I am interested to hear peoples opinions on what will become of America in the next 4 years. Will Trump really build a wall? What will happen if he makes good on his promise to deport immigrants with a criminal record? Is this a good thing for America or not?
First I am not American but would you think that buildings wall & deporting immigrants with criminal records will do or contribute anything in America growth. I knew every society/nation hs criminal, some of them got caught & some of them use there power to get hide. Did anyone know why USA attacked on Iraq? Did anyone know why USA supply Arms to rebel in many middle east nation? How some nation become peace full when there main job is to destroy every nation which are not trying to accept him as a Super power.
Predicting the future for any country is typically an exercise in futility, especially when the entrenched political structure has been disrupted as has just happened here. Of course, external events, outside of the control of the country, will always have an unpredictable impact on the future. It is the nature of the world. That said, I am seeing strong signs that there may be a repeat of the economic boom times that we had when Reagan first took over in office. He, too, cut taxes, cut regulations, and invested in building up our defenses -- all Trump campaign promises that he looks intent on making happen. There was not better economic times, in my lifetime, than under Reagan and I am hopeful that we are about see a repeat. If that is the case, economies around the world should see benefits, as well. If you don't live here, you may be tempted to believe the lies and fake news that were put out during the campaign (and since, in fact) by a corrupt U.S. media. Fortunately, the electorate saw through the lies and distortions and gave the media a resounding defeat. Keep an open mind as to what the President-elect is going to do and don't believe 90% of what the corrupt media says as their lies have been well-exposed the past 18 months.
Before I get into what will happen, I need to clarify a point about the stock market. NO MATTER WHO WON THE ELECTION THE STOCK MARKET WOULD HAVE MADE NEW ALL TIME HIGHS. Why? Two reasons. First, markets HATE uncertainty so until we knew who would be the Presidant-Elect, the markets basically did nothing. Once there was certainty, the markets took off. Secondly, Obama goosed the debt pump a couple of years ago. It generally takes about 2 years to see the results in the economy (higher inflation, for example). The stock markets, being a barometer of the economy, would have therefore made new highs about now regardless of results of the election. Now for my predictions. Bookmark this for future reference. The one thing that we know for sure is that the future is generally unpredictable. For example, we have no idea what the weather will be like. But we do know that if the weather does something, we can predict many of the cascading results. For example, if there is a severe drought somewhere, we can be assured that sooner or later there could be starvation if the drought lasts long enough. At the very least we can predict that food prices will rise. Likewise with everything else. So, I will present two possible scenarios based on possible actions by a President Trump. TRADE BARRIERS First, lets assume that President Trump raises tariffs and puts up trade barriers against foreign goods, as he has promised to do. What will happen? Retaliation, big time. A trade war of mammoth proportions. Think mammoth unemployment because we either cannot buy the materials we need to produce products and/or cannot export our surplus. Can the U.S. win a trade war? NOT TODAY. No nation can win ANY war if that nation must depend on its enemies to FUND that war! Like what person or nation in its right mind would LOAN another person/nation funds to make war against the lender? NONE. If you think that would happen, just go to your bank and try to borrow money so you can sue that bank in court. Look at history. Strong nations do NOT need trade barriers. All trade wars are started by weak nations in an effort to survive. However, all trade wars always backfire on the nations that start them. If Trump goes this route, WE WILL LOSE! No society in history that has started a trade war has EVER survived unscathed. Further, trade wars eventually lead to hot wars. The end result throughout history is that those who start trade wars end up being CONQUERED and often enslaved by their enemies. THAT is what is staring the U.S. in the face if Trump starts a trade war. Think that can't happen? If the U.S. winds up in hot war, WHERE is the money going to come from to fund that war? Our enemies? We do not have the funds nor the infrastructure to fight a hot war on our soil. We owe the world TRILLIONS of dollars and our factories have been razed. So, how could we win a hot war without any money? Or any way to quickly build weapons? So, HOW do we solve our trade problems WITHOUT ending up fighting a war that we CANNOT win? TRADE DEFICITS The main trade