Newsgroup: it.politica.internazionale
Titolo: USA in bancarotta?

From Tim Reid in Washington
IF YOU are worried about how much you owe on your credit cards, this
might put things in perspective: America's national debt limit was
increased yesterday to $9 trillion. That's $9,000,000,000,000 -
enough to buy Buckingham Palace 9,000 times.
The increase, passed by Congress, allows the Government to borrow
another $781 billion (£447 billion), increasing the national debt
limit - the maximum America can borrow - from $8 trillion and $184
billion to $8 trillion and $961 billion.
If the debt ceiling, which is set by Congress, had not been raised by
March 24, the Administration would not have been able to borrow more
money and the US would have begun to default on its domestic and
foreign obligations, an untenable consequence.
The vote to increase the debt limit, requested by the White House, is
the fourth since Mr Bush took office. In 2001 the national debt was
$5.7 trillion. Today it has ballooned to $8.2 trillion, figures rarely
talked about in Washington.
The national debt is the total amount owed by the Government. It is not
to be confused with the federal budget deficit, which is the yearly
amount by which spending exceeds revenue. When budget deficits are big,
the national debt inevitably increases.
When Mr Bush took office he inherited a $236 billion budget surplus.
Bill Clinton, his predecessor, had used budget surpluses to pay down
some of the national debt in his last two years in office. Mr Bush also
inherited some extraordinarily overoptimistic projections. Experts
pronounced that budget surpluses would increase to $5.6 trillion over
ten years, and there was even heady talk of paying off the entire
national debt with the proceeds.
Since then a combination of factors - the September 11, 2001,
attacks, unexpectedly low tax revenues, Mr Bush's tax cuts and
runaway government spending - have plunged the yearly budget back
into deficit. This year it will reach nearly $400 billion.
What worries many analysts is the amount of US debt financed by foreign
governments and banks, particularly in Asia. The national debt is split
between publicly held debt - money owed to US and foreign investors
- and money owed to branches of the Government. Nearly half the
publicly owed debt is held by foreigners. Japan is the biggest
creditor, at $668 billion. China, the second-biggest, recently
increased its stake by $40 billion to $263 billion.
"We used to have much less held by foreigners," Alice Rivlin, a
former budget director for Mr Clinton, said. "It makes you much more
vulnerable to people's agendas."
Historically, today's national debt is the highest in dollar terms,
but not as a percentage of GDP. In 1946 it was $270 billion - 122 per
cent of GDP.
Today it is 65 per cent of GDP, very close to the postwar high of 67
per cent in 1996.
America has had a national debt since 1791, when it was $75 million.
Today it rises by that amount every hour.
$9 TRILLION
# Is roughly four times Britain's GDP
# Equates to $1,500 for every man, woman and child in the world
# Would buy all the tea in China. In fact it would buy all the tea in
the world for the next 2,000 years.
# Is enough to solve the Palestinian crisis by rehousing every Israeli
and Palestinian family in a £1.5m detached house in Henley-on-Thames
# Would build 28 Eiffel Towers - constructed out of gold.
----------------------------------------------------
Se c'e chi pensa che questi soldi siano un'"investimento", rimando ai
due articoli che ho postato ieri, quotati sotto.  Chi l'avrebbe detto
che gli USA avrebbero superato l'URSS in distorsione economica :-/
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/11917853/
Katrina cleanup costs grow and grow
Layers of contractors and subcontractors boost bill to taxpayers
...
NEW ORLEANS - How many contractors does it take to haul a pile of tree
branches? If it's government work, at least four: a contractor, his
subcontractor, the subcontractor's subcontractor, and finally, the
local man with a truck and chainsaw.
If the job is patching a leaking roof, the answer may be five
contractors, or even six. At the bottom tier is a Spanish-speaking crew
earning less than 10 cents for every square foot of blue tarp
installed. At the top, the prime contractor bills the government 15
times as much for the same job.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/g2/story/0,,1734689,00.html
'Iraq was awash in cash. We played football with bricks of $100 bills'
At the beginning of the Iraq war, the UN entrusted $23bn of Iraqi money
to the US-led coalition to redevelop the country. With the
infrastructure of the country still in ruins, where has all that money
gone? Callum Macrae and Ali Fadhil on one of the greatest financial
scandals of all time

 9,000,000,000,000 dollari.
Poco piu' del 70% del PIL.
Roba quasi da parametri di maastricht.
andrea

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Eh, appunto. L'Italia in confronto ha il 106% del PIL .
Pero', 'ste rane, tutte a gridare alla catastrofe americana...
Wishful thinking...
Am.

 Wishful thinking...
Ehm, guardate la progressione per favore:
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/faq.html
E qui si arriva solo fino al 2005.
Usare l'Italia come parametro per il rapporto deficit/pil non mi pare 
una grande furbata.
Ah, e manca ancora la guerra in Iran.
Riot

amalric ha scritto:
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Gli usa non sono l'italia, sono il centro dell'economia mondiale il loro 
debito è enorme e detenuto in gran parte da Sauditi Cinesi Giapponesi. 
In più c'è l'indebitamento dei conti correnti (gli yankee aa differenza 
degli italiani in banca hanno solo debiti)

 Ah, e manca ancora la guerra in Iran.
Dimenticavo. E' il classico principio del lago delle ninfee: ogni anno 
le ninfee raddoppiano e dopo 50 anni arrivano a coprire la metà del 
lago, così tutti pensano: beh, se ci ha messo 50 anni per riempirsi a 
metà ce ne metterà altri 50 per riempirsi del tutto.
Riot

Riot ha scritto:
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la progressione dimostra che l'america è in crisi nera da stagnazione 
economica visto che la crescita del pil è inferiore al mostruoso 
incremento del debito fatto da Bush.

Riot ha scritto:
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hai notato che l'incremento del debito avuto sotto Bush a parita di 
inflazione è paragonabile solo al periodo della 2gm? Solo che all'epoca 
quell'incremento ha permesso agli usa di papparsi l'Europa oggi si 
tengono una pietraia e una sabbionaia (Afghanistan e Iraq)

 Riot
In a speech late on Monday, Bernanke said the economy should keep 
growing at a brisk pace even if the housing market slows. He said the 
"very flat (Treasury) yield curve" is not necessarily a signal of a 
potentially significant U.S. economic slowdown. (Reuters)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060321/bs_nm/markets_stocks_dc
Aspettiamo trepidanti il Gotterdammerung americano.
Am.

 incremento del debito fatto da Bush.
Mi pare un concetto di economia un po' ardito.
andrea