Buying Our National Debt
I got this email from Randy Johnson, author of the best book I’ve ever read on the topic of real estate mortages. If you own a home or are thinking of ever buying a home, you need to get How to Save Thousands of Dollars on Your Home Mortgage
If you found this post helpful, consider donating to my coffee fund!Up until about 30 years ago the American people always funded most of our own national debt. We went into World War II with a national debt of less than $100 billion, maybe $500 billion dollars adjusted for inflation. We came out of the war with about $300 billion, a piddling amount by today’s number as today the National Debt stands at about $11 trillion.
When we embarked on WWII, how did we finance the expenditures necessary to build all those battleships, airplanes, and tanks and pay for the soldiers and sailors to man them? We sure as heck didn’t sell Government Bonds to the Germans and the Japanese. Europe that wasn’t under Nazi control was worse off than we were. We financed the war ourselves.
Ordinary Americans put the money they saved into Savings Bonds, and that is what financed the war effort. But, to be truthful, we were on a wartime economy and, as I here put on my old-timer hat, it was a lot different world than young people are willing to acknowledge today. Can you imagine your teen- ager’s reaction to having the whole family being rationed four gallons of gas per week?
Consumerism came in a distant second place to building war materiel. And there was rationing. We only got limited access to gasoline, tires, and metals, all of which had a higher military priority than civilian use. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationing
Even food was rationed. Remember the old economic trade-off “guns versus butter.” It was real. Butter was rationed which mean that the civilian population turned to margarine, and not the “I can’t believe it’s not butter” type. This was a white globule of hydrogenated vegetable fat. It came in a bag with a little yellow button that you broke and then kneaded into the mixture to make it look like butter. The problem was that it still tasted a lot like hydrogenated vegetable oil. Each family got a little bit of beef and a little bacon every week. And we saved bacon fat and it was used in the manufacture of explosives.
It was time for Rosie the Riveter as the overwhelming majority of American men and women supported the war effort. We all looked at the sacrifices we made as small in comparison to the millions of soldiers, sailors and marines who were risking their lives to win the war on the battlefield.
What did kids do? For openers we saved paper and took to what we would refer to today as recycling centers. We cut out both ends of “tin cans,” stomped them flat and saved them to turn into collection centers to be made into steel to help the war effort.
But we all helped financially too. We had little coupon books and when we saved a nickel or a dime, we bought stamps that went into books. I forget the numbers but it seems to me that if you saved $37.50, you took it to the bank or Post Office and traded it for a War Bond with a value of $50 some years hence. The $12.50 was interest.
As to marketing of the War Bonds, I have a dim recollection of Bing Crosby singing a song Buy Bonds. We didn’t need much encouragement. We all wanted to win the war.
All of which brings me to 2009. I don’t see much difference between 1942 and 2009. We are in the middle of a crisis that to my mind is every bit as dangerous to American families as was World War II. No, except for Iraq and Afghanistan, no one is shooting at our troops, but economic events are very serious, perhaps even more so than in 1942. Back then we had the most important economy in the world, and while we are still the leader in GDP, citizens of other countries are much more effective in their ability to compete successfully for Americans’ jobs.
Ever since 1946 we have had a society based upon consumption. We used to save and then buy. But for the last 45 years or so our consumption has been financed by the extension of great gobs of credit. We used to balance the Federal budget and much of the debt stayed at home, but recently the debt was ultimately bought by someone in China or Japan or Europe. I think China holds over $1 trillion of our bonds.
Frankly, I do not believe that it is healthy to depend upon the largess of others to finance that debt any more than families who depend on someone else to finance their excess consumption. Quite bluntly, the counter-parties may not want to continue to do so. The sooner we wean ourselves from the teat of foreign largess, the better off this country will be.
We need to adopt a mentality that is based upon a higher national savings rate, which has indeed spiked in the last few months. But my feeling is that it may be more a knee-jerk, fear-based reaction to the crisis that rather than a newly found sense of financial responsibility.
What better way to restore America’s fiscal health and the American family’s financial well being than to have American citizens finance the necessary increase in the national debt. We can’t do it a nickel and dime at a time, inflation being what it is, but we can sure have teenagers save a few dollars every week, and when they get $37.50 then go buy a $50 Series EE Savings Bond. Who would you rather have a buy that bond, your kid or some Chinese government official?
You see what I mean. I want to get along with China and I hope that they continue to be our trading partner, but I would rather have us keep our debt between the American Government and the American citizens.
What would happen if we all adopted a policy of buying T-bills? What if our Government tried MARKETING the concept? Heck, we can sell almost anything fattening to our citizens. Why don’t we try marketing something that is good for them, and the rest of us too. I think that if Madison Avenue got involved in this project, they could instill a lot of Patriotic Pride into buying T-Bonds.
As to buying the Bonds or Bills themselves, you can buy them through your stockbroker or it can actually be done online at http://www.savingsbond s.gov/indiv/myaccount/myaccount_treasurydirect.htm
Seriously, as a measure of your Patriotic commitment, why not go online right now, open an account, and buy some T-bills. I did it and I can tell you it really feels good, better than a trip to the mall.
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March 14th, 2009 at 9:34 am
I’m all for this, except for the part where I earn a 1.3% rate of return on a currency that is going to experience some heavy inflation in the upcoming decades.
Frankly, patriotism aside, that’s you getting shafted by the government. At least with taxes they’re upfront about taking your money.
March 14th, 2009 at 9:43 am
That’s interesting. The Canadian government does a really good job of marketing its own debt to its citizens – easy to buy our Canada savings bonds online, etc.
Did you see the recent articles yesterday about Premier Wen Jiabao starting to “get worried” about all the US debt that China holds? An interesting signal, probably.
March 14th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
I feel very strongly that we should go back to backing our dollar with gold and silver. We used to do it and things were a lot better. I am actually going to start writing about it extensively on my blog very soon.
People have been so misinformed in the last decade it is not even funny.
I watched this documentary about it the other day that explains in detail why we need to go back to backing our dollar.
Here is the link to the documentary. It’s called The Trap. http://topdocumentaryfilms.com/the-trap/
March 16th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Buy Gov’t bonds and notes? Hah! Are you kidding? I’m going to buy what offers the best ROR and and protection against the hyperinflation we’re about to see. Unfortunately, that’s definitely not Gov’t backed securities.
March 17th, 2009 at 3:04 am
Americans put idiots in office and got what we deserved! I’m packing my bags and moving to the Philippines for retirement. Let the Immigrants have what’s left. Americans with open arms and empty wallets. Thieves will be going back to where they came from since no one in America will have any money left.
I say screw the foreigner’s that bought our bonds. Declare America bankrupt and wash the bonds away. Buy the ETF TBT not bonds!
HH
March 17th, 2009 at 7:38 am
I’m looking to buy my first home in the next year or so, so that book looks like it’s going to be very helpful. Thanks!
March 22nd, 2009 at 7:02 pm
I like the idea, but we have a generation of people who essentially hate the country they grew up in. Most of the current generation of 18 to 40 year old’s could tell you the exact number of slaves owned by Thomas Jefferson but nothing about his writing career.
March 23rd, 2009 at 12:29 pm
I think this generation thinks this way because they have been more informed then the last few generations that are still riding the WWII wave.
Raising a country of people and telling them that all people all people are created equal except native Americans, African-Americans and women seemed to be left out of that idea. This tends to not make sense after awhile.
I also think that organized religion has a lot to do with the way we are too.