MAYHEM
People I know in the Horse Racing business are telling me that they are getting quoted prices up $500 per head to ship from Arizona to Minnesota this spring. So a 10 horse stable, which is by no means large, will be an extra $5000 out of pocket. Add what is sure to be an increase in feed and straw, and it’s a pretty grim situation.
I just paid a $10k down payment for my roof, gutters, soffit and fascia. Everybody wants to sing the song about wood and metal costing more than 1-2 yrs ago.
What can I do? Wait til the prices go down? I gotta bite the bullet.
Gas prices generally are based on oil futures, or at least the underlying prices exclusive of taxes are. Oil futures contracts were $72.05 on December 7 and at close of market on Friday were $115.
If you like, I can explain a lot more about it and it will be significantly more boring than the concrete discussion, but the basic reason is that in three months, the price for CL.1 has increased by about 60%.
8" - Wasn't bitching as much as I was trying to understand the reason behind it. It's as if the war is an excuse to drive the prices up rather than an actual reason for it.
Also, looking at the increase in fuel price increases based on what you put in your gas tank is short sighted. Fuel prices effect the cost of heating houses (we are still in winter) and transporting ALL products from manufacturer to consumer, regardless of the season. This increase peanut butters across virtually every product sold, and even moreso for things made from petroleum.
Some of these these jump up and never come back down, even when fuel prices drop. For example, roof shingles. The price/bundle is higher now than it used to be for a whole square of shingles (3 bundles). It has remained that way long after fuel prices that drove that change came back down.
If you're impacting the price of a product that's optional, that one thing, but fuel is not one of those products.
Whatever Russia, Nigeria, Saudi and other nations do with their oil prices affects ALL of the other markets.
Why are ppl trying to sell their house for 100-300% more than they bought it for, spend 6-20k for a vacation, and belly ache over gas going up?
Just say gas increases between 80 cents and a whole dollar. You buy 15-20 gallons a week, that's roughly $1k per year. Then they'll turn around and boast about their 401k while driving to buy $6-7 dollar iced coffees and spend $150 per month on cable/internet. Stop crying, geeze.... Europeans have not seen $3.00 gas probably since the early 90's?
Over $5 a gallon for regular here...
Being that we don't have a big reliance on getting fuel from Russia, why the hell are the US fuel prices so much higher almost overnight?
Gas prices in our area went from about $3.15/gal to just over $3.80/gal in a matter of a few days it seems. We get maybe 5% of our crude from Russia, but the prices easily jumped at least 20%.
I can see this reinforcing the decision of the people that have gone to all electric cars. Must be kind of nice to be able to say "Fuck you" to the oil companies, or at least who/whatever it is that is driving the prices up like that.
@Wayne,
My point was that extrapolations into the future are unreliable as current "obligations" are subject to change based on political policies or, eventually, political realities. My concern is that large numbers of people and institutions will eventually come around to my personal viewpoint, which is that America has no actual intention of paying off its debt. At that point "the party", i.e. what we view as our present socioeconomic reality as Americans, will be over. If we had to live, not necessarily with a balanced budget but with a budget subject to much more close and vocal scrutiny by our "investors" (bond purchasers) as reasonably sustainable the way say a bank would look at a homeowner's reasonable debt burden, we would have to come to grips with both (not either, both) massively higher taxes and massively lower spending on everything.
It's an interesting analogy to compare government debt to credit card debt. Or a variable rate mortgage. The annual interest payments on the national debt, as a budget expenditure, in financed by bond issuance at prevailing rates. So the cost of debt service is variable. The most worrisome part of this issue is that inevitable, when interest rates are forced to go up, and just when the cost of this debt service eats up a larger share of the budget, the need for higher expenditures for vital things like unemployment benefits also increases. The way to reduce the need for such benefits is traditionally to lower interest rates in order to stimulate the economy. However, the increased deficits to pay for the debt service along with aid for large numbers of unemployed Americans makes our balance sheet less attractive to investors, driving up interest rates on bond debt due to the perceived riskiness of the investment.
Yeah, it took awhile, for my score to recover, It's about 2 points below what it was during the truck purchase incident.
