Forums
New posts
Search forums
What's new
New posts
New media
New media comments
Latest activity
Classifieds
Media
New media
New comments
Search media
Log in
Register
What's New?
Search
Search
Search titles only
By:
New posts
Search forums
Menu
Log in
Register
Navigation
Install the app
Install
More Options
Advertise with us
Contact Us
Close Menu
JavaScript is disabled. For a better experience, please enable JavaScript in your browser before proceeding.
You are using an out of date browser. It may not display this or other websites correctly.
You should upgrade or use an
alternative browser
.
Forums
The Range
Law & Order
i am gonna start lobbying to get our right to own machineguns back!!!
Search titles only
By:
Reply to Thread
This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.
Message
<blockquote data-quote="tulsamal" data-source="post: 2283573" data-attributes="member: 571"><p>This is the problem with really big numbers. At some point we can't really visualize them in our heads and they just become abstract. "Really big."</p><p></p><p>The 2012 US Federal Budget exceeded 3.5 TRILLION dollars. Most of us dream of a million dollars. Takes a thousand million to make one billion. Then takes one thousand of those billions to make one trillion. The US gov't is spending over 3.5 of those trillions every year. (And don't even get me started on the 16.8 Trillion dollars worth of debt now piled up.)</p><p></p><p>My point is that something that is a lot of money to us is literally not worth noticing in comparison to the budget. Let's try a crazy number just for fun. Let's say there are 100,000 people a year willing to pony up $10,000 each for a tax stamp so they can own a new FA. That's a nice round one billion dollars. If your budget is 3,500 billion dollars.... do you care? Enough to change your policy position on guns or civilian ownership of machine guns? I don't think so. Nobody cares about .028 % of the budget.</p><p></p><p>The size of the government, the sheer volume of money they spend every year, is truly mind boggling. And every time I think it can't get worse, it does. When I was teaching at OU, I made my US Gov't students learn the numbers. So they could tell you about the size of the deficit and the debt. But back then, the "insurmountably large US debt" was right at 4 Trillion dollars. I used to really rave about it. It offended my sensibilities. And now it is literally FOUR TIMES that amount. With no end in sight. When you can issue yourself new credit cards every time you max out the old ones, it's hard to stop charging more and more money. IMO... the only reason we are getting away with it right now is the low interest rates. So the payments on the debt aren't nearly as high as you would expect. If interest rates just go up to a "normal" level, our payments on the interest on the debt is going to gobble up the budget. And the screaming will begin. And the finger pointing.</p><p></p><p>G</p></blockquote><p></p>
[QUOTE="tulsamal, post: 2283573, member: 571"] This is the problem with really big numbers. At some point we can't really visualize them in our heads and they just become abstract. "Really big." The 2012 US Federal Budget exceeded 3.5 TRILLION dollars. Most of us dream of a million dollars. Takes a thousand million to make one billion. Then takes one thousand of those billions to make one trillion. The US gov't is spending over 3.5 of those trillions every year. (And don't even get me started on the 16.8 Trillion dollars worth of debt now piled up.) My point is that something that is a lot of money to us is literally not worth noticing in comparison to the budget. Let's try a crazy number just for fun. Let's say there are 100,000 people a year willing to pony up $10,000 each for a tax stamp so they can own a new FA. That's a nice round one billion dollars. If your budget is 3,500 billion dollars.... do you care? Enough to change your policy position on guns or civilian ownership of machine guns? I don't think so. Nobody cares about .028 % of the budget. The size of the government, the sheer volume of money they spend every year, is truly mind boggling. And every time I think it can't get worse, it does. When I was teaching at OU, I made my US Gov't students learn the numbers. So they could tell you about the size of the deficit and the debt. But back then, the "insurmountably large US debt" was right at 4 Trillion dollars. I used to really rave about it. It offended my sensibilities. And now it is literally FOUR TIMES that amount. With no end in sight. When you can issue yourself new credit cards every time you max out the old ones, it's hard to stop charging more and more money. IMO... the only reason we are getting away with it right now is the low interest rates. So the payments on the debt aren't nearly as high as you would expect. If interest rates just go up to a "normal" level, our payments on the interest on the debt is going to gobble up the budget. And the screaming will begin. And the finger pointing. G [/QUOTE]
Insert Quotes…
Verification
Post Reply
Forums
The Range
Law & Order
i am gonna start lobbying to get our right to own machineguns back!!!
Search titles only
By:
Top
Bottom