issue that Trump will need to address is the trade deficit that the U.S. has been running every year for decades. Before we can solve the problem we need to know what CAUSED the trade deficits in the first place. Think about it. HOW is it possible to year after year after year for us to buy MORE from foreigners than the foreigners are buying from us? If we operated with a balanced budget, we would eventually RUN OUT OF MONEY TO SPEND on imports, UNLESS we EXPORTED a similar dollar amount every year. In other words, the trade deficits WOULD BE SELF-CORRECTING and would not exist for very long with a balanced budget. They would be a total non-issue. Think about it on personal terms. You have only so much money to spend. WHEN YOU RUN OUT OF MONEY your only choices are to borrow money OR sell something, like your labor, to get more money. If you borrow, you must eventually pay it back with money, labor, or bankruptcy. If you ONLY spend what you earn, your personal trade deficit is SELF-CORRECTING. The same rules apply to companies and to NATIONS. So, what about money from welfare? That is borrowed money! And most of that money is funded via national debt TO FOREIGNERS which eventually must be paid back with money, or labor (enslavement), or bankruptcy (also enslavement). There are no other options. THE ONLY POSSIBLE SOLUTION As you may have already guessed the only possible solution is to operate with a balanced budget. There are several problems with that. First, with a balanced budget politicians would not be able to buy off voters with free this, free that, and so on. A balanced budget removes POWER from politicians. Do you REALLY think that politicians want to give up the power they have? Second, the U.S. population today has NEVER seen hard times so even the SLIGHTEST loss of so-called entitlements would cause them to rebel, possibly to the extent of a second civil war. Think about what would happen if Trump does what NEEDS to be done, but which I doubt that he will do. Bottom line is that Trump NEEDS to operate with a balanced budget. To do so means the population must endure some self-imposed suffering now to avoid externally imposed suffering to a vastly greater degree later. I know of NO instance where operating with a balanced budget ever caused a hot war. And I know of NO instance where operating with a balanced budget ever caused retaliation by enemies. And operating with a balanced budget ALWAYS provides 'full' employment to the population of a nation. Further the ONLY change in trade patterns will be BALANCED imports and exports instead of the very unbalanced trade today. Shipping becomes more efficient and cheaper because there are fewer EMPTY trips. EVERYONE GAINS. FUTURE PRESIDENTS So, lets say Trump DOES operate with a balanced budget. The next question is HOW can we be sure the NEXT President will do the same? Under current law, IT IS IMPOSSIBLE to know, and IMPOSSIBLE to guarantee. So, unless something is done WHILE Trump is in office, the DEBT demon WILL return with a vengence somewhere down the road. For thousands of years, and even until the term of President Nixon in the U.S., gold has been the STANDARD for defining money. A country that uses an iron-clad gold standard for its money always operates with a balanced budget. Debt is never possible and therefore is never an issue. Unfortunately, current U.S. laws do not enforce a gold standard, and even if they were changed to enforce one, the next President could undo the gains with a stroke of a pen, just like Nixon did. Obviously, that is not a long term solution. The only solution I see is a Constitutional Amendment. I do NOT see that happening. There would be a major fight against one by everyone that thinks they benefit from debt. Politicians, banks, welfare recipients, local governments, major companies, and so on. So, no matter what Trump does now, IT IS NOT PERMANENT. It is ONLY a flash-in-the-pan. THE STOCK MARKET No matter what Trump does, the stock market will continue making new highs for around two years due to the Obama legacy of debt. And soon we will also see it in inflation, possibly starting as early as Spring of 2017. The debt that Obama has endowed upon us will soon bite us in the ass, BIG TIME, possibly on the scale of Venezuela. How much? No real clue, but I would not be surprised at $10 per gallon gasoline. And if Trump chooses to start a trade war, China et alia have every reason to repatriate TRILLIONS of dollars to the U.S. which would inflate the inflation to an unfathomable degree, not to say anything about killing our job market. Regardless, the stock market is heading into a BUBBLE and that bubble will eventually burst, pauperizing many people in the process. When? Everything I see points to a crash starting around Friday, August 30, 2019 and bottoming out about 40% lower on Friday, October 25, 2019 before temporarily recovering. Watch what Trump does. Whatever you see him doing in the first half of 2017 will hit the markets about 2 years later, which suggests that whatever Trump does will show up as a crash