Yeah..thats how it works with me too. I watched it years ago but a friend and I are watching it (his first time seeing it) and one episode turns into three or more.

My other friend ran through the whole of Battlestar Galactica in less than a week.

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Actually, Larry you were correct regarding the debt. It is in the trillions and a lot more than folks realized. Even those who claim it's just interest payments, or Bush's fault, or some "other" reason other than B.O.'s really don't have much to offer. The Congressional Budget Office recently said (last week) that President Barack Obama’s tax and spending policies will yield $6.4 trillion in deficits over the next decade, more than double the shortfall in CBO’s own fiscal baseline — even after taking credit for reduced war costs. If I recall correctly, when B.O. took office, our National debt was over $10 Trillion and now it is about $17 Trillion. I thought B.O. made one of his many campaign trail promises to reduce the debt/deficit by how much again ? I thought he said 50% or so? I am not a math whiz, but about $7 Trillion during the last 4 years sure sounds like a lot. Even the really, really clever guys will have to work up a really fancy mathematical formula to deflect approximatley $7 trillion dollars away from B.O.'s ledger sheet. I know, my math must be off because maybe I don't understand interest payments, the costs to manage all the past president's spending, or whatever reasons that can suggested. Admittedly, other presidents have created "public debt", but get real here. As for the tank parody, be careful Larry, you might be declared unpatriotic by some. Heck, wasn't it B.O. who called someone "unpatriotic" because that person was involved in creating public debt ? Anyways, you were correct in your statements that B.O. is truly responsible for causing our grandchildren to be burdened by trillions (with a "s") of current public debt creation. The CINC on a tricycle ... that was funny too. I saw the tight knit community of B.O. supporters all dog pile on your comment/thread. But even the basic rules of math cannot be escaped --even if the whole forum wants to dog pile on Larry, the numbers seem pretty clear. But then again, the same tight knit community seems to self congratulate themselves for being right and everyone else being wrong. It is sort of like listening to MSNBC ... ugh ...

I should have mentioned that there is also a legitimate place for credit or debt. It is unreasonable for a young couple to come up with the full price of a dwelling to be expected. At the same time you may spend more than required as the loans seem a kind of abstract thing and are not the same as spending your accumulated money in many cases.

Renting is usually counterproductive as you do not even own the key to the premises. If you can pay rent you can purchase a house but may need some outside guidance if unsure of how.

Also on some occassions there may need to be debt for transportation to work. Needing a reliable car is an instance of this. Other than those things in general all other transactions should be paid for directly.

If you cannot afford to pay cash for say a thousand dollar refrigerator.. Buy a good fairly new second had one within your reach for now. It is not so much the buying what you can afford rather than not getting on an endless treadmill that is to be avoided.

If already on the treadmill get off it as soon as possible. There is just no percentage in staying on it and it can inhibit getting an early retirement going. It also can be an enourmous liability when unexpected things occur.

Debt loading for business is another completly different animal. Although arranging things to get rid of the loading as soon as practical has few downsides. Following these practices in general has made many of us as free as can be expected. We got to actually call some of our own shots as a result instead of just reacting to what was.

This work to buy enough food just to have the strength to repeat the same thing tomorrow. Is little more than surfdom. To avoid this make sure to pay yourself first at least some money each week. Live below your true means in otherwords. You will gain abilities by doing this that in later life can serve you well. You may choose to still work but that is not a necessity.

I was pretty well free of the treadmill totally before age fourty. Free is the correct word here. Free to do what I want within reason for the last thirty years. Even back then I realised I could not get out of this world alive so I had better use whatever intelligence I had. This working to sixty or sixty five just to enable survival is a joke but can be a penalty of not applying your mind early to the problem. Working because you just want to is another thing. This I still do but only for myself doing things I want to do. Debt is a great enslaver of people remember.I have wondered if a debt enslaved population is not much different than a population in slavery.

What is somewhat depressing is it shows how long Washington has been in stasis, considering that the West Wing had its initial development in Reiner/Sorkin "The American President"

Yes, 2008, he called mounting debt "unpatriotic" because Bush accumulated $4T in 8 years. Now that he has accumulated well over $6T in half the time, it is for some reason, no longer unpatriotic.

Senator Obama calls Bush "unpatriotic" for adding trillions to debt www.RightFace.us - YouTube

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Your math must be wrong. I know I saw some posts to your thread that clearly suggested to the reader that B.O.'s debt (and it is his legacy) really wasn't his fault. It was prior president's debt, it was your on-going failures to understand how interest payments work, and all the other "clever" theories. Are you super sure that the difference between $10+ trilion (the B.O. era begins) and now, $16.9 trillion equals $6.5 trillion or so dollars ? I said approximately $7 trillion, so I know I was wrong, but what's a $300-400 billion among the tax payers? Please double check your math and please deduct from this any interest payments and any costs associated with managing the debt which can solely be allocated to all presidents other than B.O. I bet you a donut that once you deduct the above costs and expenses, B.O. probably contributed to the public debt a measly few million dollars. Now, once the next person takes office, can they use these interesting formulas and attribute the public debt to everyone but B.O. ? We'll see how the history books notates this one. Please keep in mind that whatever debt B.O. racked up, I guess it costs no money to manage it and it accrues no interest. It is only the prior president's debt creation which costs money to manage and interest accrues, at least that seems to be the concept which captures so much attention these days.

