A bit about politics

[browascension]

The U.S. national debt is 9.1 trillion dollars.  Here's the U.S. National Debt Clock.

Here's Ross Perot talking about the 4.1 trillion dollar national debt in 1992. He was right to be concerned.  4.1 trillion dollars was a huge debt.  In 15 years, the debt has gone from 4.1 trillion to 9.1 trillion.

The problem is that a politician who ignores

Comments

[triath]

I'm curious, which countries don't have a national debt? That is, who do we theoretically owe money to?

[hober]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_public_debt

[triath]

Thanks!

How odd, since one source I was looking at claimed that Japan owns most of our debt.

[scottsch]

I don't know about countries, but some states don't have debt. California at one point paid off its debt. I tried looking up facts on this, but my google-fu is not strong enough.

[amoken]

maerdi and I once discussed a fabulous system wherein legislative folks were allotted a certain salary each year, as they are now. But they would lose a small amount of pay each time they voted to increase regulations, increase spending, etc.

(I'm sure it wouldn't work any better than what we have now, but it sure is amusing to consider.)

[perspectivism]

I love it! (Though maybe in a world that understood economics well enough to support the policy, it wouldn't even be needed...)

[perspectivism]

Kinda relatedly, I just ran across Ron Paul's spectacular essay on old Waco...
http://www.lewrockwell.com/orig/paul1.html

[simonfunk]

(I thought for sure this was going to end with: Vote Ron Paul.)

[reichart]

mmm....accountability...my three favourite words...