The gas station CC I apparently opened when I was 5YO is no longer on my report. Apparently I must have needed gas for my tricycle...
"And then there's the credit reporting company's getting me confused with my father who passed away before I could get access to his checking account to pay his bills, but that's another story."
That happened to me too. I was on my mom's checking account, but not her credit card. They reported her maxed out card to my credit report...
Even after they got it sorted out, my credit score did not recover for a couple of months
"I also mostly pay cash for stuff, and the only credit card debt I have is 0% cards."
And...
"In rare occasions I may incur small debt if someone is offering 0% credit (like my cell phone on my current plan), but I can't see that contributing to anything. Thoughts on any of this?"
Not regarding the National Debt, but on personal credit.
Several years ago I bought a truck. The dealer of course wanted me to finance with one of the banks they do business with.
I told them I would be paying cash or possibly use my Credit Union which always has the lowest rates around for mortgages and other loans. So, just to see what kind of interest a vehicle loan would be, I gave the dealer's business manager my info. He came back shaking his head and told me he had never seen anyone with a credit rating as high as mine- which meant I could get the best rate their best bank could offer.
That best rate was higher than my CU, which didn't surprise me. I told him I would just pay cash- which I did.
A couple of weeks later I get a letter from the lender saying they denied my loan. WTF? I turned them down. I laughed and just put it away.
A few months later I check on my credit score and saw it had dropped. I asked why, they said it was due to a couple of inquiries (the auto dealer's banks) and most importantly, a lender turning me down. I asked how I could improve my score, they said I needed to get a loan and pay it per the contract because the only credit I had was CCs. Nope, not even a mortgage- I own my properties free and clear of any loans.
The interest on my CCs went up. No big deal because I always pay my CC balances in full every month, but still...
And then there's the credit reporting company's getting me confused with my father who passed away before I could get access to his checking account to pay his bills, but that's another story.
On the plus side, I don't get a mailbox full of offers for new CCs and loans that I don't need from banks.
Funny how when you need money, no one wants to loan it to you, but when you don't need money, they're lining up begging you ta take it.
You debt is someone else's income.
If we were to magically pay off all the government debt, there would be a depression.
I'm not going to say that the national debt is no problem, but Japan runs a debt to income ratio twice ours and is bumping along just fine.
I don't really have the time before work to get into this as it should be, but your personal finances are nothing like government finances.
I also mostly pay cash for stuff, and the only credit card debt I have is 0% cards.
While the national debt is definitely a problem regardless of the actual number, it would seem a lot of people spend the same way as the government, albeit that they can't print their own money (at least legally). If people see the National Debt as a "lead be example" thing, many households will do the same.
I came across an interesting piece of trivia. It apparently used to be a thing that if you paid off your house, people would afix an eagle somewhere on the outside of it, like a front door or over garage doors. I can remember seeing these as a kid on various houses and just thought it was a patriotic or purely decorative display, but it apparently had another meaning. If it ever became a thing again, it seems very few people these days could afix eagles to their house.
Does people's personal debt help, hurt, or not effect the National debt? I would think it helps as the interest on loans would contribue to the economy in some way, but I'm not really sure. Would we be better as a country if people didn't spend money like drunken sailors and had less personal debt?
I am at a point in my life where I essentially pay cash for everything. In rare occasions I may incur small debt if someone is offering 0% credit (like my cell phone on my current plan), but I can't see that contributing to anything. Thoughts on any of this?
When I said $20t on the credit card I used an outdated number, but who has the time to look up a number that increases millions daily. Another thing to consider with inflation, the gov is printing more money which makes the problem worse.
Funny, I can't find a table in any of Koltikoff's writings...
<p>currentrider,</p>
<p>I gave you my source - <span style="color:rgb(118, 118, 118); font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:12px">Laurence J. Kotlikoff</span></p>
<p><span style="color:rgb(118, 118, 118); font-family:helvetica,arial,sans-serif; font-size:12px">Here are some quotes of his from an NPR article:</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:17px">"If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $211 trillion. That's the fiscal gap," he says. "That's our true indebtedness."...</span></p>
<p><span style="font-family:georgia,serif; font-size:17px">"We've got 78 million baby boomers who are poised to collect, in about 15 to 20 years, about $40,000 per person. Multiply 78 million by $40,000 — you're talking about more than $3 trillion a year just to give to a portion of the population,"</span></p>
$200 trillion is a nonsensical figure for current debt. I have no idea what article you're referring to but doesn't even sound like a credible prediction or extrapolation to me of even future obligations coming due over the next ten years.
