Much of this "money" are simply promises that won't be fulfilled.

The problem comes the day people realise they are empty promises.

so wht your saying is that we were always spending debt? not surprising.

man thats some funny shit. 

no my friend. we're spending debt.

In a crisis money vanishes. Almost NOBODY earned anything everyone lost. Depts are non existing money its money not made yet. If the system has a problem the confidence in the future decreases and with it the expectations of the amount of money/work thats going to be done. Thus our money, thats dept based and basically a bet on the work our kids will do vanishes.The work we do was already spent to a part in the past. Or is already spent in the future. Economy is just is psychology and the value that money represents is only to a small part really existing. That leads to a regulary crisis but also makes exponential growth possible.

Value disappears during a stock market decline, or even a localized decline in one company's value, since the value of stocks are backed by the worth of the company itself.

Let's say you decide that a house would be a good investment, so you buy it and hold on to it or rent it or something. That house is part of your net worth. Then let's say the house burns to the ground, and that part of your net worth just vanishes, because economics isn't a zero-sum game, or at least it hasn't been since about the mid 1700s

Two things were the main recipient of all this spending:

- Defence Industry/Wars. Everyone who works for it or the military or contractors or companies that rely on them (a sizeable % of the American people). If the US had a balanced budget they couldn't afford all of the contractors to exist.

- Bank bailout. Which is imaginary money since the government severely overpaid to 'own' the banks it saved.

@Omac

Better give the woman in your sig his number!