Large Scale Central

American Economy

General Discussion
#1

An interesting email received.

"How many zeros in a billion???

This is too true to be funny…

The next time you hear a politician use the word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of its releases.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on two feet.

A billion dollars ago was only 8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our brain…let’s take a look at New Orleans …It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans …

Interesting number…what does it mean?

Well… if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

Or… if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans, your home gets $1,329,787.

Or… if you are a family of four… your family gets $2,066,012.

Imagine, now $700 billion bailing out banks in the U.S. That’s enough to fund complete medical care for every man, woman and child currently alive in the US, for 11 years!!

50 billion to bail out the auto industry???

HELLO!!!
Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Property y Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee - tax upon tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
Income Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY???
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago… and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt…
We had the largest middle class in the world.
And Mum stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Politicians happened"

#2

Hmm. Let’s see…

1*10^9

1 billion seconds = 16,666,666 minutes
= 277,778 hours
= 11,547 days
= 31.68 years 1977

1 billion minutes = 16,666,666 hours
= 694,444 days
= 1901 years 107AD

1 billion hours = 41,666,667 days
114,077 years A very long time ago

“We’ll tax you to prosperity!”

#3

Interesting…and somewhat true. Some very frightful numbers!

Quote: STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY???
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago… and our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt…
We had the largest middle class in the world.
And Mum stayed home to raise the kids.

What happened?

Politicians happened"

End Quote.

Politicians didn’t happen, you and I got greedy (the public).

Does anyone want to set the clock back one hundred years???!!! Mom was at home because she had to be there. Who else beat the laundry against a corrugated piece of tin to clean it? Who else sewed the clothes the family wore? Who gutted and cleaned the chicken for the nights dinner? Hard life to be sure.

What happened?..We wanted two cars in our double garage. We wanted the 2500 sq ft home. We wanted paved superhighways to drive our Caddy from Michigan in the winter to Florida to keep warm. We wanted a phone, no a cell phone, no not enough yet, we wanted the internet. We wanted hospitals, retirement homes, health care, electricity, clean water, indoor plumbing, airports, battleships, National Parks, nuclear weapons, bridges, tunnels under harbors and through the Rockies…we wanted it all.

I don’t like the current situation either but I would gladly take all the taxes listed above then turn the clock back to 1907. We in the US are still considered the most prosperous nation in the world on many levels with a much higher standard of living then 1907. We bitch about the price of track and the gearing in our latest $800.00 locomotive instead of Polio and gout. We are free to do more than ever before. I don’t know what the US middle class had in 1907 but it couldn’t hold a candle to the poor in today’s United States.

I ain’t going back.

Apologies to my forum friends outside the USA, I do indeed have a very “Americanized” view of life. Far too much of the world would still like to be up to “middle class” 1907 standards.

I also think I complained myself out…really. Might be time to take a break from discussions of “the northern war of aggression” and get back to trains for a while.

#4

What happened was the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and the enactment of the Personal Income Tax to pay the interest.

#5
David Hill said:
What happened was the Federal Reserve System in 1913 and the enactment of the Personal Income Tax to pay the interest.
The interest on what?

Do you all really think the war of 1812 cost no money? That the Louisiana purchase came out of pocket money? That the Mexican war paid for itself? That the Civil War caused no debt?

It was Alexander Hamilton who wrote, in 1780, “A national debt will be to us a national blessing.” The idea that the US had no debts in the 19th century is just wrong. It went broke in 1893 and had to borrow from JP Morgan. The US went into staggering debt to pay for WWII, then in little more than a decade years that debt was gone.

It’s just inaccurate to say the US had no debt before the 20th century

#6

Deleted

#7

In the USA during WWII, War Bonds were sold, scrap metals were donated, rationing, etc. to help pay for the cost of war. I suppose we should have sent a bill to Europe, Asia and the South Pacific for our expenses and lives lost.

These wars the USA is involved in are all really none of our business. Let the Middle East deal with Iraq, Iran, Hamas, Lebanon, Syria etc, let Central Asia deal with Pakistan, Afghanistan, India, Africa, the Far East, all the places in the world that American sons and daughters are stationed and risking their lives for the ungrateful. We should not be there, and those we are there to protect should take care of themselves, or die trying. I would be happy to not loose any more of our children fighting to protect or free the world. We did it twice in the 20th Century, it’s time you began to fend for yourselves.

If you want to know about the IRS and the Federal Reserve bank in the US, read The Creature From Jekyll Island by Griffin. The revenue from the personal income tax has been equal to the interest on the debt from the Federal Reserve (which by the way is barely more a Federal government agency than Federal Express)

#8
TonyWalsham said:
I wonder how much debt has been incurred financing the current Iraq war, who loaned the USA Guvmint the money and under what terms?
I don't know the exact amount, but I'm sure it is less than the welfare programs, and "good will" money we've given to other countries trying to make them our friends.
#9
TonyWalsham said:
I wonder how much debt has been incurred financing the current Iraq war, who loaned the USA Guvmint the money and under what terms?
China, most likely, the holder of $900 billion in U.S. Treasury bills
#10

Ric Golding said:

TonyWalsham said:
I wonder how much debt has been incurred financing the current Iraq war, who loaned the USA Guvmint the money and under what terms?

