Some Folks Are Experiencing Difficulty Today, . . .

Or a Central Bank becoming the major shareholder of a nation's bonds.

Oh, Goodness !

Bloomberg Business reports today:
"Investors tend to respond to impending doom by selling risky stuff and hiding out in safer assets -- namely, bonds in places such as Germany and the U.S.
There’s a problem with that formula this time around: Traders aren’t so sure they can find anything that’s truly safe right now. So, instead of piling into sovereign debt of developed nations, traders are pulling their money out of those places as the Greek economy teeters on the brink of collapse, Puerto Rico talks about delaying some debt payments and China’s stock market suffers its biggest selloff since 1992."

Hmm, it's apparently time to hunker down, . . . but there's nowhere to hunker.

Ref: Good Luck Finding a Place to Hide as Global Markets Crumble

Did Obama have the power to do away with the massive 2009 spending? Yes he did. Excluding 2009 debt, Obama is still going to rack up $9 billion. Remember, you just argued that Obama is on the hook for the 2017 debt.

I think you mean 9 trillion not 9 billion. $9 Billion doesn't buy as much as it used to.

Correct, I mean trillion.

An interesting aside to the current economic environment...

In the last two weeks we've seen some mixed signals from some major international banking institutions.

The World Bank and the IMF are urging the US Federal Reserve to continue its easy money policy and keep interest rates at historically low levels at least until 2016.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-10/world-bank-joins-imf-in-urging-fed-to-delay-rate-rise-until-2016-iar6kn77

Just a week ago, the Bank for International Settlements (which is made up of the World's Central Bankers) issued a stark warning that "an unprecedented period of ultra-low interest rates mask deep weaknesses in the global economy and threaten to be the trigger for the next financial crisis."

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/jun/28/interest-rates-growth-warning-bank-for-international-settlements

"The Shanghai Composite plunged 8% at the market open on Wednesday [8 July-somehow the Chinese live a day ahead of poor old DonDiego], and spent the entire day in negative territory before closing down 5.9%. The vast majority of stocks listed on the benchmark index shed 10%, the maximum limit shares are allowed to fall before being halted.
The smaller Shenzhen Composite lost 2.5%, while Hong Kong's Hang Seng dropped 5.8%.
'At the moment there is a mood of panic in the market and a large increase in irrational dumping of shares, causing a strain of liquidity in the stock market,' China Securities Regulatory Commission said in statement.
Since June 12, the Shanghai Composite has lost an unnerving 32%. The Shenzhen market, which has more tech companies and is often compared to America's Nasdaq index, is down 41% over the same period."
Ref: CNN

A few days ago China "convinced" the brokerage firms there to buy stocks to keep prices up, . . . sorta like how the US Federal Reserve is buying US bonds.
The stock purchases in China appear to be not working, . . . the bond purchases in the US have kept interest rates low, so far.

In 1953, Hermann Josef Abs, center, signed an agreement that effectively cut Germany's post-World War II debt in half. - Associated Press

Herr Abs [b: 1901 - d: 1994] was quite a perceptive observer of the banking scene.

Speaking to the Association of Young Bankers some few years before his demise he stated:
"When I was a young banker, we were taught to ask two questions of any borrower: what is the loan for, and how will it be repaid?
Today we know the answers without asking: the purpose of the loan is to repay an earlier debt, and it will be repaid by another loan."

"China’s securities regulator banned major shareholders, corporate executives and directors from selling stakes in listed companies for six months, its latest effort to stop the nation’s $3.5 trillion stock-market rout.
Investors with stakes exceeding 5 percent must maintain their positions, the China Securities Regulatory Commission said in a statement. The rule is intended to guard capital-market stability amid an 'unreasonable plunge' in share prices, the CSRC said."
Ref: Bloomberg