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I really did not need to focus on any serious topics today (or yesterday for that matter – notice the lack of a post) so I have to thank my brother for providing a humorous but thought provoking question on Facebook last night. I thought that the question deserved to be freed from the walled garden of Facebook so I thought I’d share it here:
If China decided to call America’s debt today, which state would {President Obama} sell to make ends meet?
California received some votes as well as Texas, North Dakota, and non-states such as Guam. What do other people think (recognizing that this is entirely not realistic no matter which state anyone suggests)?
26 replies on “A Question to Ponder”
I caught only a few minutes of Beck today. He was talking about the same thing but not so funny. Beck asked how did Germany get out of their problem with inflation caused by printing money (As we see the Obama regime doing now)- it was through the value of real estate- and our government holds a lot of the value of the Fanny May real estate and is also buying up other real estate as in national parks. We just had our property assessed at less than half the value of a tax assessment a few years ago. That is what happens when the government starts printing money. Those holding currency see the value decreased while Obama distributes freshly minted dollars to his friends – Just "spreading the wealth around" for the sake of "social justice” -according to Obama.
New Jersey? Puerto Rico?
It might require selling both to cover the debt. 😉
I’m a fan of the free market, so I suggest each state make a bid for how much they’re willing to pay out to NOT get sold to China. Lowest bidder (or bidders, if we need multiple states) loses.
Keeping a balanced state budget with some emergency funds available sounds pretty good all of a sudden.
If we do that, I think it only fitting that eBay should run the auction.
I’ve been advocating for months that we give them California, Michigan and New Jersey in exchange for the debt. We could throw in Chicago (I know it’s not a state) as additional consideration. We can also send them New York, Massachussetts, and Connecticut. Even with all of that, we still might have to take on additional debt just to make it a fair exchange!
That leaves a very interesting looking map with Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, and Rhode Island cut off from the rest of the country.
Good point. We can give them back to Europe!
Or Canada – as a gesture of good will.
Remember the red states are the worst welfare states, if you get rid of cali, NY, Maine etc.. you are going to have to generate new revenue to maintain the government. All those nice farmer subsidy’s, BLM/SCS programs, road projects that are paid for by the federal budget would have to go away. It’s well known that the federal government collects more tax’s from the big population states(who are the blue states you are complaining about), and that the federal government spends more on rural states(red states) then it collects.
Given a chance to reflect on that assertion (that the federal government spends more on rural states than it takes in) I know that is true, but considering our $1.4 Trillion annual deficit (yes, I understand that this year was a high water mark so far, but let’s not kid ourselves, it’s not going down in 2010 or anytime in the near future) I’d say that the Federal government is taking in less than it spends on each and every state.
So I propose we sell the states based on revenue potential and lose ratio’s. Meaning we should sell Utah, Wyoming, arizona, well basicly the mountain west region.
I can’t say how much correlation there is, but at least for Utah if we take in more from the Federal government than we give in taxes perhaps that is reasonable since the Federal government controls the majority of the land in the state (and a high percentage of each of the mountain west states).
Most of the Federally controlled land in Utah is useless waste land, with the exception of the Grand Escalantie National park which was created to prevent coal mining. In fact Utah for the most part benefits from the creation of these parks in the form of tourism.
Utah would be a great place to store the Nations nuclear waste, the shear amount of waste land we have is extraordinary their are plenty of places we could store the stuff. Just have the nuclear waste stored in the same place that the Military already stores their nuclear waste.
If people were free to use the federally locked up ‘wasteland,’ you’d be surprised what people would make of it. The entire Wasatch Front was once a wasteland.
we don’t have enough water to transform much of the land into something useful, much of the land salinity/alkaline is to high to grow anything, and the supplie of water limits other uses. about the only thing most of that land is useful for is storing things for long periods of time.
In most of the parks the revenue generated from tourism is greater then the potential revenue from industrial or agricultural uses.
I should also note that in much of southern Utah their naturally occurring trace levels of uranium in the soil, Radiation is a way of life whether most people know it or not, It is why we should use some of that land for nuclear waste storage but this would only require a few square miles and most of that being for a perimeter fence.
Ah, what a lack of imagination. You see only obstacles to usefulness. We simply cannot imagine all possibilities that the innovations of free peoples can bring. The obstacles you see today may turn out to be opportunities in the future. This is the story of mankind.
Well if you want useless land to give to the Chinese, let’s give them Nevada and all the bombing ranges and nuclear waste repositories. And I will throw in Harry Reid as a Christmas bonus!
As I reconsider, it seems that we also have to consider whether or not we want another country on US soil. So, it seems with that consideration that we would need to offload Alaska, Hawaii, American Samoa, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Virgin Islands . . . any others? Those seem to be the baseline . . . then, I like Jason’s suggestions and Ron’s. It seems to me that China isn’t going to take just any old states we want to offload . . . that’s another reason why Hawaii could be really great–think how much revenue is there!?!?! So, there are a few more thoughts . . .
We may be thinking about this wrong. Instead of land, let’s give them people. There are many in this country who already believe in the intelligent elite making decisions for the ignorant masses. Let’s give China that intellectual, social, moral and emotional intelligence in exchange for our debt. These folks would fit right into the uni-party system China offers and they will not have to deal with the benighted masses.
How many of those people do you think it would take to pay off our debt? (Just have to make sure that we know what a fair exchange rate is for all the knowledge we would be transferring to China if we paid in our brightest minds.)
Let’s see: Harry Reid we’d get $2.00; Nancy Pelosi $1.50; Keith Olbermann $0.01; Bill Clinton we might actually get a few million dollars, but if Hillary went, we’d have to reduce the combined amount. Granted, this is my value system, but remember I don’t understand the math on the Healthcare Bill that says if we spend $900 billion over 10 years, we actually will save $30 billion. So, my math skills have degenerated since the college days when I still considered $1 billion to be a pretty big number.
So what you’re saying is that unless the Chinese agree to absorb the costs of flying them over we come out behind by selling anyone (except possibly Bill Clinton).
I like the thought of selling the best and brightest. Here’s the test for how to decide who goes and who stays: If you see them on reality TV or in the headlines, they go.
That’s a good test: simple, easy to administer, and foolproof – those in Reality TV and the headlines are the most likely to be recognized and valued by the China so we get the best exchange rate.
That is an excellent idea! Another thought is to just move Hollywood to Beijing. Let them make the movies and the movie stars can support Chinese political philosophy.
So, we’re talking about John and Kate, Paula Abdul, Randy Jackson and Ryan Seacrest, the gang from the Huffington Post. Wow, I could have a field day coming up with all these folks.