"Quote from denner: "He's still awaiting instructions from Krugman on what to think next. " STFU, shill. I can be gone for two minutes without you pissing about it. : )
the price of freedom is vigilence. there is no reason we should be playing chicken with our sovereign and / or constitutional rights. our financial system should not be on the brink of disaster.
Was mainly Brit investors in Iceland, I believe. Normally, I would agree with your "room to maneuver" statement, as long as a single politician in control showed the desire to begin maneuvering. None do, therefore it will be too late when they realize it.
I just saw what happened in Congress. I have decided to try and become a crony. I love the FED. I will be ready for real estate to collapse once the hedgefunds sell out their recent buys to the public. I will be looking for insider deals.
Which collateral chains in the US enabled the ballooning? Foreign ownership of US debt is massive. The second problem, unlike Japan, and much like Greece, Iceland, Argentina, Spain, Portugal, Italy etc, America is a net creditor nation. Meaning foreign denominated securities on the books at the Treasury and FED are infinitesimal to outstanding foreign ownership of US treasury debt. This is a massive problem. Saying Greece and Argentina still exist, is trite and really ignorant. Greece has gone from 1st to near 2nd world status. Unemployment, poverty, political instability are at record highs. Argentina went from 1st world to 2nd world, and the transitions were horrendous. Like out of a dystopic movie. Also, saying we've 'got options' like selling off land, that's crazy. That's what Greece is doing. That's the death of a nation. Burning the furniture to heat the house. The whole tenure of your argument is "its no big deal". This is so insane I can't even begin to address it. We're *GIVING* away our superpower status so we can live high on the hog for a short while and invade countries. This is madness. This makes us all much worse off and empowers strategic and ideological adversaries, like the Communist Chinese, who dont give a shit about human rights or the value of a life. This is truly unspeakable, and to wit we are doing it by CHOICE. And to that, casual observers who are American CITIZENS conclude "its no big deal".
You're speaking the truth, facts and reality. As opposed to the myriad of unsupported opinions we so often see here.
I'm not trying to say it's "no big deal" so much as I'm trying to say we're not "all gonna die!!1!!" It's not fair to treat foreign liabilities as a monolithic block while treating foreign assets as merely the small part owned by government. What I mean is, not all US foreign debt will ever come due all at once, like it could if it were owned by one government. It's owned by organizations large and small, public and private, and (Chinese) mom and pop investors as well. Do you think these various governments, businesses, and citizens would really be able to coordinate a massive "pay us now" action? I don't. I'll concede that we can frighten the world enough to cause something similar, like crossing the debt ceiling. I don't think ability to pay according to the current schedule is a concern--yet. As for our foreign assets, last I saw they offset our liabilities by about 80%. To be fair, I don't think we could or would even try to coordinate a massive redemption, either. It's unheard of as far as I know. But, maybe that's really what some wars have been about, as some claim. My real worry is that the true fundamentals will fail: the ability of the Earth to feed and water 7, 8 or more billion people. If we cross that line then no amount of haircutting and currency redistribution can fix it. Your points about living conditions in Greece and Argentina are taken. It does get very hard in certain localities at certain times.