(11-15-2018 09:08 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote: (11-15-2018 08:08 PM)JRsec Wrote: (11-15-2018 07:19 PM)Tom in Lazybrook Wrote: (11-15-2018 06:30 PM)JRsec Wrote: (11-15-2018 06:11 PM)JRsec Wrote: Let's put this in a slightly better perspective. The EU doesn't have enough money to handle Italy's debt and come out of it able to function. Spain and Portugal aren't even close to being the problem that Italy is. Greece was a firecracker. Italy is a Daisy Cutter.
Nation / National Debt / % to GDP
Italy / 2.1 Trillion / 131% to GDP
Spain / 1.18 Trillion / 98.98% to GDP
Greece / 372.13 Billion / 178% to GDP
Portugal / 214.5 Billion / 127% to GDP
Italy's Debt is larger than that of Spain, Greece, or Portugal's put together.
But the real danger beyond Italy is France. 2.38 Trillion in Debt which is 97% of their GDP.
Tick tock, tick tock, the Debt bomb is much closer to detonating in EU than most folks realize. Germany wants and needs England to shoulder the burden. Great Britain is only wise to get out now and quite frankly Merkel would be wise to wash her hands of it as well.
USA debt to gdp 110% of GDP. But many still support Trump's disastrous giveaway to the oligarchs
Germany's GDP is almost 3.8 Trillion. 64% Debt to GDP ratio. I think they can afford to bailout a few countries. Remember, you don't need to pay it all off, just provide enough assistance to get things under control.
Netherlands 54% of GDP. Total GDP 826 Billion
Ireland 68% of GDP. Total 330 Billion
Finland 61% of GDP. Total 251 Billion
Austria 78% of GDP. Total 451 Billion
Belgium 103% of GDP (down from 150percent) Total 500 Billion
Here are the countries with GDP to debt ratios less than the USA
Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, SPAIN, Austria, Finland, Ireland. And some of these are WELL below 100%.
Here are the troubling ones.
Portugal 125% of GDP - 250 billion economy
Italy 131% of GDP - 1.9 Trillion economy
Greece 178% of GDP - 200 billion economy.
The problem is that Greece's economy keeps shrinking which is turning into a never ending cycle of austerity as a recession then requires even more cutbacks. Greece's level of debt isn't new and it has been managed.
Italy is a mess and has been one for decades. They've had a 100% plus Debt to GDP ratio for at least the last 30 years. Italy's debt level is slightly higher than the 20 year average, but this is manageable.
Portugal is tiny. Its Debt to GDP has been flat for the last 10 years and has actually been falling.
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The EU is on a far more stable financial footing than the US is right now. There's not some radically increasing debt levels in the Eurozone. And its far lower than the USA.
I'm not, and haven't been, happy with the U.S. Debt since the 70's. You do understand that in the history of civilization the only time a Super Power's debt causes dire consequences is when another country equals or exceeds their military might. It just so happens the one that holds most of our debt is trying to equal and exceed our military power, China. Nobody calls a debt that they can't actually collect. It destroys their own balance sheet. Usually what happens is that the lender state eventually does trash a part of the value of the borrowing states currency. This makes raw materials more expensive for the debtor nation. It helps to destabilize the internal political environment which the lender nation will allow to play out. When they are convinced that military of the debtor nation can no longer outspend them on R&D, and that they have equal or bested their power, they have set up a variety of options with which to proceed. They can let the status quo continue to build the imbalance and permanently cripple the debtor. The can attack militarily if the other nation is resistant to economic pressures and is preparing for war, or they can totally destroy the value of their currency and render them moot as a power and destitute as a nation. The problem with the latter option is that the regime within the debtor nation will be highly motivated to attack. If they aren't they are subject to regime takeover from within.
The U.S. Tom is still the preeminent military power and it is technology that keeps our dollar afloat. Military power equals stability which equals trust among global traders. The dollar is safe because nobody dares to say it is not.
But I guarandamntee you that the moment it's not 110% debt to GDP will be wholly catastrophic and unacceptable.
France is trending up in debt not down. 97% debt to GDP for a non superpower is well within the red zone of high concern for the EU.
Add Trumps expectation that those states help furnish their own defense so that we don't run even deeper in the red and it is an untenable situation for many of them.