in late 2019. And I don't think it matters what he does as either scenario noted above will probably hit the markets hard in 2019. A SECOND TERM From a Trump-centric point of view, a crash in 2019, one year before the next election, will create a major hurdle for a Trump second term. How Trump handles the crash will determine whether he is re-electable or not. If he follows in the footsteps of Hoover in 1929, Trump will be a one-term President. If he does NOTHING to prevent the crash, he could easily be re-elected as the markets recover FASTER when the government keeps their paws out of them. 1929 is the first time in American history that the government tried to 'manage' the crash. It took over 10 years to come out of that depression when previously it took as little as one year. 2008 is another prime example of what happens with government meddling in the markets. Even in 2016, eight years later, we still have not truly recovered. UNPREDICTABLE EVENTS Trump may be FORCED by events beyond his control to NOT keep some of his promises. Look at Europe for example. It is a total mess over there. Politicians there are being forced to re-examine their promises to the electorates. Something similar COULD happen here. We have no way of knowing now. Europe during Trump's Presidency MUST come to terms with the fabric of their societies being ripped apart by migrants. Europeans are near the ends of their ropes. Something soon must give, and if history is any example, it will be extreme, probably to the tune of FORCIBLY purging their societies of the cancer that is eating away at them. And maybe FORCIBLY taking action in the Middle East to prevent a recurrence. What they do MAY cause Trump to renege on some of his promises. FINALLY Remember that DEBTORS are SLAVES to the LENDERS. SLAVES are ALWAYS WEAK. The LENDERS ALWAYS rule over SLAVES. The United States is a SLAVE to its LENDERS (China, et alia) and by definition is WEAK. So, EXPECT the LENDERS to treat the U.S. as a SLAVE if Trump decides to try forcing the LENDERS into a corner with trade sanctions. The U.S. is too weak to make trade sanctions stick, no matter how much one wants to believe it is possible. I could go on and on, but I think this much is already overkill, so I will stop.
Very thoughtful write-up @mmerlinn that I do not plan to match in length. Much of what you write is very observant. I do have a few comments: 1. Reagan showed that you can grow your economy out of debt. If the economy takes off, the debt, as a percentage of GNP, becomes much less troubling and can be dealt with. Of course, Obama has done everything that he can to grow our debt to obscene proportions, so it will be a challenge to grow our way out of his purposely evil actions, but it can be done. 2. As a debtor, if you owe a bank $500,000.00, you are its slave, much as you say. However, if you are a debtor that owes a bank $500 million, you own the bank as they are in no position to tell you what to do and are forced to hang on in the hopes that you are successful and do not default, thereby destroying them in the process. It is much the same, right now, with the U.S. and its foreign debt. The creditors are in no position to tell us what to do, call in its debt or anything like that for fear that we default and they might lose it all. It is the nature of the creditor/debtor relationship. 3. Trade wars happen every day and are happening now. It is the nature of trade, itself. Every trading partner tries to get the best deal that it can on each and every trade package. Trump has correctly pointed out that we have been absolutely horrible at negotiating our trade deals and that others, like China, have been cheating (e.g., currency manipulation) on them for decades. Trump has been clear that he does not want to limit trade, just get better deals for us. The idea that we have to be on the losing side of every deal, keep to the status quo, etc., or a "trade war" will break out is inaccurate. Are there challenges? Absolutely. Can a fresh outlook, new purpose, and someone in office who is a patriot, not an enemy of the country, handle the situation? Yup.
America will always be great because there are way more intelligent, creative and reasonable Americans compared to the really stupid and/or hateful ones (Even if they are louder and more noticeable).
Usually when you get a loan you have to put up some kind of collateral. If you fail to pay the loan you lose the collateral. You never own a creditor, no matter how much you owe them. They always own you. If they lose then you lose more.
It's the silly policies of both parties that brought America to the point where someone now "owns" it (or at least they feel like they do). The natural resources are abundant. The intellectual potential is one of the best in the world. Will Trump be able to significantly reduce the debt and make America energy independent? I hope so. Will outsourcing become a thing of the past? I hope so. Ford, Chrysler, Apple, even Alibaba (and many others will soon follow) seem to be a clear sign of things to come.
