Sorry folks, but no, this is not my post about how much my tango has cost me over the past seven years. Or is it eight? I dunno. Some day I may get around to writing that post. It would be an interesting one, especially when you factor in lost opportunity costs and loss of profit. I get this nagging retro rearview don't want to look at it was it all a dream feeling that my tango came at great cost to me. HUGE investment. The return on that investment? Hmm. You'll have to stay tuned whilst I ponder and cipher on that one. And I'm not talking about greenbacks. Well, maybe kindasorta that too. Whatever. But I digress. (grin)
This one is about Warren Buffet's op-ed in the New York Times about the super-wealthy getting preferential treatment by Congress and not paying enough taxes. I haven't actually read it yet, but I wanted to post it before I get too far down the road and forget.
Here's the link: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/15/opinion/stop-coddling-the-super-rich.html
And then there's this little tidbit from Warren - thanks to La Reina for sending it to me:
The Federal Budget put in simpler terms...
The U.S. Congress sets a federal budget every year in the trillions of dollars. Few people know how much money that is, so we created a breakdown of federal spending in simple terms. Let's put the 2011 federal budget into perspective:
• U.S. income: $2,170,000,000,000
• Federal budget: $3,820,000,000,000
• New debt: $ 1,650,000,000,000
• National debt: $14,271,000,000,000
• Recent budget cut: $ 38,500,000,000 (about 1 percent of the budget)
It helps to think about these numbers in terms that we can relate to. Therefore, let's remove eight zeros from these numbers and pretend this is the household budget for the fictitious Jones family.
• Total annual income for the Jones family: $21,700
• Amount of money the Jones family spent: $38,200
• Amount of new debt added to the credit card: $16,500
• Outstanding balance on the credit card: $142,710
• Amount cut from the budget: $385
4 comments:
Something wrong with your figures here - the federal budget is no way bigger than your national income. You may be borrowing a lot of money, but not that much!
Something wrong with your figures here - the federal budget is not bigger than national income. You may be borrowing a lot, but not that much!
I assure you, my friend, the figures are correct. Our projected deficit for 2012 is $1.645 Trillion Dollars ($1,645,000,000,000). Outlays (Spending) is $3.819 Trillion Dollars.
Projected GDP, or "National Income" as you call it, is projected at $15.08 Trillion Dollars ($15,080,000,000,000).
It's all spelled out right here:
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2012/assets/tables.pdf
Owing more than you are taking in is not that drastic, anybody with a mortgage usually does that, it is your ability to pay through the future that matters. Our deficit to GNP is not that far out of line and getting rid of the Bush tax cuts across the board would go a long way to improve it along with taming our yearning for empire. Of course taming our yearning for empire may actually cost us income. I don't know, there is not an honest assessment of the cost vs benefit of empire anywhere to be had.Our national assets still outweigh our debt. We may have to cash them in some day and it will be because of lousy tax policy.
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