Wealth of USA - $295 trillion - Discovry Ch.- $295,000,000,000,000

[sam11111]

At end, host says after paying Debt of 15 T,

US is worth 280 T.

So why cut SS and Medicare?

Totally unnecessary.

(Show aired at 9pm ET on Sun Nov 13 2011 part of Curiousity series ..."What's America worth" was title IIRC...beware tho of many RW boasts to effect of "entrepreneurs made all this wealth and you too can get rich here in USA "

--------------
Some related good info---

R Reich -- "7...Lies" of the RW

Go way way down on the link. 80% of the way doooown.

http://robertreich.org/post/11329289033

[abelenkpe]

1. K & R nt

[valerief]

2. Yes, but the wealthiest 400 have all earned that 280 trillion. It's THEIRS. nt

[sam11111]

3. ayn rand wd say the top ten produced it all - the rest of us are slugs and lazy

(Sarcasm)

[valerief]

4. And she, who collected social security, was one of the slugs. nt

[fasttense]

21. And she also said the world would end when she died.

She died, the world continued despite her. She was wrong yet again.

And oh, she said our heroes should be serial killers who dismember 12 year old girls.

[Newest Reality]

5. Doesn't that come out to

approximately a million bucks for each one of us if that was divided-up equally? I mean roughly.

[sam11111]

6. the host on TV said exactly that. Which means poverty is unnecessary.

nt

[Scuba]

8. Which is exactly why they don't want economic justice. If we each had...

... a million we wouldn't do their work for them.

[golfguru]

7. A lot of that $295 Trillion is in foreclosure

The biggest asset of Americans is their homes. A house is not really worth what the assessor says it is, the real value of any house is what it can sell for. My house was assessed for $270k at one point but we sold it for $210k. And ours was the only house sold in our subdivision in the last 6 months while there are a dozen for sale. No one knows what their selling price is. So how can any one come up with a fictitious number like that $295 Trillion? Wealth is not static. It is dynamic.

[sam11111]

12. middle class has no net wealth. Foreclosed hms are THEiR holmes. All wealth is in upper class hands:

factories, mines, power plants, oil wells, gas wells, timber, skyscrapers, agribiz farms, shipping, banks (!!), gold bars in Swiss banks, etc.

Don't let the focus of MSM on middle class homes put a tight little frame around your mind. Lots more wealth out there.

PS the host took foreclosures into account during the program, IIRC. It has been over a week since the show...Please verify this, if you can get the show now over the net.

[sam11111]

14. only 21 T of his total is "homes and personal posessions"..so his total not depend much on homes

Foreclosures even if applicable would not affect the total severely

[Yo_Mama]

9. That figure is insanely wrong

It's not even in the ballpark. Maybe they are adding in all the public land values and a whole bunch of other stuff, but the net worth of American households (who ultimately own the corporations) is currently at 58.5 trillion.

The government has assets, but it also has huge liabilities.

This is Flow of Funds for September (the latest). You can read that stat on household net wealth on the first page:
http://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/Current/z1.pdf

Current US federal government debt held by the public is 10.3 trillion (almost).

Future accrued liabilities include federal retirements and SS and Medicare and so forth, and in total with Debt Held By The Public add up to close to 15 trillion. Add in wealth held by non-profits (although are we really going to raid the local museum, university and charity hospital to settle our debts?) and we get to 58.3 trillion (see internal page 106 of the link).

But then you subtract more than 62 trillion, minus federal debt and state and local debt. State and local debt net of assets is about 450 billion.

So yes, unfunded and accrued liabilities in excess of 30 trillion no matter how you look at it do pose a problem.

I can hardly believe that anyone is credulous enough to believe the number cited in the OP.

[sam11111]

13. unfunded liabilities- i only hear that phrase on Limbaugh when he claims we will have no revenue for

Medicare over the next 30 years, so we have to cut or end it.

1. Nationalize healthcare and end the pricegouging..cost shrinks to a third of what it is now. eg, MRI in Japan, 100 dollars. Here now, 5,000.

2. Increase Revenue by ending Bush tax cuts and taxing derivatives.

I can't believe Limbaugh's numbers.

[OllieLotte]

10. I'm not really a problem.

Using you your numbers, every man, women and child has over $900K to work with. If you are a bit short, ask your kid for a loan.

[sam11111]

11. kick

K

[sam11111]

15. kik

K

[abelenkpe]

16. Wow

A million dollars each.

[sam11111]

17. kik

K

[sam11111]

18. kik

K

[sam11111]

19. kik

K

[demicritic]

20. Too much to end poverty of the world

If this is indeed true this could pay off Americas debt and end all poverty of the world.

[fasttense]

22. Yeah, this made up deficit scare is just another right wing con job.

The 3 things that caused the deficit: Unfunded wars, tax cuts for the rich and the great recession.

Look at those 3 things. Who had a very large part in all of them? Why RepubliCONS. They started the wars for fun and profit. They handed out tax cuts to billionaires during wartime. They deregulated our financial system (with lots of help from Dems) so much that we repeated the economic downturn of the 1930s. Remember the Cheney saying Raygun proved deficits don't matter? If he was right (according to RepubliCONS) then, why is he not correct today?

Now, how are social spending cuts going to solve any of the above 3 problems that caused the deficit?

The deficit scare is a scam, it's an excuse, it's a con job.