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v t e

Government debt (also known as public debt, national debt)^[1][2] is the debt owed by a central government. (In the U.S. and other federal states, "government debt" may also refer to the debt of a state or provincial government, municipal or local government.) By contrast, the annual "government deficit" refers to the difference between government receipts and spending in a single year, that is, the increase of debt over a particular year.

Governments usually borrow by issuing securities, government bonds and bills. Less creditworthy countries sometimes borrow directly from a supranational organization (e.g. the World Bank) or international financial institutions.

As the government draws its income from much of the population, government debt is an indirect debt of the taxpayers. Government debt can be categorized as internal debt (owed to lenders within the country) and external debt (owed to foreign lenders). Sovereign debt usually refers to government debt that has been issued in a foreign currency. Another common division of government debt is by duration until repayment is due. Short term debt is generally considered to be for one year or less, long term is for more than ten years. Medium term debt falls between these two boundaries. A broader definition of government debt may consider all government liabilities, including future pension payments and payments for goods and services the government has contracted but not yet paid.

A new way to pay the National Debt, James Gillray, 1786. King George III, with William Pitt handing him another moneybag.

Government and sovereign bonds[link]

Public debt as a percent of GDP, evolution for USA, Japan and the main EU economies.

Public debt as a percent of GDP (2010).

Public debt as a percent of GDP (2011)

A government bond is a bond issued by a national government. Such bonds are often denominated in the country's domestic currency. Government bonds are sometimes regarded as risk-free bonds, because national governments can raise taxes or reduce spending up to a certain point; in many cases they "print more money" to redeem the bond at maturity. Most developed country governments are prohibited by law from printing money directly, that function having been relegated to their central banks. However, central banks may buy government bonds in order to finance government spending, thereby monetizing the debt.

Bonds issued by national governments in foreign currencies are normally referred to as sovereign bonds. Investors in sovereign bonds denominated in foreign currency have the additional risk that the issuer may be unable to obtain foreign currency to redeem the bonds. In the 2010 Greek debt crisis, for example, the debt is held by Greece in Euros, and one proposed solution is for Greece to go back to issuing its own Drachma.^[3][4][5]

1. Primary Market: Government Bonds are often issued via auctions at Stock Exchanges. There are several different methods of issuing such as Auctions, Guarantee, Combined Auction and Guarantee, and others. There are two main depository types: Book-Entry and Certificate. There are two different methods of the payments: at the beginning and at the end. There are two types of interest rates: Fixed and Floating.

Procedure of an auction:

a. Disclose auction information:

• Information about the bonds: interest rates, maturity year, type, and issuers (Central bank or Treasury)…

• Method of issuing

• Method of payments

b. Auction:

• Bidding interest rate

• Ceiling interest rate

• Big lot or not

• Maturity

• Disclose information of the final interest rate

c. Depository:

• Book Entry

• Certificate

d. Pre-listing

• Stock Exchanges send the information of the auction to Depository Center

e. Listing:

• At the Stock Exchanges

2. Secondary Market: The G-bonds are traded at Stock Exchanges. Unlikely equity system, the bond secondary market uses a completely different system with different method of trading. Most of the system is real time trading. At the secondary market, each bond will be assigned with very own bond code (ISIN code). There are two types of trading: Outright and Repos.

By country[link]

Foreign currency reserves and gold minus external debt based on 2010 data from CIA Factbook.

Public Debt Top 20, 2010 estimate (CIA World Factbook 2011)^[6]

Country	Public Debt (billion USD)	% of GDP	per capita (USD)	Note (2008 estimate) (billion USD)
USA	$ 9,133	62%	$ 29,158	($ 5,415,   38%)
Japan	$ 8,512	198%	$ 67,303	($ 7,469, 172%)
Germany	$ 2,446	83%	$ 30,024	($ 1,931,   66%)
Italy	$ 2,113	119%	$ 34,627	($ 1,933, 106%)
India	$ 2,107	52%	$   1,772	($ 1,863,   56%)
China	$ 1,907	19%	$   1,427	($ 1,247,   16%)
France	$ 1,767	82%	$ 27,062	($ 1,453,   68%)
UK	$ 1,654	76%	$ 26,375	($ 1,158,   52%)
Brazil	$ 1,281	59%	$   6,299	($    775,   39%)
Canada	$ 1,117	84%	$ 32,829	($    831,   64%)
Spain	$    823	60%	$ 17,598	($    571,   41%)
Mexico	$    577	37%	$   5,071	($    561,   36%)
Greece	$    454	143%	$ 42,216	($    335,   97%)
Netherlands	$    424	63%	$ 25,152	($    392,   58%)
Turkey	$    411	43%	$   5,218	($    362,   40%)
Belgium	$    398	101%	$ 38,139	($    350,   90%)
Egypt	$    398	80%	$   4,846	($    385,   87%)
Poland	$    381	53%	$   9,907	($    303,   45%)
South Korea	$    331	23%	$   6,793	($    326,   24%)
Singapore	$    309	106%	$ 65,144
Taiwan	$    279	34%	$ 12,075
Public Debt is total of all government borrowings less repayments that are denominated in a country's home currency. * CIA's World Factbook list only percentage of GDP, the debt amount and per capita is calculated with GDP (PPP) and population figures of same report.