I don’t know the exact amount, but I’m sure it is less than the welfare programs, and “good will” money we’ve given to other countries trying to make them our friends.

No, it’s much much less. The amount the US spends in foreign aid is nowhere near the trillion dollar cost of the Iraq war. Foreign aid spending in the US is quite low Military spending

(http://www.yesmagazine.org/images/issues/90/46JTF_MilitarySpending.jpg)

Foreign aid spending:

(http://www.yesmagazine.org/images/issues/90/46JTF_ForeignAid2.jpg)

#11

Mike, the bottom graph shows a larger figure with a smaller graph line. ???

As I have been counseled on this forum, please cite your source unless it is your own research.

#12

Feb 2 2009
For your quick reading, I’ve listed key statistics about the Iraq War, taken primarily from data analyzed by various think tanks, including The Brookings Institution’s Iraq Index, and from mainstream media sources. Data is presented as of January 29, 2009, except as indicated.

U.S. SPENDING IN IRAQ

Spent & Approved War-Spending - About $800 billion of US taxpayers’ funds spent or approved for spending through mid-2009.

With enactment of the FY2008 Supplemental and FY2009 Bridge Fund(H.R.
2642/P.L. 110-252) on June 30, 2008, Congress has approved a total of about $864
billion for military operations, base security, reconstruction, foreign aid, embassy
costs, and veterans’ health care for the three operations initiated since the 9/11
attacks: Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF) Afghanistan and other counter terror
operations; Operation Noble Eagle (ONE), providing enhanced security at military
bases; and Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF).
This $864 billion total covers all war-related appropriations from FY2001
through part of FY2009 in supplementals, regular appropriations, and continuing
resolutions. Of that total, CRS estimates that Iraq will receive about $657 billion
(76%), OEF about $173 billion (20%), and enhanced base security about $28 billion
(3%), with about $5 billion that CRS cannot allocate (1%). About 94% of the funds
are for DOD, 6% for foreign aid programs and embassy operations, and less than 1%
for medical care for veterans. As of July 2008, DOD’s monthly obligations for
contracts and pay averaged about $12.3 billion, including $9.9 billion for Iraq, and
$2.4 billion for Afghanistan.

http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/natsec/RL33110.pdf

#13

The President’s budget for 2008 totals $2.9 trillion. Percentages in parentheses indicate percentage change compared to 2007. This budget request is broken down by the following expenditures:

* Mandatory spending: $1.788 trillion (+4.2%)
      o $608 billion (+4.5%) - Social Security
      o $386 billion (+5.2%) - Medicare
      o $209 billion (+5.6%) - Medicaid and the State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)
      o $324 billion (+1.8%) - Unemployment/Welfare/Other mandatory spending
      o $261 billion (+9.2%) - Interest on National Debt

* Discretionary spending: $1.114 trillion (+3.1%)
      o $481.4 billion (+12.1%) - Department of Defense
      o $145.2 billion (+45.8%) - Global War on Terror
#14

Ken, look at your two posts. In the first, the government is described as spending about 800 billion on Iraq

in the second, total the military spending is listed as 481 billion.

how can it be twice as much in the first as the second?

The Bush admin took the Iraq war “off the books” to try to conceal the cost.

#15

You read it…it says total expenditures, since 9/11 to 2008…the second says 2008.

#16

Waaayy too much of our treasure and blood for some ungrateful, lazy Iraqis.

#17

Mike,
Why did your report not include military aid? Clinton used the military around the World as the Red Cross. I expect BHO will return to the same policy.

#18

Ric it does include it, I think–I’m not sure what you mean by military aid. We have lots of soldier sin Iraq doping infrastructure rebuilding , supplying food etc. Or else we have just subcontracted the job.

Either way, the US foreign aid budget is much much smaller than US military expenditures. Whether or not that’s a good thing is a different question

David you can get the source by following the URL in the link to the graphics

#19
David Hill said:
Waaayy too much of our treasure and blood for some ungrateful, lazy Iraqis.
(Slaps forehead) Yes, we invaded their country without them asking us to, and we killed thousands of people--not clear how many thousands--who were resisting the invasion, and we set up conditions that unleashed a bloody Civil War, and they have the nerve to be ungrateful!

If Iraq invaded the US to free you from secular humanism, and blew up half your town in the process, would you be grateful? Actually, you might be.

#20

We are getting closer to agreeing mike. The Iraqis could have taken care of the problem themselves, but didn’t. Our troops could have been home long ago if the Iraqi police and soldiers weren’t so cowardly and lazy (per returning veterans I’ve spoken to).