United States the "wealthiest nation on earth"

[Frankie²]

is it illegal for politicians to take money from companies to vote a certain way?

[Ad Bot]

[hammereditor²]

is it illegal for politicians to take money from companies to vote a certain way?

No. And it's called "lobbying".

[Harm94]

Cut the army's budget by 70%.
But that's impossible because all the congress people get bribed by weapon companies, if they vote for wars and a stronger military.

The problem with many of those weapons is that we have no need for them.

The Stryker is a terrible APC's that is confined to roads. In a war of IED's that is not a good thing. You need tracks to keep up with the tanks and cross mud.

MRAPS and big massive targets that consume large quanities of fuel, which means they are only good at fighting insurgencies. Humvees have better fuel mileage.

The F-35 is going to be the Airforces jack of all trades master of none fighter. It was designed to be a cheaper alternative to the F-22, however it has exceeded the design budget and a single unit costs more than the F-22 that is was supposed to be cheaper than. Heck the Airforce wants to replace the A-10 with it. Take out the stealth component and you are left with an underperforming plane. New radar systems will be rolling out soon which will make the F-22 and F-35 useless.

[morningstar]

We're the wealthiest because we take in some money too, not just owe it. 
That's because we're not socialist yet. 

[Duhman115]

If we weren't so busy getting involved in the middle east's business, we'd probably could put that money into dept reduction.

[Rykuta]

And here are some more graphs just for you







The second and third graph is concurrent as of 2010, it may have shifted in the past 2 years or so, but probably not by too much.

[Johnny Blockhead]

Mexico is obviously richest nation
they are just quiet about it

[Nickelob Ultra]

Yes, but our debt is over 20x theirs. That's still 2x if you equate for GDP. Canada is doing the right thing by only sending a few troops in. As for the population thing, even though they don't have as many people to provide for, they also don't have as many people to get taxes from.

erm, yes.  but you act as if we are the kind of country to send only a few troops in.  canada does not have the same kind of economy we have and is not the world leader like we are, you can't compare the two.  you might as well compare the US and mexico if we're comparing countries debts and extra-national activity.

[Benjamin Lopez]

And here are some more graphs just for you

The second and third graph is concurrent as of 2010, it may have shifted in the past 2 years or so, but probably not by too much.

If that's the case, then it's really sad that they owe more many to the citizens then anybody else.

[Duhman115]

Mexico is obviously richest nation
they are just quiet about it

They don't want trouble from the (world) police.

[Nonnel]

We should inflate the money extensively, give it all to the government, and pay off all the debt that way!!!!!!

then we inflate it even more and get infinite money!!!!!!!!

[Ipquarx]

Relevant: http://youtu.be/tFG_5PBl2K8

[Bisjac]

we should just say forget you to the federal reserve, and all our debtors.
tell em we are screwing them and we cut them off forever.
let them be mad and crash our credit ratings cuz we dont need it anyways.
restart new economy with a gold (or other such thing) standard.

spend 50 years earning back a new credit rating that hopefully we wont need anyways.

[Mysteroo]

i dont think people realize how dangerously close the world is to total economic collapse because of this lol.

And this is why this has me so worried and annoyed by this. Nobody can logically expect the world's economy to function well for long when even the "wealthiest nation on earth" is $17 trillion dollars in the toilet, and the government doesn't seem to be doing a thing about it

[Bisjac]

its not even about other nations needing us, or us needing them.

its because the entire world use USD for major trading of nearly all commodities. especially oil.
if the USD hyperinflates, or crashes, or people just choose to stop using it, the whole world stops instantly.