Municipal, provincial, or state bonds[link]

Municipal bonds, "munis" in the United States, are debt securities issued by local governments (municipalities).

Denominated in reserve currencies[link]

Governments often borrow money in a currency in which the demand for debt securities is strong. An advantage of issuing bonds in a currency such as the US dollar, the pound sterling, or the euro is that many investors wish to invest in such bonds. Countries such as the United States, Germany, Italy and France have only issued in their domestic currency (or in the Euro in the case of Euro members).

Relatively few investors are willing to invest in currencies that do not have a long track record of stability. A disadvantage for a government issuing bonds in a foreign currency is that there is a risk that it will not be able to obtain the foreign currency to pay the interest or redeem the bonds. In 1997 and 1998, during the Asian financial crisis, this became a serious problem when many countries were unable to keep their exchange rate fixed due to speculative attacks.

Risk[link]

Lending to a national government in the country's own sovereign currency is often considered "risk free" and is done at a so-called "risk-free interest rate." This is because, up to a point, the debt and interest can be repaid by raising tax receipts (either by economic growth or raising tax rates), a reduction in spending, or failing that by simply printing more money. It is widely considered that this would increase inflation and reduce the value of the invested capital. This has happened many times throughout history, and a typical example of this is provided by Weimar Germany of the 1920s which suffered from hyperinflation due to its government's inability to pay the national debt deriving from the costs of World War I.

In practice, the market interest rate tends to be different for debts of different countries. An example is in borrowing by different European Union countries denominated in euros. Even though the currency is the same in each case, the yield required by the market is higher for some countries' debt than for others. This reflects the views of the market on the relative solvency of the various countries and the likelihood that the debt will be repaid.

A politically unstable state is anything but risk-free as it may—being sovereign—cease its payments. Examples of this phenomenon include Spain in the 16th and 17th centuries, which nullified its government debt seven times during a century, and revolutionary Russia of 1917 which refused to accept the responsibility for Imperial Russia's foreign debt.^[7] Another political risk is caused by external threats. It is mostly uncommon for invaders to accept responsibility for the national debt of the annexed state or that of an organization it considered as rebels. For example, all borrowings by the Confederate States of America were left unpaid after the American Civil War. On the other hand, in the modern era, the transition from dictatorship and illegitimate governments to democracy does not automatically free the country of the debt contracted by the former government. Today's highly developed global credit markets would be less likely to lend to a country that negated its previous debt, or might require punishing levels of interest rates that would be unacceptable to the borrower.

U.S. Treasury bonds denominated in U.S. dollars are often considered "risk free" in the U.S. This disregards the risk to foreign purchasers of depreciation in the dollar relative to the lender's currency. In addition, a risk-free status implicitly assumes the stability of the US government and its ability to continue repayments during any financial crisis.

Lending to a national government in a currency other than its own does not give the same confidence in the ability to repay, but this may be offset by reducing the exchange rate risk to foreign lenders. On the other hand, national debt in foreign currency cannot be disposed of by starting a hyperinflation; and this increases the credibility of the debtor. Usually small states with volatile economies have most of their national debt in foreign currency. For countries in the Eurozone, the euro is the local currency, although no single state can trigger inflation by creating more currency.

Lending to a local or municipal government can be just as risky as a loan to a private company, unless the local or municipal government has sufficient power to tax. In this case, the local government could to a certain extent pay its debts by increasing the taxes, or reduce spending, just as a national one could. Further, local government loans are sometimes guaranteed by the national government, and this reduces the risk. In some jurisdictions, interest earned on local or municipal bonds is tax-exempt income, which can be an important consideration for the wealthy.

Clearing and defaults[link]

Public debt clearing standards are set by the Bank for International Settlements, but defaults are governed by extremely complex laws which vary from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Globally, the International Monetary Fund can take certain steps to intervene to prevent anticipated defaults. It is sometimes criticized for the measures it advises nations to take, which often involve cutting back on government spending as part of an economic austerity regime. In triple bottom line analysis, this can be seen as degrading capital on which the nation's economy ultimately depends.

Those considerations do not apply to private debts, by contrast: credit risk (or the consumer credit rating) determines the interest rate, more or less, and entities go bankrupt if they fail to repay. Governments cannot really go bankrupt (and suddenly stop providing services to citizens), thus a far more complex way of managing defaults is required.

Smaller jurisdictions, such as cities, are usually guaranteed by their regional or national levels of government. When New York City declined into what would have been a bankrupt status during the 1960s (had it been a private entity), by the early 1970s a "bailout" was required from New York State and the United States. In general, such measures amount to merging the smaller entity's debt into that of the larger entity and thereby giving it access to the lower interest rates the larger entity enjoys. The larger entity may then assume some agreed-upon oversight in order to prevent recurrence of the problem.

