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mirgro on 05 May 2010
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MontanaHatchet said:
mirgro said:
mrstickball said:
Mirgro -

The US has half of the debt according to GDP that the Greeks do. I hope your being sarcastic, or else that was a very bad argument.

Correcty me if I'm wrong, but the US debt is still 100% of the US's GDP. I was also not sarcastic at all. The only reason the US is so ahead of everyone else right now is because back in the 80s the US started taking on huge amounts of money. Give 13 trillion to any other country in Europe, and they will be just as "great."

If it hadn't started incurring huge amounts of debt what would have happened is the same thing to the other super power of the time, the one that didn't take on any debt, Russia. We know how that went. For a reference, Russia has only about $80bil, and most of that is post 2000. Just something to think about, and what all this American "greatness" really stems from, it's certainly not the rampant Capitalism that most historically challenged people in the US would have you believe though.

Wait, what?

First off, I'm almost scared to argue with you because I'm afraid you'll launch personal attacks at me.

Second off, how is the U.S. only great now because of all the money it borrowed? If anything, the U.S. would be better off without a huge reliance on loans and a humongous national debt. Nations in Europe have huge debts too, several numbering in the trillions as well, and much higher relative to their GDP. So why aren't they great? Are trillions of dollars not enough for France and Germany to be "great?" You also forgot to mention that Russia defaulted on its debt and in the course of only a decade or so has already incurred almost 100 billion dollars in debt. That's not a huge sum, but it's a far cry from "didn't take on any debt." And yeah, America's power (or "greatness") was built on capitalism. And if American's unparalleled manufacturing and industrial capabilities aren't the result of capitalism, what would it be? Communism?

I'd like to point out that the closest country to the US in debt is the UK, and the US has 50% more debt than the UK. UK being at 9 and the US at 13.5, give or take some billions from either. France and Germany are each at 5, and from there on everything drops off really fast. As for % of GDP, you have to realize that the US was at 3 or 4 trillion by the 90s, they've been growing for the past 2 and a half decades solely because of debt, and incurring even more as they go along so their GDP goes up even more. The more money you have the more money you can produce, unless you are just terrible.

I also never said Communism was any good either, as I pointed out Russia also failed in the 80s. Both systems are as bad and fucked up as the other and both failed miserably in the 80s. It's some point in the middle that works best. I'd also like to point out that 100 billion is 130 times less than what the US is at.

 

P.S. Figures are all over the damn place and depend on where you look, so I'm not sure if 100 billion is the public debt or the overall debt of Russia, if it's the public then it's obviously less than 130 times.