Countries with Debt and their Rankings
Wednesday, April 28th, 2010I was recently asked to comment on the following article which outlines the top 20 countries and their relative debt rankings. They compare the country’s GDP to Debt ratio. Here’s a link to the article
CNBC Article
Here were my comments:
Seems like that list is filled with Socialist style governments, which makes sense as they have to pay for their generous benefits. In considering a typical politicians view of the world, it makes complete sense. I knew about Ireland, but was surprised by the UK and some of the others. There are various opinions as to the reason for the problem and whether it’s a problem, but in my view the problem is that we have politicians that live for the now and the “now vote”, so they are willing to rack up enormous debts in order to get each vote so they can stay in power. They don’t necessarily care about who has to pay for it. The bigger problem is that they aren’t investing the debt into the future growth of the economy. It’s mostly wasted on programs that have short term impacts.
I think, and have considered starting a movement, that my generation should resolve to create a generational tax in order to pay down the debt we have inherited. We inform the current generations that are in power that their estates will be taxed at 90-95% in order to pay back the debt which has provided their wealth as a result of leveraging our generations future earnings. Instead of living within their means in the USA’s time of dominance (past 60 years), they have squandered the wealth selfishly and burdened future generations. If we could get 80% of the younger voters to sign on, it could have an impact on the actions of the current generation that’s in power. Probably over simplified and unrealistic, but it would at least send a message that we’re fed-up with the behavior.
More problematic is that ow that corporations have “taken over” our government (actually more like handed the reins), we will probably have a harder time getting anything done that will fix the problem as it will result in more taxes/regulations for them, which they will fight tooth and nail. This means we’re going to see the slow decay of the American lifestyle and prosperity as a result of the influence of the vary structures that were created to protect and enhance our lifestyles. It comes down to short sightedness and greed. It’s not a bright outlook, but the most realistic.
What do you think?