Structure[link]

In the dominant economic policy generally ascribed to theories of John Maynard Keynes, sometimes called Keynesian economics, there is tolerance for fairly high levels of public debt to pay for public investment in lean times, which, if boom times follow, can then be paid back from rising tax revenues.

As this theory gained global popularity in the 1930s, many nations took on public debt to finance large infrastructural capital projects — such as highways or large hydroelectric dams. It was thought that this could start a virtuous cycle and a rising business confidence since there would be more workers with money to spend. Some^[who?] have argued that the greatly increased military spending of World War II really ended the Great Depression. Of course, military expenditures are based upon the same tax (or debt) and spend fundamentals as the rest of the national budget, so this argument does little to undermine Keynesian theory. Indeed, some^[who?] have suggested that significantly higher national spending necessitated by war essentially confirms the basic Keynesian analysis (see Military Keynesianism).

Nonetheless, the Keynesian scheme remained dominant, thanks in part to Keynes' own pamphlet How to Pay for the War, published in the United Kingdom in 1940. Since the war was being paid for, and being won, Keynes and Harry Dexter White, Assistant Secretary of the United States Department of the Treasury, were, according to John Kenneth Galbraith, the dominating influences on the Bretton Woods agreements. These agreements set the policies for the Bank for International Settlements (BIS), International Monetary Fund (IMF), and World Bank, the so-called Bretton Woods Institutions, launched in the late 1940s for the last two (the BIS was founded in 1930).

These are the dominant economic entities setting policies regarding public debt. Due to its role in setting policies for trade disputes, the World Trade Organization also has immense power to affect foreign exchange relations, as many nations are dependent on specific commodity markets for the balance of payments they require to repay debt.

Understanding the structure of public debt and analyzing its risk requires one to:

• Assess the expected value of any public asset being constructed, at least in future tax terms if not in direct revenues. A choice must be made about its status as a public good — some public "assets" end up as public bads, such as nuclear power plants which are extremely expensive to decommission — these costs must also be worked in to asset values.
• Determine whether any public debt is being used to finance consumption, which includes all social assistance and all military spending.
• Determine whether triple bottom line issues are likely to lead to failure or defaults of governments — say due to being overthrown.
• Determine whether any of the debt being undertaken may be held to be odious debt, which might permit it to be disavowed without any effect on a country's credit status. This includes any loans to purchase "assets" such as leaders' palaces, or the people's suppression or extermination. International law does not permit people to be held responsible for such debts — as they did not benefit in any way from the spending and had no control over it.
• Determine if any future entitlements are being created by expenditures — financing a public swimming pool for instance may create some right to recreation where it did not previously exist, by precedent and expectations.

Scale[link]

This article's factual accuracy is disputed. Please help to ensure that disputed facts are reliably sourced. See the relevant discussion on the talk page. (March 2010)

General government debt as percent of GDP, USA, Japan, Germany.

Interest burden of public debt with respect to GDP.

National Debt Clock outside the IRS office in NYC, July 1, 2010

Global debt is of great concern since interest payments can often place great demands on governments and individuals. This has led to calls for universal debt relief for poorer countries.

A less extreme and more innovative measure would be to permit civil society groups in every nation to buy the debt in exchange for minority equity positions in community organizations. Even in dictatorships, the combination of banks and civil society power could force land reform and overthrow unaccountable governments, since the people and banks would be aligned against the oppressive government.

Using a debt to GDP ratio is one of the most accepted measures of assessing a nation's debt. For example, in theory one of the criteria of admission to the European Union's Euro currency is that a country's debt should not exceed 60% of that country's GDP.

The debt of the United States over time is documented online at the Department of the Treasury's website TreasuryDirect.^[8]

Problems[link]

Sovereign debt problems have been a major public policy issue since World War II, including the treatment of debt related to that war, the developing country "debt crisis" in the 1980s, and the shocks of the 1998 Russian financial crisis and Argentina's default in 2001.

Not all developing countries have been affected to the same extent. For example Yugoslavia had low government debt (perhaps because it was unable to borrow on world markets)^{[citation needed]} until its breakup and the coming of democracy, when the new national governments started to borrow money from the IMF. Croatia has a government debt of $47 billion today while the whole of Yugoslavia (six times as many people as Croatia) in 1980 had debt of $14 billion.^{[citation needed]}

Implicit debt[link]

Government "implicit" debt is the promise by a government of future payments from the state. Usually this refers to long term promises of social payments such as pensions and health expenditure; not promises of other expenditure such as education or defense (which are largely paid on a "quid pro quo" basis to government employees and contractors).

A problem with these implicit government insurance liabilities is that it is hard to cost them accurately, since the amounts of future payments depend on so many factors. First of all, the social security claims are not "open" bonds or debt papers with a stated time frame, "time to maturity", "nominal value", or "net present value".

In the United States, as in most other countries, there is no money earmarked in the government's coffers for future social insurance payments. This insurance system is called PAYGO (pay-as-you-go). Alternative social insurance strategies might have included a system that involved save and invest.