You beat me to post that I remembered hearing him say that Bush was unpatriotic with the additions to the national debt. There were also promises during the 2008 campaign that he would cut the deficit in half, and then doubled it instead. What baffles me is how this administration thinks that more increases to our national debt can help the people that actually need help. One simple question is what nation can help the helpless better the nation that is 10 trillion in debt or the nation 20 trillion in debt

My bad ... I said debt/deficit ... I appreciate they are two different things. B.O. promised to slash the deficit by 50% then, and not the public debt. But then again, they do go hand-in-hand, so I cannot understand how one can slash the deficit by 50% and not slow the growth of the public debt. Oopps, my bad again, he didn't do either. I wonder if it's unpatriotic to not even be close to a major campaign promise ? We know creating public debt is unpatriotic -- B.O. said that so it's gospel to many. Is being way off the mark with one's promises something else ? Nope, I know I just heard B.O. say on the television that we don't have a public debt problem or spending problem or someting like that. So, I guess it's really not unpatriotic afterall since all is well now as the public debt is growing like crazy. B.O. just said so.

They all say that when a campaign promise is not delivered on, that it is not a lie is BS. If that were the case you could insert any offer and not live up to it like, offering a complete brake job for $29.00 per axel and when car is done there is a $1200 bill and say you were not telling a lie just couldn't deliver on a promise.

Its pretty amazing how far you miss the point on interest on the national debt and see everything as an attack on Bush and defense of Obama. You are so busy trying to defend Larry from what you perceive as a pro-Obama group of hecklers, that you missed the core element of several of the responses.
Who GAS who's in office or what party? No president from either party is or has been making a real effort to get things under control, and every day, the total grows exponentially.
Larry and apparently you would like to blame the debt on Obama, well thats your right if you need someone to blame, but no one man owns this.

The growth of this debt is the fault of the American people, and 30 years of Presidents and parties taking the easy road and selling the most attractive idea, "I provide more services, you pay less, we borrow the difference and no one worries", combined with 30 years of people swallowing this nonsense because everyone likes to get more for their dollar, and everyone likes to believe that National finance is somehow magically different from the reality of personal finance, where if I have 10 bucks, and I buy something for 15 and borrow 5, I OWE 5 dollars to someone, plus interest. On the national scale, the track record is we don't worry about that 5 until its grown to 5005, at which point we start blaming every incoming president for not being able to get it under control.

heres a scary thought from an older article, lots worse now-

"The interest alone on the $9.4 trillion National Debt is over $1 billion per day, and the National Debt is growing by about $2 billion per day! The interest alone could exceed $43 trillion (in 2005 dollars), if we stopped borrowing and started paying $1.05 billion per day (which would take 153 years, provided interest rates did not go any higher than 4.5%)."

from this link-
10 Outrageous Facts About The U.S. National Debt

Even at the time of this article some years back, do you see what kind of monster ANY president is on top of dealing with this? Who cares whether its Obama, Romney, or Marvin the Martian? you can see above based on these older lower numbers, that even if we stopped all growth of the debt, and start paying back 50 million dollars a DAY locked in at only 9.4 trillion, the interest would still grow the debt exponentially, and we would pay about 5 times the current total in interest alone over 150 years. That info should scare the crap out of anyone, and here we are pissing and moaning over a single presidential term.

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He was a fool to make that kind of promise, gotta agree. Of course, another analogy would be a 98lb man promising that he can jump in the ring with Muhammad Ali and knock him out.

Id like to believe that promise, but its pretty clear it wouldn't happen.

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He wasn't a fool just a lier, the fools were the ones that believed in his lie and voted for him

As opposed to the alternative?
a guy who had no economic policy at all? Ill take the guy who at least states hes going to try and do something even if hes clearly not likely to succeed over the guy who still subscribes to the idea that lowering taxes and maintaining services will magically equal cash flow.

It amuses me that those of us who like to complain about the national debt and blame it on single presidents are also the ones most against raising taxes and trying to boost revenue to get rid of the dam thing. To me, the solution is simple, slash services, increase taxes, imbalance the budget with profit, pay pay and pay. Once its done, never get into the situation again, and make it law with jail time included for budgets to be based on borrowing in non emergencies so our grandchildren don't do the same thing. If its our great grandchildren that reap the benefits of us paying those taxes now, then its worth it for us, but few people care about the long term, only about what they perceive is their right to have right now.

Take the OP for example, he lives on some huge ranch out in texas. Were the feds and state to say, hey, we are gonna charge you another 5% in tax on your property, he would be screaming bloody murder. Yet at the same time, he likes to complain about the spiraling debt.

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It saddens me that people will vote for anyone more than once that promises sh*& and do not deliver. I do not blame anyone in the higher tax bracket for not wanting to have more of their legally earned assets confiscated when they know it will not make any difference. Anyone that believes increasing taxes on the rich will boost revenue has not payed any attention to history. As far as effecting our great grandchildren, you won't have to wait that long as it is going to effect our children as in two generations sooner than that.

Easy answer to that last question, since not everyone in the nation is suffering from debt and economic downturn. Corporations, who are "people too" let's not forget, are doing quite well, thank you very much. People that benefited the most from the past tax reductions aren't taking public transportation or wringing their hands about public schools their kids don't go to, are they?