anyway, i said america is turtled because its 14 trillion dollars in debt, among other things, anyway, this is response: "you have to remember that 14 trillion dollars in debt is pretty hiugh but the reason its manageable is that the itnerest payments are affordable which is why inflation doesnt increase despite printing huge amounts of money" what should i say. am i wrong?
Are the interest payments affordable? And where is the money coming from to pay the interest? Wouldn't that money be better spent on hospitals and schools. It does sound like an argument that you will never win, not without visual aids anyway.
after that he went on a long winded explanation of why the gold standard is bad cause hes got an economics degree
"A MAN WITH A CONVICTION is a hard man to change. Tell him you disagree and he turns away. Show him facts or figures and he questions your sources. Appeal to logic and he fails to see your point." So wrote the celebrated Stanford University psychologist Leon Festinger
I normally let those types stroke their own ego, then move elsewhere, where the conversation is a bit more up-beat.
We are all Turtled.. America could sell half the resources in Alaska, pay that debt & have change. But why do that, pay it slowly & buy up everyone else's resources using a devaluating currency is a much better plan! Hyperinflation is king when you have debt. I dont think they charge interest on that 14T? They will be lucky to pay 20c in the Dollar of the initial amount & will be paying with the US dollar(lols) which won't be worth anything! This is a currency war. Next is WW3. Very much like the beginning of the 20th Centuary - WW1 1914-18, roaring 20's caused depression so WW2 1939-45. You can say we have very hard times ahead, if we survive.. 20% of the oceans fish were killed off by WW2 & not much farming was done! Human population was 60% less then. The last man standing will be the one with juice to power their war machines. That's what stopped the Nazi's, Blitzkreig was a great tactic, but not enough petrol! I don't see any solar powered tanks? Petro is great but Nuclear energy is king. And then we will starve. America has got juice but everyone hates them, that's why they are Turtled! For every person killed by America thru war or policy, 20 are affected, bitter & vengeful! The numbers are adding up, they are trying to become the rulers but are looking more like a plague.
america will be back, there is an oil and gas revolution occurring, wait until the gas export industry takes off, the amount of drilling rigs in the USA has gone off the charts recently. Shale oil and shale gas, great for america not so great for the environment
The reserves of shale oil in Wisconsin alone are estimated to exceed the deposits in Saudi Arabia, and there are others such as in Colorado. To think of how much oil that is, is hard to comprehend. One thing I learned when at uni is that every time the Saudis test their reserve levels, they realise they underestimated the reserves last time, so despite the millions of barrels of production since the last estimation, their reserves can go up over time, not down. For one US state or region to have as much oil as Saudi Arabia is a game changer. Then there's all the offshore deep water reserves Obama either won't allow to be drilled or quietly gives licences away to Brazilians instead of American companies. AND the oil sands reserves in Alberta, Canada are thought to match those reserves in America. The Keystone XL pipeline, if the US EPA ever stops getting in the way of the States trying to build it, will deliver that reserve to the Gulf Coast refineries. Then there is their shale gas, then there is their coal. Then there is their uranium and nuclear expertise. America is fine. They just need leadership willing to build on their strengths.
I wouldn't argue with an idiot. They will bring you down to their level then beat you with experience.
Going from memory, it isn't shale oil, it is kerogen. In another million years it will be oil. I will gladly sell you shares in my company Pay Now, Get Much, Much, Much Later. We invest in kerogen, or as we call it, future oil. Shell has tested processes to turn the kerogen into oil by heating it to 6-700 degrees for 2-3 years. Biggest problems are that the process takes enormous amounts of energy and water. The energy is for the heating and for the freeze ring that is necessary to prevent groundwater contamination. Last I read, no one was even close to a cost effective process to turn kerogen into oil.
you can borrow even more money, and uncle Ben will help you paid for it by dropping them from a helicopter :lol:
True. But they're drilling in the deep water gulf coast, and extracting in Canada - that is realised potential.
Fair enough. I know how the play works before a reservoir can be deemed suitable for extraction. Is that in Wisconsin or Colorado or Nth/Sth Dakota or where? Every field is different.
With regard to shale oil... It is no good having a huge reserve if it is uneconomic to retrieve it.You get $85 a barrel but it costs you $100 a barrel to extract. As for the USA debt. I thought it was $16 trillion.. The USA has an annual income from taxes of around $2.5 trillion but expenditure is $1.1 trillion more..Therefore it has to borrow..The Federal Treasury then asks the Federal Reserve Bank to create more US $ who do so and give it to the US banks to buy US bonds because other countries only buy about 40% of these bonds..Therefore the US goes further into debt each year.. China and Japan both have large quantities of US bonds. Now if they ever decide to cash them in, down goes the value of the US dollar, up goes the price of imported goods to the US thus causing inflation. Do the government put up the interest rates to stop inflation or let it ride. Now if interest rates rise to 6% and the USA owes $16trillion, then they have to pay another $960 billion a year to push expenditure up to $ 2 trillion p.a.in the Red. At that stage over $35% of taxes is needed just to pay the interest alone.. This is what the argument is about today in the US, increase taxes or reduce expenditure to balance the budget. IMHO, hyper inflation is the only way out for the USA. It is a very hard topic to get your head around even after you listen to the so called experts. Some believe that as long as the US $ is the reserve currency of the world that US debt doesn't matter and that they can just go on printing money while others believe that Derivatives will bring down the US. Japan has a lot of debt but it seems that the government debt is owned by the Japanese people themselves. Don't even try to win the argument, just go on doing what you do Stack Silver and no matter whcih way it goes, you will never be a complete looser. Regards Errol 43
Not sure how i would have countered that 'The interest Payments are affordable argument' Maybe next time.. Last minute deal averts US government shutdown Quoted from 'The Sydney Morning Herald' April 10th 2011 WASHINGTON: A dramatic 11th-hour deal has staved off a damaging shutdown of the US government, breaking a rancorous budget deadlock between President Barack Obama and his newly empowered Republican foes. Party leaders clinched an agreement, including $US38.5 billion ($36.6 billion) in extra spending cuts, after intense political bargaining, barely an hour before the federal government effectively ran out of money at midnight on Friday (2pm yesterday, local time). Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/world/last-mi...nt-shutdown-20110409-1d8d9.html#ixzz2BTyz3MpE REDBACK
