US budget 541,8 Bn defict

[Belly-laughs]

...and just how are they going to pay it back? Looks bad for Iran!

[zimv20]

the secret plan is to devalue the dollar so much that it becomes cheap to buy the debt.

then maybe do some accounting tricks so selling iraqi oil is counted as a US export...

[Desertrat]

Gonna take a bunch of devaluing to buy back the accumulated total of some eight trillion bucks, seems to me. And even that's the tip of the iceberg. The unfunded mandates run to some $40 trillion, so I've read. social Insecurity is the biggie, plus all the other retirement and Medicare stuff...

Nothing like like sixty-some years of Ponzi schemes...

:), 'Rat

[edesignuk]

$40 trillion :eek: And now is the time to invest is a Mars programme???? Might be an idea to pay of some of that debt and cut your emissions first Bushy boy :rolleyes:

[Desertrat]

edesignuk, if you look at what happened to technological advance and economic activity resulting from the space effort, you'd find that the biggest return for the investment has been "out there". It's the only area of government spending that has a manyfold return to the civilian world--and worldwide.

Just look at your home computer and think of the Internet. It derives from the R&D of the space effort. Every time you see some dot-com company selling products, it's part of the spinoff of technology developed for the space effort. What e-business started back around the time of TelStar has revolutionized the whole world.

The requirement of ten pounds of fuel per pound of rocket and payload required the micro-miniaturization of computers--which then led to the home computer size of critter.

And that's just the tip of the iceberg.

Any country not actively in space R&D and exploration will remain a second-class country. Unfortunately, the cutting edge of science and technology isn't cheap. "Aye, there's the rub." Short-term, the U.S. is indeed in deep financial doo-doo. Long-term, there's no choice but to keep looking "out there".

'Rat

[edesignuk]

Point taken Desertrat :)