United States Heading towards a Depression?

something like 2.5 trillion in debt.

i'd be worried.

 

What's even worse is that there are 45 nations in worse shape. Here's the nation debt of 129 nations, by percentage of GDP:

Zimbabwe 282.60
Japan 189.30
Saint Kitts and Nevis 185.00
Lebanon 156.00
Jamaica 124.50
Italy 115.20
Greece 113.40
Singapore 113.10
Iceland 107.60
Sudan 103.70
Belgium 97.60
Sri Lanka 86.70
Egypt 80.10
Israel 78.40
France 77.50
Hungary 78.00
Portugal 76.90
Canada 75.40
Germany 72.10
Malta 69.40
Austria 69.30
United Kingdom 68.10
Kenya 66.70
Jordan 64.40
Seychelles 63.20
Nicaragua 63.10
Netherlands 62.20
Cote d'Ivoire 61.90
Norway 60.60
Brazil 60.00
Mauritius 58.70
Philippines 58.70
Albania 58.10
India 58.00
Bhutan 57.80
Ireland 57.70
Uruguay 56.60
Cyprus 56.20
Ghana 55.20
Morocco 55.10
United Arab Emirates 54.00
Malaysia 53.70
Vietnam 53.70
Spain 53.20
Tunisia 53.00
United States 52.90
El Salvador 52.70
Argentina 48.60
Croatia 46.80
Poland 46.50
Aruba 46.30
Turkey 46.30
Pakistan 46.20
Thailand 45.90
Colombia 45.80
Costa Rica 45.10
Panama 44.70
Bosnia and Herzegovina 44.00
Finland 44.00
Dominican Republic 42.40
Bolivia 42.00
Denmark 41.60
Switzerland 40.50
Malawi 39.50
Yemen 39.40
Bangladesh 38.80
Montenegro 38.00
Mexico 37.70
Hong Kong 37.40
Slovakia 37.10
Bahrain 36.30
Latvia 36.10
Sweden 35.80
Cuba 34.60
Czech Republic 34.10
Taiwan 32.50
Macedonia 32.40
Syria 31.90
Ethiopia 31.80
Slovenia 31.80
Lithuania 31.70
Serbia 31.30
Papua New Guinea 30.20
Ukraine 30.00
Senegal 29.80
South Africa 29.50
Gabon 29.10
Guatemala 27.40
Indonesia 27.40
Trinidad and Tobago 26.00
Moldova 25.50
Zambia 25.50
Peru 24.80
Honduras 24.40
Paraguay 24.00
Romania 24.00
Korea, South 23.50
Saudi Arabia 22.90
New Zealand 22.20
Angola 22.10
Ecuador 22.10
Tanzania 21.40
Algeria 20.00
Uganda 19.70
Venezuela 18.00
Botswana 17.90
Australia 17.60
China 16.90
Iran 16.70
Qatar 15.70
Gibraltar 15.50
Namibia 15.10
Cameroon 14.90
Luxembourg 14.90
Bulgaria 14.80
Nigeria 14.30
Kazakhstan 14.20
Uzbekistan 9.60
Kuwait 8.10
Estonia 7.20
Russia 6.30
Chile 6.10
Wallis and Futuna 5.60
Azerbaijan 5.10
Equatorial Guinea 5.00
Oman 4.50
Libya 3.90
Mozambique 3.70

 

lets throw external debt into this too, guess whos on top of the list.



http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_external_debt

 

External debt is a far less useful metric, because FDI flows naturally to nations which show strong economic performance and potential. So, the nation with the healthiest economy can show the largest external debt and the nation with the weakest economy can show the smallest external debt.

The list you posted is also meaningless because it shows gross debt, not net debt. This pushes wealthier nations higher on the list, because if fails to take into account outflows of FDI. In the same way, it pushes poor nations down on the list, because they have very little money to invest in other nations.

I highly recommend that you look at what you post before you post it. It will help to prevent such occurrences in the future.

 

The trend is definitely for the recovery to continue - Octobers employment rate undoubtedly will show improvement and will be the last monthly indicator prior to the elections.

The Summers reactionary surge is flattening out with plenty of real politicking left to marginalize the opposing agendas.

 

Breeze, I realize you are too young to understand, but the reason jobless claims have fallen is because:

1. Those already on unemployment have had their benefits expire.
2. Others have simply given up and stopped working all together.

When Jobs numbers go up, and Jobless claims go down, but the unemployment rate rises? Somethings not right.

Think about that for a bit.

 

Anyone ever played civilization, or settlers... or maybe starcraft, warcraft... ?
All nice games, but what happens when you're done harvesting the materials in those games?