The states you have operating with significantly lower debt to GDP ratios would be among our poorer states and hardly large enough to help with Italy.
Italy's debt is only acceptable because nobody in the EU wants to throw down to collect it or to force Italy into policy changes because Italy's flat refusal to do so just further calls into question the EU's strength as an entity which undermines confidence in the Euro's value.
I didn't pick the 4 countries the thread did. But to suppose that the Greek bailout, which was highly divisive, is roughly equivalent to Italy is insane. I'm not stating that you made that claim, but the issue with France is that their debt is trending up. Portugal's is fluctuating. But if Greece created friction then Italy, which has no intention of reducing their debt, is a major stumbling block.
France has had a major resurgence of National Socialists in recent years. I'd say their debt, and the immigration problem, are only going to make these groups stronger. In Germany these kinds of political factions are much less talked about but very present.
In every debated post you toss out statistics that are frequently not relevant, or not current to make your point. Here you are insinuating that Trump bears the responsibility for the rise in our debt. That's hilarious. No president in office for 2 years has had much of an impact on a Federal Budget that is the Frankenstein's creation from the hands of many Houses, many Senates, and many Presidents before them. And much of the debt is tied to treaties and international trade agreements.
The Tax Break was just a drop in the bucket.
So my advice to you if you desire not to live in penury is to support your military and urge spending for military R&D because you are going to find out in spades what debt means when we are no longer feared by the world, our dollar will lose WRC status and the whole nation will reel under massive inflation.
And Tom, the damned EU exists because we want them as a buffer. But that was in the days of boots on the grounds, tanks on the line, and air bases within range. We don't need that buffer today the way we did in the 60's. So why should we keep providing them with what amounts to as much as 50% of a nation's budget or even as little as 20% of a nation's budget when our own debt is piling up. It's time the EU quit dragging on the teat of the United States's military welfare program.
And that is when having a debt to GDP ratio of 97% in France becomes a big issue.
First of all 66 percent of Franchmen voted against Le Pen in 2017. That's a lot of ground to make up. Remember, France, smartly, has a runoff.
Trump has little influence and no power with the EU.
They are no 'buffers' in today's world.
I fully expect the EU to start their own common military. Probably just a placeholder for now. If Trump gets reelected, they'll end NATO, kick the USA out of their bases, and start their own military. It would be formidable even at 2% of GDP quickly. In the next couple of years, the plan is to figure out how to ramp one up without US arms and training. They'll figure it out. They know that Trump is compromised by Putin and is working against them. Its a matter of self defense.
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You focus on WRC. Here are the requirements for a WRC
1) It must be convertible.
2) It must be FLOATING
3) It needs to be backed by a transparent Central Bank for which the world has confidence
China has none of those things. And number 3 is going to be hardest one.
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There isn't enough Gold to back up the Yuan.
10% Gold
It will be convertible when they make it a Pan Asian currency.
Central banks, like the Fed are part and parcel of the debt problem now. They profit by the debt of nations and they are the last damned thing that will ever be transparent. They may tell you they are transparent, but proving it is quite another matter.
And what is laughable is that the "World" has confidence in them. Russia and China sure don't. Especially after an event that occurred about 10 years ago when China got a payment from a EU country in gold which turned out to be gilded tungsten, the specific gravity of which is within a 1/1000th of gold, and the assay marks allegedly included those of the ECB as well as other EU state banks. Of course the Chinese were unable to prove anything because there were so many fingers on the shipment.
Gold coins from China have been found to be gilded tungsten as well and anyone entering this kind of investment had better have a good scale to ascertain authenticity prior to purchase.
Everyone has to be transparent to the FED but the degree to which that is reciprocated would make for a great dissertation. Before the Federal Reserve became the main lending agency to the Federal Government our national debt in November of 1963 was 205 million dollars. RFK wanted to kill off the Fed because he saw it as a threat to our sovereignty and because he realized and explained to his brother how the FED was stealing from the Treasury and the public through interest accrued on what he nation borrowed to cover beyond the silver that backed the currency. The taxpayers paid 3 cents interest back then on every dollar printed by the Federal Reserve (the bills with green seals). Silver Certificate had blue seals and promised to pay in sliver coin 1 dollar upon demand. Since dimes, quarters and halves were involved it was easy to do. But the FED once they introduced their bills into circulation could exchange them for coin as well so they did and that silver wound up abroad where it was legal to smelt and resell for a profit. Hence the Federal Coinage Act of 1965 which removed the silver from U.S. coins and replaced it with a mixture of copper and nickel. They also made profits off of money spent to lobby Congress for military appropriations since most arms companies were backers of the Federal Reserve along with large American and European banks. So they made their mark up in profit off of the sale of war materials appropriated by Congress for the burgeoning conflict in Viet Nam. So they made interest off of the debt, profit off of the lobbied for and manufactured war materials, and they made money of the sale of the Treasury's silver.