Furthermore, population projections predict that when the "baby boomers" start to retire, the working population in the United States, and in many other countries, will be a smaller percentage of the population than it is now, for many years to come. This will increase the burden on the country of these promised pension and other payments - larger than the 65 percent^[9] of GDP that it is now. The "burden" of the government is what it spends, since it can only pay its bills through taxes, debt, and increasing the money supply (government spending = tax revenues + change in government debt held by public + change in monetary base held by the public). "Government social benefits" paid by the United States government during 2003 totaled $1.3 trillion.^[10]

In 2010 the European Commission required EU Member Countries to publish their debt information in standardized methodology, explicitly including debts that were previously hidden in a number of ways to satisfy minimum requirements on local (national) and European (Stability and Growth Pact) level.^[11]

See also[link]

Government finance:

• Debt crisis
• Government bond
• Government budget deficit
• Government spending
• Generational accounting
• Financial repression
• Fiscal policy
• Public finance
• Sovereign default
• Tax

Specific:

• 2010 European sovereign debt crisis
• United States public debt

General:

• Bond (finance)
• Credit default swap
• Warrant (of Payment)
• List of countries by credit rating
• List of countries by external debt
• List of countries by net international investment position
• List of countries by public debt

References[link]

This article uses bare URLs for citations. Please consider adding full citations so that the article remains verifiable. Several templates and the Reflinks tool are available to assist in formatting. (Reflinks documentation) (November 2011)

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Government debt

• The IMF Public Financial Management Blog
• OECD government debt statistics
• Canadian Taxpayers Federation debt clock
• French public debt clock
• UK national debt clock
• Germany's taxpayers union and debt clock (at the top of the page)
• Japan's national debt
• Riksgäldskontoret – Swedish national debt office
• United States Treasury, Bureau of Public Debt — The Debt to the Penny and Who Holds It
• The US National Debt Clock by Ed Hall
• Slaying the Dragon of Debt, Regional Oral History Office, The Bancroft Library, University of California, Berkeley
• National debt: Country comparison

Databases[link]

• Public Debt Database A complete listing of all Public Debt securities issued by the United States Treasury and its predecessors between 1775 and 1976.
• CLYPS dataset on public debt level and composition in Latin America

Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann on set of his television program "The Big Picture".
Born	(1951-05-07) May 7, 1951 (age 61) Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Radio/TV host, political commentator, author, former psychotherapist, former entrepreneur
Spouse	Louise Hartmann
Website
thomhartmann.com

Thom Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio host, author, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and progressive political commentator. His nationally-syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, airs in the United States and has 2.75 million listeners a week.^[1] In 2008, 2009, and 2010, Talkers Magazine named Hartmann the tenth most important talk show host in America,^[2] and number 8 in 2011 defining him as the most important liberal host for four years in a row (the ones above Hartmann are conservatives).

Hartmann's article "Talking Back To Talk Radio" became part of the original business plan of Air America Radio. He replaced Al Franken on the network on February 19, 2007. On March 1, 2009, Hartmann moved syndication of his show from Air America to the former Jones Network, now owned by Dial Global (which also syndicates Neal Boortz, Ed Schultz, Michael Smerconish, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Clark Howard). In the summer of 2009, his program began to also be offered to nonprofit stations via the Pacifica Radio network, and some community/nonprofit stations in the US are also carrying his show. The radio program is also simulcast as a TV program by Free Speech TV^[3] on Dish Network and DirecTV. Additionally, he stars in a one-hour daily TV show which his production company records at the studios of and licenses to the RT news network, The Big Picture; that TV show is also syndicated by Free Speech TV and carried on both Dish Network and local cable TV stations.

Hartmann is a lay scholar of the history and textual analysis of the United States Constitution; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Thomas Jefferson; the Assassination of John F. Kennedy; the Federalist Papers; electronic voting rigging; and environmental issues like global warming. He has authored many books on political topics and ADHD. He is the inventor of the Hunter vs. farmer theory of the condition.

Early life[link]

Hartmann was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of a staunch conservative Republican, atheist father and a Christian mother,^[4] and grew up in nearby Lansing. His paternal grandparents were from Norway.^[5] Interested in politics from a young age, he campaigned for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election when he was 13.^[6] By 1968, Hartmann was studying at Michigan State University and working as a part-time news announcer at local country music station WITL while protesting the Vietnam War with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).^[7]

Beliefs[link]

Hartmann is considered to have progressive/liberal politics (although he describes himself as part of the radical middle).^[8] He is the author of numerous books including Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, in which he argues that the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) did not actually grant corporate personhood, and that this doctrine derives from a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court clerk's notes. Hartmann considers this a clear contradiction of the intent of the Founding Fathers of the United States.^[9] He has also written on the separation of church and state, drawing upon the Federalist Papers to argue that the Founding Fathers warned against the notion of the United States being a Christian nation. He contends that the 2000 American election and 2004 American election were stolen through electronic tampering, denial of the voting franchise by rigged voting lists, and limiting availability of voting machines in selected precincts. He also accuses the Bush administration of eroding democracy and individual freedoms.