...

fascinating scenario

Then what happens when the money of a country flows out faster than it flows in. Ya then we get a credit card and spend some more right @.@

I think the only way America is going to get back on top of this whole game is if some genius solves the problem with cheap safe space flight.

That is unless China or EU solves it first of course.

 

PBS just ran an excellent 4-part series called The Ascent of Money. Episode 3 reviewed Chili's experiement with communism. Chili had experienced economists, and set up a complete communist system with subsidized housing and substantial subsidies for the poor.

It failed because, as it was explained, "when you take away the stick of poverty and the carrot of prosperity, people lose their motivation to go to work". So you had an increasingly large class of people content to sit and home, watch TV and play with their neighbors. The government couldn't take in enough money in tax revenue to support the government. They kept printing money and inflation was something like 50% PER DAY. In the final irony, they finally had to stop printing money because the government couldn't afford to buy the paper to print the money on.

You can talk about basic human needs if you want to, but the truth is that communism and socialism always fail because they are ignorant of basic human psychology.

Hey Will - great list!

Breeze, can you tell us, how old are you?

 

The Chilean nationalization of copper was a debacle that plays an important role in Atlas Shrugged. It's interesting to see life imitate art as art imitates life.

The most surprising thing is that, even after failure after failure after failure... socialists still believe that they can create wealth through organized theft.

 

Another step foreword away from the reactionary demagoguery exemplified by the meaningless Iraqi war and Great Recession designed for involuntary servitude the present Administration has so amply put in their place.

The legislative accomplishments of the past two years will in the next two months prove their worth even against the yet undefined monoliths, the Midwestern and Southern Republican incumbents that are the true obstacles to a free society simply as they slither unimpeded as the proof of their culpability for the nations calamities.

 

BreezeWood, scroll back to page 258 of this thread: "Businesses are sitting on nearly $1.8 trillion in cash — about $600 billion more than normal — as they wait to see the outcome of policy and regulatory decisions."

Businesses are not, by and large, in need of government loans. A good business plan can always find a willing investor. The trouble is that, with the government in such shambles, investors like myself are sitting on huge piles of cash. The Democrats have cranked the Risk dial to 11 and turned the Reward dial down to 1. The government can try to loan us money all day, but the fact of the matter is that good business people won't borrow money to invest in this mismanaged economy.

Bad business people, on the other hand, will absolutely fall in love with "free" taxpayer money. I can just imagine the retarded ideas that are going to be funded by the taxpayers now. This is just another way for the Democrats to fleece the American taxpayers and push money to their campaign supporters. It's organized theft, nothing more and nothing less.

 

Everyone should watch Money Masters, if they have not already.

The middle class is being squeezed and the worst hasn't even begun. People can show all the fancy graphs and use all the impressive terminology they want, but it will not hide the fact that unless we ditch the ridiculous speculation and fractional reserve banking, we're done for.

Gerald Celente, an economist who predicted the housing bubble crisis and the global problems many years ago while everyone laughed at him, claims America has already been in a depression for years.

To come for 2012:

We already see tent-towns, mass unemployment in the private sector and sharply increasing food prices, which is very noticeable here. I often hear people complain of food prices.

Anyone who thinks that things are on the recovery, or will recover any time soon, need to stop educating themselves with mainstream television.

 

Interesting how the incumbent Republicans turn tail when they are flushed from their facades - equally as entertaining will be the Senate and the Republican threatened filibuster in light of the needs associated with the economic recovery and balancing the nations debt.

The Republicans are more than willing to spend for their meaningless Iraqi war but haven't the least courage in paying for it.

 

Democrats and Republicans are merely different sides of the same coin.

 

Well, the Republicans are less evil.

It looks like 2012-2014 could be the make or break years for the Republican Party. They either clean up their act and stop acting like Democrats or the lose their raison d'etre.

 

I love how Breeze and others in his camp continually try to blame a 1 trillion dollar (cost of freedom) over a nearly 10 year span as the cause of the current economic state. Meanwhile the current president has spent more than the entire budget of both George Bush and Bill Clinton COMBINED in under two years.

 

I agree there is a difference - perhaps the better of the two for each side will prevail in the next election.

The conservative, tea party crowd definitely are the ones cooking the most......they seem to have lost their comfort zone.

 

Err, the "Tea Party" crowd are actually the real "conservatives" that want the party to go back to its roots.

 

Which roots are those Mia.....King George?

 

King George was actually a very effective leader. One who led away from the Monarchy and towards a more conservative and representative form of legislature. I'm not exactly sure where you are going with this.