RFK wanted to close down the FED and use another monetary device of the United States called a United States Bank Note (it had a red seal). The Bank Notes were a promissory note issued to the bearer of the bill promising to back the bill with sliver at the earliest possible time. It spent like any Silver Certificate but just meant that the value of the dollar at the time was inflated due to a lack of backing of silver.
It is my long held opinion that this led to the deaths of JFK and later RFK because as Eisenhower had warned when he departed office the thing he saw as the greatest threat to the American Republic was the rise of the military industrial complex which did indeed back the FED.
The proof in most crimes is where the money went.
Well the first target of the FED through their man LBJ was the SSI. It had been a state sponsored savings account for the taxpayer to assist with retirement. It served as a big cash nest egg for the Government, but Roosevelt had specifically ordered that the government never touch the program for loans. The Great Society Program was largely funded using the SSI as collateral. Without that cash reserve and with Silver beginning to rise in value staying pegged to the metal no longer was tenable and the FED had succeeded in doing what no other entity had, they seized control of our Treasury. It was specifically what the founding fathers had forbidden the Treasury to ever do, borrow from domestic and foreign banks.
By the time Nixon came to office not only had the national debt spiked from 205 million but it was now in the high billions. Today it stands at 21 Trillion by most estimates.
Look at what the ECB has done to Europe. Same story.
Feel like you've lost the ear of your government? It's because the major corporations give them so much more for their campaigns and with another property they own, the media, they collect it back for air time. You and I get priced out of the loop.
It is no longer a government of the people, for the people, and by the people, but rather one of the corporations, for the corporations, and by the corporations and the largest conglomerates back the FED and the ECB and make sure that (1) we stay in debt, and (2) that we buy more and more of their goods, and (3) we write policy and trade agreements and sign treaties that benefit them.
That is the definition of an oligarchy. The loaned to us, and used the interest they made to encourage greater debt. I had hoped we would all bite the bitter bullet in 2008-9 but no! The uber progressives deep into the pockets of these people worked and spoke together when Obama and McCain urged us to bail out the banks. We did so yet again with taxpayer money and the banks double dipped. They took the money from the taxpayers and other companies that backed their losses, and still foreclosed upon and sold the homes of those whose mortgages were compromised or in default or delinquent. So they got the cash they needed, and then got paid again as the real estate market rebounded and the properties were moved.
Why was it a crisis? Because the crooks in the EU didn't trust the crooks in the U.S. and Libor spiked and froze.
So Tom from where I sit you support the oligarchs, the white collar fascists who measure human lives in dollars and cents and who have run the most efficient scam ever conceived. I assure you that absolutely no third world country trusts them, no socialist country trusts them, and that the Russians and Chinese damn sure don't. What's more most of the free world doesn't trust them either, but we are bound to them.
Europeans and Americans who are in nations in debt up to their eyeballs have to abide them because due to our own shortsightedness and stupidity we have to and because the corporations that back them are comprised of our citizens, and employ our children, and our insurance companies that we depend upon are linked into them. So yeah in that regard they are "Too Big To Fail" because all suffer if they do.
But don't think for a second that the world trusts them. What the world sees is that through them we consume the greatest % of the worlds natural resources by leveraging our debt to purchase the raw materials at prices they can't afford and in quantities they can't handle. The markets set the prices. And Wall Street, Bonn an London set the prices. And the FED and ECB control the rates. The West controls the markets. And the FED is worthwhile because the ECB says so. And the ECB is worthwhile because the FED says so.
And the reason so many hate us is because we've done it off of a debt souffle'.
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Nigel Farage blasts Angela Merkel to her face in EU Parliament ... again
