I would be just as interested to know China's debt-load, if any.

From an accounting point of view, at least, it won't add a penny of debt [source: National Post] at least not on day one.

It might conceivably eventually pay down some of the debt.

I oppose it, by the way.

Ballpark figures;

USA Debt $10 Trillion

Canada Debt $0.6 Trillion

----

USA GDP $13 Trillion

Canada GDP $1.3 Trillion

Applying the 'ten to one' ratio, the US is a little worse off than Canucks.

If the USA had been allowed (Environmentalists) to use (and export) their huge oil reserves the last couple of decades as Canada did/is, I wonder how the figures - (GDP, debt) would compare.

Add $1 trillion for the loan windows already opened, Bear Sterns and IndyMac era.
Add $1 trillion for Fannie Mae. (first installment probably)
Add $1 trillion for Freddie Mac (ditto)
Add $1 trillion for the pot.

See, your record is peanuts, we're going for broke.

Coming next: state self-defence policies to keep out Californians. They just bring doom to decent places. Plus TV and movies. Same thing, I guess.

So the the SDA no longer thinks the Bushbot Republican administration knows what it is doing?

WOW!!!

So in other words in case anyone missed it, I'm saying Jaeger is wrong when he writes:

"I'm not sure throwing another $700 billion of debt on top of that..."

Crazy amount... It's what the GST would bring in over a 20 year period. $700,000,000,000. And it's all at once, which make it even more incomprehensible. It's a mind boggling number. It would be like the Canadian gov't issuing a one-time cheque to every Canadian for $21,875... How many years would it take for the average Canadian to get the equivalent back in taxes?

Where did I hear this figure before ??

" ... the amount of money we send to foreign nations every year is soaring. At current oil prices, we will send *$700 billion * out of the country this year alone – that’s four times the annual cost of the Iraq war." Pickens

And the bailout price tag !

i believe 10 trillion dollars is close to the American GDP.....and anyway the 700 billion dollar figure is purely hypothetical....simply a figure plucked out of the air by Treasury.

....but i do wonder who would be foolish enough to call in any American markers ?

...so don't worry folks....that tremendous dynamo of an economy can absorb that soi disant 'shock' quite easily.....and probably be stronger for it.

Article 5 of the Communist Manifesto

Centralization of credit in the hands of the State, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

The US has a choice of delaying the inevitable economic hardship to come with the bailout approach, or they can let the market look after itself, with much swifter hardship.

Some are harshly predicting at least 5 to 10 years before any semblance of normal returns to economic life in the US. The party is over.

Basically no one govt is in control anymore, and one could even argue that all the central banks together are not able to control the unfolding of present economic events.

As the Captain wrote recently there is some serious spankings coming down the pipeline.

I personally have always thought that fiat currencies were for fools and crooks.
And now I know it.

SEC made some major rule changes this evening....this will enable banks to prevent catstrophic capital erosion...essentially all the mortgages that were marked as zero, because nobody would buy, can now be marked above zero if they are generating cash, which the huge majority are.

My suspicion, this allows proper mergers to take place. Private Capital can clean up most of this.

there is still likely some injection required, beyond the liquidity. But it will be much much smaller.

This also has the effect that if those banks arent going to sink then the risk of interbank lending drops and they will start lending to each other again.....watch the LIBOR and other interbank rates tonight and tomorrow morning, if they drop then things are defintiely steering away pure panic world.

A valuable lesson for the Canadian election ... be cautious about celebrating victory too early.

Pelosi tipped her hand too early when she was convinced the Commie-crats has succeeded in nationalizing the US banking industry under central control.

It was portrayed as a triumph over the greedy Wall Street capitalists,

But the American public had different ideas and they scuttled the idea to nationalize the banking industry. They pressured enough of their Congressmen to tip the balance.

The American public knew it was the government's unwillingness to regulate (a function of Congress) got the US in a position where home ownership became a right, not a contractual obligation between two willing parties.

It's not up to the taxpayer to help the people who screwed it up in the first place to give them even more power.

The era of home ownership as a symbol of social justice in the US is done.

If somebody cannot qualify to pay off a mortgage, they have another option ... find something to rent.

That's the way it was and the way it's going to be.

Tough for Pelosi.

new @ 10:07 - too long, didn't read.
new @ 10:46 - too long, didn't read

Default rates on mortgages vary with the year they were taken out. Stats from early August showed that mortgages taken out in 2005 had a default rate of 8.5%, while mortgages taken out in 2007 have a staggering 16.6% default rate. When one in six loans isn't performing, that's a serious hit to the bottom line. And let's not forget that many of those mortgages are ARM's, with low teaser rates. So any defaults are magnified by the low interest payments on the loans that are still performing.

Reminds me of a Richard Feynman quote: "There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it's only a hundred billion. It's less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers." That almost seems quaint, as the deficit has grown a hundredfold since then.

"If the USA had been allowed (Environmentalists) to use (and export) their huge oil reserves the last couple of decades as Canada did/is, I wonder how the figures - (GDP, debt) would compare."

It would have made almost no difference.

This is the well-worn canard that the US can somehow drill its way out of its huge energy dependency on the rest of the world, if it were not for those pesky tree huggers.

The 'huge' reserves you mention (mostly oil shale) are for the most part stuff that is even harder to produce than Alberta's tar sands.