Hartmann is also a vocal critic of the effects of neoliberal globalization on the U.S. economy, claiming that economic policies enacted during and since the presidency of Ronald Reagan have led, in large part, to many American industrial enterprises' being acquired by multinational firms based in overseas countries, leading in many cases to manufacturing jobs' – once considered a major foundation of the U.S. economy – being relocated to countries in Asia and other areas where the costs of labor are lower than in the U.S.; and the concurrent reversal of the United States' traditional role of a leading exporter of finished manufactured goods to that of a primary importer of finished manufactured goods (exemplified by massive trade deficits with countries such as China). Hartmann argues that this phenomenon is leading to the erosion of the American middle class, whose survival Hartmann deems critical to the survival of American democracy. This argument is expressed in Hartmann's 2006 book, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class and What We Can Do About It. One of the book's main arguments is that media deregulation leads to corporate media's shifting the American consensus towards the acceptance of privatization and massive corporate profits – which causes the shrinking of the middle class.

In the book Ultimate Sacrifice, he and co-author Lamar Waldron argue that President John F. Kennedy's assassination resulted from a conspiracy by two mafia godfathers (Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr.) who took advantage of a proposed 1963 USA-sponsored coup (against Cuba's Fidel Castro) to kill the President and then hide their tracks in the resulting cover-up of the top-secret coup plans. Gore Vidal, in his recent autobiography "Point To Point Navigation" devotes much of the final two chapters of his book to praising Hartmann's and Lamar Waldron's scholarship in "solving" the JFK case (JFK was a friend of Vidal's).

Talk radio career[link]

Thom Hartmann doing his radio show, the Thom Hartmann Program.

Hartmann started in radio as a DJ (country, rock, progressive overnight) in 1968 in Lansing, Michigan, (on WITL, WVIC, WFMK) and program director at WNBY and worked full or part-time in radio while also attending school and/or running businesses in Michigan for a decade. He returned to radio in February 2003 with a show on a local station in Vermont, then a month later picked up the noon-3 PM ET slot on the i.e. America Radio Network and Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, he moved from Vermont to Oregon and, in addition to continuing his national show, also co-hosted a local talk show in Portland, Oregon (with Carl Wolfson, the late Heidi Tauber, and later Christine Alexander), from 2005 until early 2007 on KPOJ, initially an affiliate of Air America Radio owned by Clear Channel Communications. The KPOJ local morning 6 – 9 AM PT is now hosted by Carl Wolfson. In late 2010 Hartmann moved his show from Portland to Washington D.C.^{[citation needed]}

Hartmann's national program, on the air since 2003 and now in the 3PM to 6PM ET daypart, was chosen by Air America to replace Al Franken on most Air America affiliates in 2007.^[10] Some stations, such as The Quake in San Francisco, had already dropped or moved Franken for Hartmann, who now is, according to Talkers Magazine, America's most important liberal talker. As of March 2012, the show was carried on 81 terrestrial radio stations in 34 states as well as on Sirius and XM satellite radio. A community radio station in Africa, Radio Builsa in Ghana, also broadcasts the show. Various local cable TV networks simulcast the program.

According to his syndicator Dial Global, more people listen to Hartmann's show on more stations than any other progressive talk show in America. The Thom Hartmann Show is estimated by industry magazine Talkers to have 2.75 million unique listers per week. In addition to Dial Global, a subsidiary of Triton Media Group, the show is now also offered via Pacifica Audioport to non-profit stations in a non-profit compliant format and is simulcast on Dish Network Channel 9415 via Free Speech TV Network.

Many guests appear on the show purporting points of view on diverse social and political topics. Some guests proffer progressive views similar to Hartmann's, but more than half are conservatives, libertarians, or Ayn Rand Institute members^[11] who espouse opposing views. A vigorous debate with the host usually ensues. There are four regular guests on the program, and they are sympathetic to Hartmann's political views. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) appears every Friday during the first hour of the show titled "Brunch with Bernie". Ellen Ratner of the Talk Radio News Service provides Washington commentary daily. Victoria Jones who is the White House correspondent for Talk Radio News Service appears occasionally as does Dr. Ravi Batra an economics professor at SMU.

Like all talk radio shows, The Thom Hartmann Program takes calls from listeners. When callers asked Thom how he was, he used to reply, "I'm great, but I'll get better." But after a time callers would regularly try to elicit this response so he's stopped replying this way routinely. Hartmann ends each show with the phrase, "Activism begins with you, democracy begins with you. Get out there, get active! Tag, you're it!"

TV program[link]

Hartmann produces a one hour daily TV show, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, which is seen worldwide on the Russian-based RT news channel, as well as on Free Speech TV; through Free Speech TV it is also seen on selected local-origination and Public-access television cable TV channels.

