mo’ money, mo’ money… the government needs permission to raise its credit card limit. ok, it’s more serious than paying down your amex… it could cause a global recession if the treasury can’t raise enough money to pay its loan sharks (like your grandma’s SS check and the trillions of dollars we owe to china).
the treasury pays the government’s bills and it gets the money to pay the bills by issuing debt in the form of bonds (you know, those things you got on birthdays and holidays from relatives that you were thankful for as an adult when you needed cash for your security deposit on that overpriced apartment… oh, wait, maybe that’s just me)… so the gubment takes the money from the bonds that you will cash in at a later date, to pay today’s bills. the problem is, there is a limit on how much they can raise in bonds. it seems a bit silly to consider not raising the debt ceiling. it’s only been lowered 3 times since 1945 and every other year it’s gone up, up, up.
without a raise, not only will the country default on loans, but we’ll get stuck with having bad credit. once you have bad credit your options are limited and you may find yourself in a downward spiral, making it harder and harder to dig yourself out of the hole.
now, we all know what happens when you stop paying bills. everything falls apart. cars get re’pod, lights get shut off, you get all moody and break up with your significant other or vice versa… just bad all around, so i say stop bsing and start issuing some debt america!
so with all the possible repercussions, why is it even a question? apparently, even potus didn’t fully grasp the concept back in ’06. (sidebar -to be honest, i’m kind of tired of him changing his mind on stuff, not that he’s changing his mind for better or worse, its just that he’s seeming to be bendable. period. then again, i wonder what people would criticize if he hadn’t been a senator before the current gig, and didn’t have a voting record that could be scrutinized.)
anyway, i have a feeling people might think this is a separate debt and not directly tied to the deficit we already have that’s not going away. so expect the same shenanigans and political posturing we saw last friday (when i was watching tweets from congress on c-span, party animal that i am) as this deadline approaches. i don’t put it above some in the crying orange man’s tribe to purposefully vote against this just to hurt potus.
in other noticias financieros…
you have about a week to get your taxes done. make sure you file and pay if you have to. you don’t want to end up likeĀ weezy, owing over $5.5 million in back taxes. everybody cannot act as multinational conglomerates, avoid taxes and actually get money back after making $14 billion likeĀ GE. and if the GE story doesn’t make you sick enough, here’s an older article about exorbitant executive pay. maybe some of these guys can volunteer their hard earned paper to tackle this debt ceiling issue… unless they want to buy some more bonds…
i think at least one of my finance classes may have come in handy in this post.
and now a classic…
Good post! I have never had the economy explained to me in a way that wasn’t condescending and made me feel like I had no clue what was going on, so this was a first!