Word: trillions
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...Maybe that should be the model now. Within a nearly trillion-dollar stimulus bill there is probably enough that lawmakers agree on to get the kind of bipartisan vote Obama once aimed for: shoring up collapsing infrastructure, extending unemployment benefits, targeted tax cuts and relief - with strings attached - to state and local governments and embattled homeowners. Then take a deep breath, and let's have the debate he promised, the rigorous test of "Do we need this?" and "Can we afford it?", for all the other programs currently marinating in the bill, whether the honeybee subsidy or the Pell grants...
Nouriel Roubini, the New York University economics professor who was famously early in predicting that the end of the housing boom would cause a financial crisis, estimates that continued loan losses will force U.S. banks to come up with an additional $1.4 trillion just to stave off bankruptcy. And since the banks aren't likely to earn much money or attract new investors anytime soon, much of the money will have to come from the government...
...beginning to wonder if anyone reads basic economics anymore. It has been widely understood for centuries that government does not create wealth; it merely redistributes it. The stimulus plan can be summarized as follows: we are going to borrow a trillion dollars from foreigners and spend it on a mile-long list of pork-barrel projects that we don't immediately need (or else we would have found another way to pay for them) and hope this gets us out of the recession. Did I miss something? There is a growing consensus among historians and economists that World...
...national scold scene, announced in a December press release that the U.S. is bankrupt. Not the government but the whole country and everyone in it. As of Sept. 30, the PGP folks reported (using figures from the Federal Reserve), the value of everybody's assets was $56.5 trillion. The value of our liabilities (public and private) was $56.4 trillion. Given what has happened to real estate and the stock market since Sept. 30, it seems certain that we now owe more than we are worth...
...certain, that is, if the PGP folks are correct. Now, I'm all for doom 'n' gloom--they've done very well for me in the journalism business over the years--but this struck me as too bad to be true. And on closer examination, it is. About $40 trillion of PGP's $56 trillion in liabilities is its calculation of future Medicare and Social Security benefits ($34 trillion of it is Medicare alone), which Congress has promised to future senior citizens but has made no provision to pay for. This is the entitlements nightmare we hear so much about...