Langone: 'Obama's Debt Solutions Are Generational Theft!'
Langone always delivers. Runs 2 minutes.
'A major debt storm is on the way. We're eating our grandchildrens' breakfast, lunch and dinner.'
Home Depot Founder Ken Langone on Squawk Box this morning.
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The nation's debt as a percentage of the economy is going to cause a fiscal storm, Home Depot Founder Kenneth Langone told CNBC on Tuesday. President Barack Obama's roadmap to reduce the deficit and invest in the future is "generational theft of an enormous magnitude," Langone said in a "Squawk Box" interview.
"The fundamentals haven't changed ... And we don't know when the storm is going to hit. It has to happen. If you look at our debt to GDP, eventually you reach a point where there's no turning back."
He used an analogy to make his point. "If you had one meal left, and you had your grandchild with you, would you eat if or give it to your grandchild?"
He said all people would say "give it to my grandchild."
But pursuing the president's vision, he argued, "[Is] eating the grandchildren's breakfast, lunch and dinner right now. And the [grandchildren] haven't been born yet."
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Bonus clip:
Langone's Two Words: Simpson/Bowles
Reader Comments (10)
Where is that point? That's the real question, isn't it? How much is too much?
Here's the thing -- governments lie. We really don't know how much our debt really is, nor can we accurately calculate GDP.
They say the national debt is about $16T now. Can we double that? I doubt it. $27T seems like an unreasonable number...
We added $1.5T per year between April 2009 and April 2012 according to http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np
Currently, we're at $16.5T, but wait till you get a load of a real budget.
"future humanitarian disaster." 7billion & growing. If everyone would commit suicide this world would be much nicer for me.
WTF
This is a sucidal race to the bottom of the pitt, nobody know the exact date, but the numbers dont lie.
The payment on Intress alone by the gov. is growing exponentialy, and is already beyound sustaiablilty, and ita growng day by day because of wars, and when the prices soar ot heaven, this debth will follow.
Thats why its called a downward spirall.
Its already to late, thats his point and I fully agree.
If america dont stopp the wars, you are i9ndeed doomed, and its the truth.
For how long can a nation spand 50% of its income in wars, a long time, yes, but the wall is there.
peace
Unless we won, global war wouldn't pull us out of the grave we've dug for ourselves. The way China is rearming with ultra modern technology, unless it happens soon we will have lost our technological superiority and we know how that ends up. If he were alive Saddam Husein could tell us exactly what happens in that situation.
We don't need to go to war to cure our problems, we need to remove the parasitic malignant tumors in our government and our economy.
Even if we cut back on military spending, we are still doomed. The future numbers for medicare are off the charts. And wait until interest rates go back to normal and we have to pay the interest on $20 trillion in federal debt. At 5% it comes to $1 trillion per year, just to pay the interest on money we have already borrowed. And $1 trillion is about 40% of total tax revenues, so we are doomed, no matter what happens.