Originally posted on 03/03/2014:

Quote Originally Posted by grease lightnin View Post
The budget doesn't actually have to be balanced to lower the debt. With the sequster, at current tax rates, and gdp growth rate, the debt level will not go up. With a balanced budget, it would go down. I do not know of a balanced budget on the horizon, but if Washington can agree on a combination of revenue increases and spending cuts, then we could get there. And I believe eventually we will. So many people nowadays just willing to trash their country anf be pessimistic about the future when it is fixable. Sad. Now you answer this: if you are right and I am wrong, then why has gold gone from $1700 to $1200 (near where it was pre-crisis) and not from $1700 to $2000 and up like all that were on the same soapbox as you were saying it was? And don't tell me that it still will, it-s fine if you believe that, but tell me why it has gone down to where it is?
The math is actually quite simple; US owes $18 trillion in debt. US takes in $3 trillion in taxes and spends $3.4 trillion in total spending each year. So another .4 trillion dollars will be added to the debt this year.

We are getting past the point where some cuts and new taxes will save the day. We need those just to stop adding to the debt much less ever reduce it. We are headed toward a slow motion train wreck,

Gold went down from $1900 because the global banking crisis eased, not because of anything deficit/debt related. Gold was $25 an ounce in 1960 so it has continued up whenever the dollar is pushed down.