Billionaires Acknowledge National Debt Is A Problem - Will Anyone Listen?

I am sort of a documentary junkie and I like watching them on Netflix’s instant play. Two documentaries I have reviewed on this blog include Maxed Out and The Business of Being Born. Today I heard about an interesting documentary called I.O.U.S.A. documenting the threat of America’s ever growing national debt. Yahoo has an article that talks about billionaires Warren Buffet and Pete Peterson endorsing this documentary and speaking out about how the government should work on borrowing less, and encourage the citizens to save more, but will anyone listen?

A few days ago I wrote an article called We Are Our Own Worst Enemy on Wise Bread and it was a comment on Knight Kiplinger’s article about how Americans themselves are the culprits for the nation’s economic problems. The American people like lower taxes, and more services. The politicians get elected by making expensive promises, and they fulfill their promises by borrowing money. This has been going on for quite a while. One of the commenters on my article wrote an extremely long comment that ended with,

“Fed a steady diet of corporate-controlled advertising which manipulates quirks of the human brain (read Jerry Mander’s “4 Arguments for the Elimination of Television“) to increase consumer spending and pro-corporate news, is it any wonder the average American is a mess? Sure, they’re stupid for continuing to stare at the boob-tube and not noticing that they get the urge to order out a pizza after the TV ad, but hey, most people just don’t have as high IQ’s as the average tightwad (read “The Bell Curve“), especially as many of today’s consumers are from the post-Reagan/cut-education-to-the-bone generation. It’s not that the more aware people aren’t writing to their Congressman demanding solutions, the problem is that those Congressmen aren’t listening because they’re beholden to their corporate sponsors.

STOP telling people they’re stupid and it’s all their own fault. A) it’s only 25%-30% their fault; B) the minute you tell someone it’s all their fault they stop listening to you; and C), the originator of this article is quoting a non-credible source. If you want to change things, take clueless consumers by the hand, gently explain the situation to them and what they can do to fix it in a non-blaming way, then unleash them on Congress to throw the bastards out of office. Educate people that they have been brainwashed and teach them there is another way to live.”

I think this commenter is pretty blunt and cuts to the heart of the problem. Most people don’t care or know enough to learn about the national debt. Most people keep on electing the officials that promise the most to them. How does a politician make “reduce the national debt” sound more sexy than “tax cuts for the middle class”? Sure, I.O.U.S.A may be a great documentary, but how many people will watch it? Now that billionaire endorsed it, I am sure that those in the government who love class warfare and spending all they can would dismiss it as another piece of propaganda from “the rich”.

Here is what I find absolutely fall-off-my-chair hilarious. China is one of the biggest creditors to the USA. Actually according to the Treasury, China currently holds around half a trillion dollars of US treasuries. So basically the $40 billion extravaganza of an Olympics could be just funded by the interest payments America is sending to China. I am sure some of you Americans might be calling China evil now, but if China didn’t loan the money to the United States then your lives may be a lot worse. Treasuries carry a fairly low yield, and that’s what kept inflation low in the United States for decades. However, if China stops buying so many treasuries from the United States sometime in the future or demand higher rates then that would affect government funds in a significant manner.

I really don’t know how Americans can fix this because there doesn’t seem to be a politician that doesn’t love to spend and get more debt. I guess they’re not spending their own money so it doesn’t matter to them. Young sensible professionals are not the majority in America, and most people who vote are baby boomers and seniors who love the government sponsored freebies so politicians pander to them. One prime example is that Obama is proposing no taxes for seniors making $50,000 a year and below. It makes sense for the more elderly because the debts incurred by the government will be paid by generations to come, so they’re not spending their money either. I’m not saying that all elderly people are leeches, but selfishness tend to lead people to vote a certain way especially when the incentives are so large.

Finally, here is another funny and ironic fact. When people who work in the government apply for Top Secret or Secret clearance they will be screened for the amount of debt they have. If they have too much debt they may not get clearance because they are more likely to be blackmailed or accept bribes. Right now, the United States Government’s national debt is so large and owned by so many foreign nations that it may not pass for its own security clearance if it applied. I think the Department of Homeland Security should probably get involved as soon as possible because the United States Government’s finances is a valid security risk.

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