Business career[link]

Hartmann began his business career in the early 1970s while in his 20s, co-founding The Woodley Herber Company. Woodley Herber sold herbal products, potpourris and teas, and operated until 1978. It was during this time that Hartmann obtained three degrees in herbology and homeopathic medicine, one of which was from a diploma mill. Thereafter Hartmann moved to New Hampshire to begin The New England Salem Children's Village,^[12] which still operates in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was Executive Director of NESCT for five years, and on its board for over 25 years. NESCT's child-care model was based on that of the German Salem International organization, and through his affiliation with that group he helped start international relief programs in Uganda, Colombia, Russia, Israel, India, Australia, and several other countries between 1979 and today.

Hartmann founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in Atlanta in 1983, a business which in the intervening years^{[clarification needed]} has generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue.^{[citation needed]} According to their website, Sprayberry Travel was lauded by the Wall Street Journal in 1984 for being one of the early adopters of frequent travel programs analogous to the recently initiated frequent flyer programs of the airline industry.^[13] He sold his share in the business in 1986 and retired with his family to Germany to work with the international relief organization Salem International.^[14] In the late 1970s, he had been a trainer in advertising and marketing for The American Marketing Centers (now defunct), and in 1987 after returning from Germany founded the Atlanta advertising agency Chandler, MacDonald, Stout, Schneiderman & Poe, Inc., which did business as The Newsletter Factory.^[15] He sold his interest in that company in 1996 and retired to Vermont.

Other areas of notability[link]

Hartmann is a writer who has published more than twenty books on diverse topics. The title which won the most critical acclaim is The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. In 1999 he was invited by the Dalai Lama to spend a week in Dharamsala after the Dalai Lama finished reading this book. Hartmann won the Project Censored Award in 2004 for Unequal Protection. As a result of a book on spirituality, The Prophet's Way, he was invited in 1998 to meet Pope John Paul II.

Trained in the 1970s in Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler (Hartmann is licensed by Bandler's Society of NLP as both an NLP Practitioner and an NLP Trainer, and Bandler wrote the foreword to his book "Healing ADD"), Hartmann popularized some of its concepts in Cracking the Code (2007), which argues that Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz made use of them in the 1980s and 1990s for Republican Party causes and advocates using them to advance liberalism. His book "Healing ADD" also leans heavily on NLP techniques. His book on the JFK Assassination (written with Lamar Waldron) titled "Ultimate Sacrifice" is cited extensively in the last two chapters of Gore Vidal's recent autobiography as having "finally solved" that case.

Hartmann was one of several contributors to Air America, the Playbook, a 300 plus page collection of essays, transcripts, and interviews by liberal radio personalities. It was published shortly before the 2006 Congressional elections and was on The New York Times Best Seller list for October 8, 2006.^[16]

Leonardo DiCaprio made a web movie titled "Global Warning" that was inspired by The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Hartmann appears in DiCaprio's 2007 documentary The 11th Hour, as well as the feature documentary film Dalai Lama Renaissance (with Harrison Ford), and Crude Impact.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder[link]

Hartmann has authored in the area of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD) and is the creator (first proposed by him in 1978, first published nationally in 1992) of the now well-known hunter vs. farmer theory that ADD is an expected evolutionary adaptation to hunting lifestyles. These individuals have the ability of rapidly shifting their focus and external attention and of holding multiple trains of thought. This ability causes difficulties when they must live and work in cultures in which "farming" – well-planned, predictable, organized and repetitive behaviors – is typical. His first book on the disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder: a Different Perception was described by Scientific American as "innovative and fresh".^[17] Hartmann has established specialized schools^[quantify] for children with ADHD, such as The Hunter School in Rumney, New Hampshire,^[18] which he co-founded with his wife Louise.

He also operated the "ADD Forum" and "DeskTop Publishing Forum", along with several others, on CompuServe.^[19]

Bibliography[link]

