys are broke, you wanna borrow forty bucks? You can get yourselves a decent cup of coffee. :D

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