Again, Reagan proved that you can grow the economy out of a bad debt number. Keep in mind it was Obama that raised the debt to double what all previous presidents had accumulated over the course of 200 years. Of course, he did this on purpose to damage the country and fill his friends' pockets. It will take time, but the debt will become manageable now that we have a businessman who understands fiscal policy running the country. But it is amusing that leftists are suddenly worried about the debt. By the way, I totally stand behind my previous comment that the debtor owns the creditor when the debt is large enough to sink the creditor if it is not re-paid. It is a cliché in the banking industry in which I played for many years. That is really the situation with any of the countries that have loaned us money, including, most notably, China. What happens to them if they try to call in their debts and we default? They will be hurt more than us!
It's a bullshit cliche though, even if you do believe it. If I had a billion dollars and you somehow conned me into lending you a billion dollars without collateral then yep, you'd own me, but that's a very unusual scenario isn't it? Normally, i'd lend you a billion if you put up 5 billion collateral against the billion. If you default and I decide you have no chance of paying the rest then i'm going to call it in. I already have your collateral don't I? All I gotta do is sell it to get my money back yeah? At no point do you own me. If you somehow tricked me into taking no collateral then i'm fucked but who does that?
I've never heard about your natural resources, I thought you imported most of them, but there's definitely a lot of IP value there, if only Trump will get them paying tax there instead of pretending they run from Ireland.
You obviously know little about large deals. For example, if you are a real estate developer and want to embark on a billion dollar project, you never put up matching collateral (likely do not have it, anyway) but the bank/investor relies on your background, the potential of success of the project and they dole out the money as defined milestones are hit (buying the land, hiring the contractors, buying the materials, etc.) Of course, they often require that the developer put some of his own money (very small percentage) into the project so that he has skin in the game, but if the developer declares bankruptcy on that project, his other interests are not involved and the creditor writes off the loss (or goes under if it is too big for them.) More relevant to this discussion, what collateral do you think a country puts up? Do you think that the U.S. put the White House up as collateral to foreign creditors? Of course not, the creditors got bonds and other financial instruments promising payment. Do you seriously think that if the U.S. defaults on these loans that other countries will move in and evict us or grab a military base? Of course not. They will suffer the great financial loss and yes, the image and credit of the U.S. will be ruined, but that is about it. The big financial loss from such a default will fall on the creditors as it always does on big deals like this. Bottomline, these creditors are in NO position to foreclose on our debt. Shit, the European creditors could not even foreclose on Greece because they did not want to lose the money. The ONLY control that they had over Greece was that Greece needed more funds to stay afloat so the banks could impose some additional reforms on its economy before they loaned ADDITIONAL money. Had Greece defaulted, the creditors would take the loss with no recourse (i.e., collateral.) Collateral is for the average person, not the big boys and especially not for countries.
It has been suggested that the U.S. actually has greater oil reserves than the Middle East. Stupid environmental and other crazy socialist policies have prevented us from accessing them. Our natural gas resources are even greater. Uranium, coal, timber, agricultural land, etc. are but a few of the other abundant resources here in the U.S. The list goes on and on...
As far as I'm aware, America the country or government, borrows from the fed when it needs money, not from overseas. It's the millions of individuals, like Trump, who borrow from overseas institutions to fund their business. For example Trump may put up his Trump Tower as collateral for his 50 million borrowings or the Dubai block of land he puts his casino on etc. Not at all. The government gets as much as it needs from the fed who pull it out of thin air then charges interest on it so i'm told. With that kind of cashcow does it borrow from foreign creditors too? My concern relates to the millions of businesses that have borrowed, not so much your government who can print money whenever they want. Many of those businesses are relying on loans from overseas, in particular China to keep them afloat. Greece is not a fiat currency. Totally different situation. They can't print money to get themselves out of trouble like you and we can. It's why they wanted out of the EU.
You are having trouble understanding that this thread about debt is about the $20 trillion in debt amassed by the U.S. government, itself. You also do not seem to understand that 34% percent of said debt is owned by foreign investors, with the largest being China. You probably should check your facts before posting on this topic. By the way, it is nice to see a leftist concerned about the debt of the millions of businesses in this country. You should be heartened to know that they will be doing much better once the tyranny of Obama's socialist policy regulation is overthrown in a few days.
