ghettopalmetto: Your immigrant parents, and my immigrant grandparents, despite all their good intentions, didn't know a whole lot about money. If they had, they wouldn't have paid their mortgages off ASAP. There is bad debt, and there is good debt. And right now, the United States government can borrow at record-low rates [[i.e. good debt) that can be used to improve infrastructure and create jobs. Instead, we keep laying off tax paying public servants and making things worse.
Actually, they didn't trust banks enough to take a mortgage. Instead, they saved and, for a while, lived in the [[large) garage while building their own house. During the depression, rented their new house some undesirable tenants, and came out of the depression with patches and a building lot in GP Farms. They did ok. The people who seemingly knew very little about money lost their houses.

Two reasons interest rates are low is because the Fed printed and dispersed over $16T to banks and the demand for money isn't high.

Bully for Taiwan. Do they get a free toaster from their bank for being debt-free? What's the significance of this?
I already explained the significance. See my last post. While our children are paying down Bush/Obama debts, the Taiwanese and Chinese will be advancing themselves.


The fact is, for whatever reason, growth of the economy reduced the debt as a percentage of GDP. I don't think you're arguing this point. What we have to do, in order to deal with debt, is to grow the economy again--WHATEVER that may entail! Yes, it would be foolish to assume that conditions are identical to the post-WWII era. But I also believe that that American worker can manufacture the finest industrial products in the world--if given the opportunity to do so. And let's not even use labor costs and taxation as an excuse--we're still the number one manufacturing nation on earth, and Germany is not far behind.

I understand that, in the long-term, high amounts of debt are unfavorable. But we're still in the midst of recession economics. Even a casual glance at unemployment numbers and interest rates will tell you that.

Let's illustrate with an example. Let's say there is a student who just graduated from high school and is considering what to do with his life. It's assumed this student wants to put himself in the best economic position possible in the long run. What does he do?

Does he take out $100,000 in loans at a low interest rate and get a college degree, leading to a professional career?

Or does he conclude that DEBT = BAD, sit at home, and balance his checkbook?

It wasn't me who assumed that conditions are the same as they were after WWII. If the kid had any sense, he would work a year while in college at a State University where he wouldn't get into a $100,000 debt mess.


The fact is, Romney hasn't proposed anything to improve the economy. He thinks we need to keep laying off teachers, firefighters, and police officers. He thinks we need to cut taxes on the wealthiest [[yet again). As if the results will be different this time. He's having a real Underpants Gnome problem, which looks like:

1. Cut taxes and spending
2. ????
3. Economic growth
[/QUOTE]

I don't believe in Keynesianism.

Teachers, firefighters, and police officers are local, not federal expenses. I don't expect Romney to cut spending. Maybe he won't raise spending as much as Obama but only by degree.