In any case, debt and obligations are not exactly the same things. Either can be reneged on. With consequences. The social security and Medicare trust funds are, as some politicians have occasionally, if injudiciously observed, essentially Ponzi schemes. Once the trust funds for these programs are depleted, they would need to be subsidized with expenditures. I say would because "will" is an assumption. We have staved off insolvency of the Social Security Trust fund more than once already by adjusting retirement eligibility age, adjusting benefits , offering fiduciarily positive (for the government) options like early reduced benefits at 62, etc. In any case when expenditures exceed income, as they have for all but three of the last 50 years, that becomes debt. Long term extrapolations assume there will be no changes in policy in response to an increasingly untenable situation. That's not credible IMO.
Segregating "intra governmental debt" (about $6 trillion) from "public debt" (about $24 trillion) is a bit more questionable to me as a concept. As is ignoring debt on the Federal Reserve's balance sheet (currently about $7.2 trillion) which is technically guaranteed by the Treasury (i.e. us).
While Social Security is a debt, it is also founded (at least somewhat) by the vast majority of people that will draw on it. Perhaps the Wikipedia #'s are understating that, but the interesting thing was how much more Medicare and Medicaid was going to cost versus Social Security, which is I assume is what was meant by "retirement".
Well it's primarily Doctors buying multi million dollar homes now in Paradise Valley, AZ.. they need that china virus money to keep up their lifestyle, hell most probably won't even take medicare/cade anymore.
<p><a href="https://www.swinglifestyle.com/profile/lookup.cfm?usercode=50284075">mayhem8</a>,</p>
<p>I don't fully understand where it comes from either. My understanding is that the governement owes every living citizen retirement, as per the law. While I'm typing this, some baby is probably being born in America. As soon as that baby is born, the US government owes it a retirment in the future (based on how much that person works during their life). If the person doesn't work, the government has to pay out welfare. If the person ends up being disabled, it could cost the government millions of dollars to support them. </p>
Wikipedia has the following on the National Debt -
"Approximately $7.7 trillion relates to Social Security, while $38.2 trillion relates to Medicare and Medicaid. In other words, health care programs will require nearly five times more funding than Social Security. Adding this to the national debt and other federal obligations would bring total obligations to nearly $62 trillion.[31] However, these unfunded obligations are not counted in the national debt, as shown in monthly Treasury reports of the national debt."
Not saying one or the other is correct. Just that there is a huge difference in what the claimed "unfunded obligations" amount is. At least a quick search on "Kotlikoff National debt" shows a lot from him about what it would take to pay of his claimed amount, but I couldn't easily find anything detailing how he arrived at his #'s.
en.wikipedia. org/wiki/National_debt_of_the_United_States#:~:text=These%20deficits%20require%20funding%20from,is%20an%20estimated%20%2445.8%20trillion.
<p>What tbr said. :)</p>
<p>My reference: P<span style="color:rgb(102, 102, 102); font-family:roboto,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">rofessor of economics at Boston University - </span>Laurence J. Kotlikoff</p>
That's counting the unfunded liabilities of the US government such as future social security payments...
When I Googled it, I also saw the National US debt at about $30T. There's a huge difference between that and $200T. How are you coming up with that # Wayne?
<p>"<span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:tahoma,verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Someone in the "Craziest thing I've read" thread just brough up the national debt saying that there is "$20 trillion on the credit card..." Actually it's over $30 trillion. Here are a few other interesting Debt metrics."</span></p>
<p><span style="color:rgb(0, 0, 0); font-family:tahoma,verdana,arial,helvetica,sans-serif; font-size:14px">Actually, the national debt of the United states is around $200 trillion dollars. </span></p>