Yes, the OP made a general query for input and the @mmerlinn wrote a long reply in which the national debt was the last topic. That is the piece of the thread that I have been commenting on. At any rate, local businesses being in debt is really not a big concern as that is between the business and its lenders/investors and not something that a country really needs to worry about. It is the trillions of dollars that the government owes that is the real issue.
As a matter of fact it's Japan you owe most money to not China but we don't expect you low information voters would know that... The U.S. debt is more than $19.8 trillion. Most headlines focus on how much the U.S. owes China, which is one of the largest foreign owners. Fewer people know that the Social Security Trust Fund, aka your retirement money, owns most of the national debt. How does that work, and what does it mean? The Debt Is in Two Categories. The U.S. Treasury manages the U.S. debt through its Bureau of the Public Debt. It's broken out the debt into two broad categories: Intragovernmental Holdings, at $5.479 trillion, and Debt Held by the Public, at $14.409 trillion (Source: Debt to the Penny, U.S. Treasury, as of December 22, 2016.) Intragovernmental Holdings - Nearly 30 percent of the Federal debt is owed to 230 other Federal agencies. Why would the government owe money to itself? Some agencies, like the Social Security Trust Fund, take in more revenue from taxes than they need right now. Rather than stick this cash under a giant mattress, they buy U.S. Treasuries with it. Debt Held by the Public - Foreign governments and investors hold nearly half of the nation's public debt. One-fourth is held by other governmental entities, like the Federal Reserve, and state and local governments. Fifteen percent is held by mutual funds, private pension funds, savings bonds or individual Treasury notes. The rest is owned by businesses, like banks and insurance companies, and an assortment of trusts, companies, and investors. Here's the breakout: •Foreign - $6.175 trillion •Federal Reserve - $2.461 trillion •Mutual Funds - $1.056 trillion •State and Local Government, including their pension funds - $803 billion •Private Pension Funds - $403 billion •Banks - $515 billion •Insurance Companies - $293 billion •U.S. Savings Bonds - $174 billion https://www.thebalance.com/who-owns-the-u-s-national-debt-3306124
Barack Obama - The national debt grew the most dollar-wise during President Obama's two terms. He added $7.917 trillion, a 68 percent increase, in seven years. Obama's budgets included the economic stimulus package. It added $787 billion by cutting taxes, extending unemployment benefits, and funding job-creating public works projects. The Obama tax cuts added $858 billion to the debt in two years. Obama's budget included increased defense spending to between $700 billion and $800 billion a year. Federal income was down, thanks to lower tax receipts from the 2008 financial crisis. He also sponsored the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It was designed to reduce the debt by $143 billion over ten years. But these savings didn't show up until the later years. For more, see National Debt Under Obama. George W. Bush - President Bush added the second greatest amount to the debt, at $5.849 trillion. But that was a 101 percent increase to the debt. It was $5.8 trillion on September 30, 2001. That's the end of FY 2001, which was President Clinton's last budget. Bush responded to the 9/11 attacks by launching the War on Terror. That drove military spending to record levels of between $600-$800 billion a year. It included the Iraq War, which cost $807.5 billion. President Bush also responded to the 2001 recession by passing EGTRRA and JGTRRA. These were known as the Bush tax cuts and they further reduced revenue. He approved a $700 billion bailout package for banks to combat the 2008 global financial crisis. Both Presidents Bush and Obama had to contend with higher mandatory spending for Social Security and Medicare. For more, see President Obama Compared to President Bush Policies. https://www.thebalance.com/us-debt-by-president-by-dollar-and-percent-3306296
So now you are more concerned about the national debt or is it still the U.S. business debt that you are more concerned about? You seem to go from one to the other as being most important as this thread proceeds. But you did a detailed synopsis of the national debt and it seems to make a lot of my points, including the main one : the U.S. has little to worry about from its creditors potentially calling in their loans. Not going to happen because a default would hurt them as much or more than us. Neither China nor Japan or anyone else could handle such a hit right now. It would clobber their economies which are limping along right now on their own. The social (note the term "social") security "trust fund" issue is an example of leftist government malfeasance that began in the early 1900's and which has been unfunded for many decades. It is the politicians' (and especially the left's) slush fund piggy bank and always has been. This is not startling or even news at this point. Just one more example of socialist policies failing miserably and, eventually, at great cost to the people who were forced to wear its yoke their entire lifetimes.