Even assuming immediate, full speed development of ANWR, offshore deep-water, oil shale in both Bakken and Colorado, that would add about 3-4 million barrels a day to their production. They import close to 14 mbpd a day. So this won't cut it, and yet this myth is proffered on just about every right-wing blog I can find.

I for one hope they go ahead and drill everywhere, just to make the cornucopian idiots proven wrong and finally shut the f up.

I don't think Canadian debt is the $0.6 Billion as previously posted. If you add federal, provincial and crown corporation debt together I think you will have a figure in excess of $1.0 Billion. The interesting numbers to crunch is the health care and pension benefit cost that both Canada and the USA have promised. Should make your hair stand on end!

I just don't get it, my checkbook has been balanced for over 27 years now, and that's without a hitch or a bailout. If we couldn't afford it we just didn't get it.

What really bothers me about this $700 Billion Dollar Bailout is the Big-Name Political Leaders from both sides that came out preaching certain doom and gloom if this bill doesn't pass, and the whole time Oil was going down like the deck chairs on the Titanic. How can that be bad ?

Not to mention, where was my Bailout Bill, President Bush, God Bless his tired soul, he kicked the middle-class taxpayers right in the teeth last year when he came on National TV and said he didn't see a crisis coming when the pump prices hit $4.24 a gallon, but now that the Ole Wall Street 401K is a 201K he is gona bail those Ponzi Scheme Professionals out ? It's a good thang Nov. 4th is right around the corner, cause there ain't enuf discount lipstick at Wally World to make this pig in a blanket saleable.

But, either way, America is still one of the best places to live on this planet, unlilke Muslim dominated countries that live in the 7th Century and place their women 3 steps behind the donkeys which are 2 steps behind the camels.

Sorry Kate, I had to feed the trool a lil bit.
,

Once again, the 700 billion is the notational amount of the bailout. It isn't the net cost.

As for debt, you ain't seen nottin' yet!

Wait till the baby boomers all demand their pensions, free state (unfunded) retirement handouts, free (unfunded) health care and (thanks to bush) free (unfunded) drug coverage.

You think the debt is bad now... just wait until the actuarial numbers catch up. Then the ERISA rules kick in and the taxpayer gets to pay for any company pension fund that defaults due to bankruptcy.

The US is in rough shape. Almost as bad a Europe. We are marginally better off.

Canuckguy

Clearly you haven't been paying attention. We've been bashing Bush's economic idiocy for 8 years. We support the warmongering and Eurobashing. We don't support the gross negligence in spending. You need to study the "Scary Hidden Agenda" manual more carefully!

hey Greenkneck,

"Even assuming immediate, full speed development of ANWR, offshore deep-water, oil shale in both Bakken and Colorado, that would add about 3-4 million barrels a day to their production. They import close to 14 mbpd a day. So this won't cut it,"
"It would have made almost no difference."

We'll use your numbers for drilling at 3-4mm barrels per day of production. Then we'll use the current going rate for a Barrel of oil of $100 and do that math: 3-4 billion per day in revenue. At the low end (3bln) that equals 1.095 Trillion dollars per year.

And that won't make a difference? Not to mention that 3-4 mm barrels is a low-ball figure.

Green must equate to mathematically illiterate.

"We'll use your numbers for drilling at 3-4mm barrels per day of production. Then we'll use the current going rate for a Barrel of oil of $100 and do that math: 3-4 billion per day in revenue. At the low end (3bln) that equals 1.095 Trillion dollars per year.

And that won't make a difference? Not to mention that 3-4 mm barrels is a low-ball figure.

Green must equate to mathematically illiterate."

100$ X 3-4 million = 3-400 million, NOT 3-4 billion.

Illiterate is as illiterate does!

And you also confuse trade deficit with government deficit.

As for 'lowball' figure Alberta sits on a few trillion barrels of oil in the tar sands and yet after hundreds of billions invested produces only 1.5 mbpd from that source. Oil shale will be even harder to produce. Talk to any oil geologist and you'll see my numbers are actually on the optimistic side.

hey, it's only paper. just ask the people of israel how good it felt to get 10 cents on the dollar many years ago. imagine that you have worked hard all your life and your givernment bankrupts your country , a mistake earlier but it fits , your currency is almost worthless and all of a sudden your 100 grand is now worth ten thousand dollars. kids, that's where we are heading.

Attn: KevinB
--Ignore 'NEW' at all times like the others do.

Warwick, ok, point taken. However I just kept reading past postings how the economy(USA) was just 'humming along' and 'What recession?' but perhaps I was confusing SDA with other right wing nutjob blogs.

National debt is like an iceberg. What you see is obligations in the form of treasury bills, notes, and bonds, plus government guaranteed debt. Most of the mass is below the surface and can only be estimated. The present value of future entitlements, such as pensions and healthcare, is far greater than issued debt, yet does not appear in any government's financial statements.

What is the present value of future healthcare benefits to Canadians?

Hmm... SDA turns over 10,000,000 posts, and the US debt hits $10 billion. Some coincidence.

SDA: threat or menace?

I don't know Canuck Dude,,, The American Recession and Mortage Crisis seems to be concentrated on the West Coast, Southern Florida and Wall Street, down heya in Louisi-Yana there are new houses going up everyday.

Ratt: "down heya in Louisi-Yana there are new houses going up everyday"

Is that because the hurricanes keep flattening homes?