National Debt - If capitalism works so well...

[BRNGflag]

If capitalism works so well, how do you explain the incredibly enormous national debts accumulated by the western industrialized nations? Shouldn't they have money to burn? They borrow from banks within their own nations, and from their allies banks, only to give out billions in loans to poorer nations disguised as aid? I'd like to hear how this works from a capitalist, because I really don't understand how such a great economic system sucks the nations that uses it into crushing debt.

(Edited by BRNGflag at 3:27 pm on Aug. 5, 2002)

[Capitalist Fighter]

If you wanna talk about debt, then since Castro's 1959 revolution, Cuba has owed Russia, just Russia, 12 billion dollars. It will never be able to pay that. It accumulated that 12 billion dollar bill with no interest rates because of the solidarity and friendship between the two nations, in the space of 43 years, by one country alone!!!

[Augusto]

A large national debt is not a sign of economic weakness, the proportion of debt to assetts is what's important. In this respect the US is quite healthy. If there were no debt then inflation would run rampant, if the debt is too big, then there'd be stagnation.

[Americana]

The reason the USA has debt is because we have helped SOOO many countries in war efforts that we forgot about our own needs sometimes. France, Poland, UK, Israel, and numerous other countries sort of owes us more than everyone thinks.