• 2011: Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 978-1-60509-706-0. 
• 2010 (second edition): Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" – And How You Can Fight Back. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 1-60509-559-1. 
• 2009: Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture. Viking. ISBN 0-670-02091-5. 
• 2008: Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination (by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann). Counterpoint. ISBN 1-58243-535-9. 
• 2007: Cracking The Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 978-1-57675-458-0. 
• 2006: Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class and What We Can Do About It. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 1-57675-414-6. 
• 2006: Walking Your Blues Away: Practical Bilateral Therapies for Healing the Mind and Optimizing Emotional Well-Being. Park Street Press. ISBN 1-59477-144-8. 
• 2005: Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1441-7.  by Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann
• 2004: What Would Jefferson Do?. Harmony Books. ISBN 1-882109-38-4. 
• 2004: We the People: A Call to Take Back America. Coreway Media, Inc.. ISBN 1-4000-5208-4. 
• 2004 (revised ed.): Unequal Protection. Rodale Books. ISBN 1-57954-955-1. 
• 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1998): The Prophet's Way. Park Street Press. ISBN 0-89281-198-6. 
• 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1997): Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 1-4000-5157-6. 
• 2003: The Edison Gene. Park Street Press. ISBN 0-89281-128-5. 
• 2000: Thom Hartmann's Complete Guide to ADHD: Help for Your Family at Home, School and Work. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-52-0. 
• 2000: The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century. Hampton Roads. ISBN 1-57174-166-6. 
• 1998: Healing ADD. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-37-7. 
• 1996: Beyond ADD. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-12-1. 
• 1996: Think Fast!. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-08-3.  by Thom Hartmann and Jane Bowman, with Susan Burgess
• 1995: ADD Success Stories. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-03-2. 
• 1994: Focus Your Energy: Hunting for Success in Business. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-51689-2. 
• 1994: ADHD Secrets of Success: Coaching Yourself to Fulfillment in the Business World. Select Books. ISBN 1-59079-017-0. 
• 1992 (first edition): ADD: A Different Perception. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-14-8. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• ThomHartmann.com Official site. Includes information on and streaming of the radio and TV shows, essays, chatroom, and a discussion board.
• Past episodes of The Big Picture on YouTube
• Various video clips at BigPicture.tv Hartmann speaking on various topics.
• Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It, Hartmann talks about his book in a video at Fora TV.
• Thom Hartmann with the Dalai Lama Videos made during the filming of the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance.
• "When Democracy Fails" Podcast on Google Video.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Hartmann, February 7, 2010

This biographical article needs additional citations for verification. Please help by adding reliable sources. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately, especially if potentially libelous or harmful. (March 2010)

Barry McGuire
Barry McGuire in 1979.
Background information
Born	(1935-10-15) October 15, 1935 (age 76)
Origin	Oklahoma City, Oklahoma United States
Genres	Rock, Contemporary Christian
Occupations	Singer, songwriter
Instruments	Guitar, harmonica, vocals
Labels	Horizon, Ember, Dunhill, Ode, Myrrh, Sparrow
Associated acts	The New Christy Minstrels www.thenewchristyminstrels.com
Website	www.barrymcguire.com www.trippinthesixties.com

Barry McGuire (born 15 October 1935) is an American singer-songwriter best known for the hit song "Eve of Destruction", and later as a pioneering singer and songwriter of Contemporary Christian music.

Early life[link]

McGuire was born in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, and moved to California in early childhood, when he was two years old. At age 16 he joined the United States Navy, but was discharged ten months later for being under age.

After working as a commercial fisherman, and then going onto become a journeyman pipe fitter, at age 25 McGuire got a job singing in a bar. In 1961, he released his first single called "The Tree", which was not a hit.

He formed a duo with Barry Kane called Barry & Barry. The new duo folk act performed their own brand of original folk arrangements—noticeably impressive melodies laced with rich harmonies—at The Ice House, a small folk club in Pasadena, CA. before moving on to The Troubadour in Hollywood in the spring of 1962. At The Troubadour they both joined The New Christy Minstrels, a large folk group performing there. They continued to perform their separate duo act there as well as performing with The New Christy Minstrels. They cut their first and only album as Barry & Barry called "Here And Now" which contained songs such as "Gold Wedding Ring", "Land Of Odin", "Another Man", "Summer's Over", "You Know My Name", "Bull 'Gine Run", "Far Side Of The Hill" and more. Their LP "Here And Now" on vinyl eventually went out of print, but has since been digitally remastered and rereleased on CD.

In 1963, McGuire along with Randy Sparks (the founder of The New Christy Minstrels) co-wrote, and sang lead vocal on, the Christys' first and biggest hit single: "Green, Green." He left the Christys in January 1965, after recording the album, Cowboys and Indians; however, on the 1965 album Chim Chim Cher-ee, he sang only on the title cut.

Solo career[link]

As a folk rock solo singer in the 1960s, he was best known for his hits "Eve of Destruction" and "Sins of the Family", both written by P.F. Sloan. His other chart successes were "Child of Our Times" (co-written by Steve Barri) and "Cloudy Summer Afternoon (Raindrops)" (penned by Travis Edmonson of the 1960s folk-duo, Bud & Travis). "Eve of Destruction" sold over one million copies, and was awarded a gold disc.^[1]

McGuire's LP, The Eve of Destruction, reached its peak of number 37 on the Billboard Hot 200 chart during the week ending 25 September 1965. That same day the single of that name went to number one on both charts. McGuire was never again to break into the Top 40 of the Billboard Hot 100. According to McGuire, "Eve of Destruction" was recorded in one take on a Thursday morning (from words scrawled on a crumpled piece of paper) and then he got a call from the record company at 7:00 the next Monday morning, telling him to turn on the radio—his song was playing. The recording includes an "ahhh" where McGuire could not read the words.^[2] The Temptations referenced McGuire's song "Eve of Destruction" in their song "Ball of Confusion (That's What the World Is Today)". For other references and covers of "Eve of Destruction" see the article: "Eve of Destruction".

