Question regarding money in the US.

[Ryan in Maine]

About how much of the money in government hands is theirs as opposed to ours - or how much money comes from US citizens vs. other means?

Is there any rough estimate on this?

[RaspberrySurprise]

By definition any money the government has belongs to the people. Though I would say that a large portion of it originated from citizens.

[Azrael256]

You'll never get a coherent answer to that, but there are things you can look at for an idea.

M0-M3 will tell you about what's "out there."  M3 was discontinued, but the data used to compile it can be found, and some academic groups compile it still.

Now, here's the thing... When it comes to "ours" vs. "theirs," government does not produce.  People produce.  Labor earns wages, land earns rent, capital earns interest, and entrepreneurship earns profit.  Government merely monitizes this production.  So to answer your last question, it all comes from us.

Since government cannot produce, it has to tax.  How much it taxes at the margin is hard to say, but it ranges from maybe 20% to a solid 93%, depending on which of the aforementioned assets you're looking at.  Point is, nothing is made by the government except the shiny pennies.

Based on the numbers from last fiscal year, we produced about $13T.  Government spent over $3T.  Government taxed about $2.5T.

So, if you took the GDP minus government spending, you might get an idea.  Or, maybe M3 vs. tax revenue.  You can thereby get an idea for what they control and what we control, year-to-year.

Of course, they owe about 75% of GDP, so that skews things a bit.  Government being more than 20% in the red every year makes for a negative net worth that makes real accountants get dizzy and fall down.

So to answer your question, nobody has a clue.  We're capitalist, for now, so the means of production rests in private hands, and that outweighs the mint by quite a bit.  We cannot "cash out" our economy.  We would run out of ink to print bills.

[Ryan in Maine]

Thanks guys.

What was throwing me off was our deficit. I was trying to factor in how much money the US gov gets from other countries. Brain fart. We owe them the money! Doh!

 

[280plus]

We do? I don't remember them loaning us anything... 

[digitalandanalog]

If you really wanted to get technical about our money....

Our .gov loans and borrows money based on what the world banks feel we as a population is worth.

I am going to give you the very short version of it...

We no longer produce many of our own goods and are lazy. We have become unskilled and have little ability to produce actual goods.

Without a reliable source of repayment (actual return on bad loans...e.g. property to seize and sell) banks have no choice other than to declare a market BAD.

The problem is that many American banks and businesses refused to convert dollars to the currency that they were dealing in when it came to actual spending...and vice versa...foreign banks expected the dollar to hold up...it had for many years before now...the dollar was powerful.

Thus inflating the dollar worldwide.

There is nothing (very little as compared to when we were a commodities production superpower...basic economics is your friend) in this country to back up our money....

when we crashed (imploded) many other banks followed suit.

This is far from over and the truth is that if it gets truly bad enough our government may claim that it has the power to repay its debt in people (aka...slave labor...or virtually slave labor) because it has very little financial standing.

The upside to all of that is we are a very well armed people. Who is going to have the balls to try to collect that debt?

See, the Second Amendment was meant to to protect you in so many ways (including some you may have never considered) from the evils that men (and women) do because you aren't even of true value to them.

Slavery has popped its ugly head up throughout history. Just because some tall President  abolished it doesn't mean that it can't make a comeback at some point if the only worth of our financial market is the people that could be for sale to the highest bidder.

Never trust the money makers. They have their own agendas and IT DOESN'T INVOLVE YOUR COMFORT AND WELL BEING. It involves the selfish lining of their own pockets.

Yes, I do believe in some of the conspiracies. Why? Is there a logical reason that a $100,000 house can cost up to 400 percent of its market value (upon purchase) after paying your 30 yr. mortgage off?

Answer: Bankers greed and the power they have bought in Congress (and around the world). Why do you think we are being stuck for mistakes we didn't make and are expected to pay for with no punishment for the offenders?

I hate Socialism.

[makattak]

We no longer produce many of our own goods and are lazy. We have become unskilled and have little ability to produce actual goods.

There are so many false ideas in your post, I had to choose just one to correct.

I guess you're really lazy then- when have you EVER produced your own food? Or how about a computer? Toilet Paper? A knife? At least clothing, you've made your own clothing right?

You must be an AMAZINGLY lazy SOB.

Or maybe, it's smart to focus on what you are good at and let others produce what they are best at. That's why certain people are farmers, tailors, IT guys, etc...

As for the United States being unskilled, we are the most highly skilled labor force in the world.

I'll say that again, we are the most highly skilled labor force in the world.

Do you know why things like clothing, shoes, and others of the like are no longer produced in the United States? Because it's not worth our time to produce such low valued items.

You know what Americans do produce? Software, Earthmovers, Ships, Advances in technology, Planes, Cars....

We build these things HERE because this is where workers have the best productivity.

Also, we produce most of the world's food, as well. (At least a plurality).

Again, I weep for what passes for education in this country.