The album This Precious Time was released in 1966, his second with Dunhill Records. It includes a version of "California Dreamin'" with The Mamas & the Papas singing backing vocals. McGuire is mentioned several times in The Mamas & the Papas hit, "Creeque Alley". Frank Zappa wrote McGuire's name in the sleeve of his Freak Out! album (1966) as one of his musical influences.

McGuire appeared in the 1967 movie, The President's Analyst with James Coburn as the character, "Old Wrangler," (leader of a band which completely comprised the Los Angeles group Clear Light, who were between lead vocalists) and in Werewolves on Wheels in 1971. He also starred for a year in the Broadway musical Hair.

McGuire became a born-again Christian in 1971 after a brief encounter with evangelist Arthur Blessitt in October 1970.^[3] In 1973, he joined the Myrrh label and released the album Seeds. This album is also notable for the backing vocals provided by the family trio that would become known as the 2nd Chapter of Acts. In 1974, McGuire released his second Jesus Music album Lighten Up, which included a remake of "Eve of Destruction". He toured with 2nd Chapter of Acts and "a band called David" and in 1975 this collaborative effort resulted in the double live album, To the Bride.

In 1976, he left Myrrh, joining former Myrrh executive Billy Ray Hearn's new label, Sparrow Records. He recorded seven albums on Sparrow, the best known of which is Cosmic Cowboy, released in 1978. That year he also released a top-selling children's album Bullfrogs and Butterflies (part of the Agapeland series) for Sparrow's subsidiary label, Birdwing.

In 1978, he also toured England, Scotland, and Wales with the Jimmy Owens' musical "The Witness", in which he played the part of the apostle Peter. His acting and singing in the musical was considered very inspiring. Also, the voice of Peter on the "Witness" album is his.

Later life[link]

In the 1980s, McGuire left the music industry, and settled for a time in New Zealand with his New Zealand wife Mari (former secretary of McGuire's Agape Force associate, Winkie Pratney). He returned to the United States in the 1990s, teaming up with Terry Talbot and recording as Talbot McGuire. The duo released four albums between 1996 and 2000.

In 1990, McGuire published a novel co-written with Logan White. A paperback, In the Midst of Wolves told a story about a group of bikers who come to know God.

As of 2006, he takes engagements which include a few songs and talks on a mixture of topics, by both McGuire and his wife. The McGuires resided in Fresno, California on their return to the United States but have since moved back to New Zealand.

On March 12, 2008, McGuire appeared on the Australian music comedy/game show, Spicks and Specks, performing an updated version of "Eve of Destruction", with new lines such as, "You're old enough to kill/ you just started voting" and "... can live for ten years in space". The reference to "Red China" was also removed. In 2009 McGuire released "Eve 2012" where the text had been greatly modified to reflect contemporary problems (mostly environmental problems) rather than the problems of the 1960s.

In 2008, McGuire teamed up with former member of The Byrds, John York, for a live tour called "Trippin' the '60s", which McGuire describes as "...taking the songs and the truth that was in those songs from the 1960s and bringing them into the present moment...It's not a cover pack, it's us singing songs that we sung with a lot of our friends that aren't around anymore to sing them."^[4]

Partial discography[link]

• Barry Here and Now (1962)
• The Barry McGuire Album (1963)
• Eve of Destruction (1965)
• This Precious Time (1965)
• The World's Last Private Citizen (1967)
• McGuire and the Doctor (1971)
• Seeds (1972)
• Lighten Up (1974)
• Narnia (1974)
• Jubilation (1975)
• To the Bride (1975)
• Eve of Destruction (Star Power) (1975)
• C'mon Along (1976)
• Anyone But Jesus (1976)
• Jubilation Two (1976)
• Have You Heard (1977)
• Cosmic Cowboy (1978)
• Inside Out (1979)
• Best of Barry McGuire (1980)
• Finer Than Gold (1981)
• Pilgrim (1989)
• Let's Tend God's Earth (1991)
• When Dinosaurs Walked The Earth (1995)
• Ancient Garden (1997)
• Frost And Fire (1999)
• Eve Of Destruction (20 Inspirational Classics) (2000)

See also[link]

• List of 1970s Christian pop artists
• List of artists who reached number one on the Hot 100 (U.S.)
• List of 1960s one-hit wonders in the United States
• Hot 100 number-one hits of 1965 (USA)

References[link]

External links[link]

• www.barrymcguire.com
• Barry McGuire's "Trippin' the '60s" official site
• Interview with Stain Free Media, November 16, 2007
• Barry McGuire biography at Allmusic website
• TheBeginningsConcert.com - Reunion Concert Event.

Bob Chapman (full name Robert Dennis Chapman, but who was often known as Sammy Chapman – born 18 August 1946) is a footballer who played as a defender in the Football League during the 1960s and 1970s, most notably with Nottingham Forest.

He made his debut for Forest in 1964 at the age of 17 years 5 months, which at the time made him the youngest ever Forest player, and he was to go on to make 422 senior appearances for the club (scoring 23 goals).^[1]

In 1977 he left them to join Notts County and after a season he moved to Shrewsbury Town, before moving to non-league with Burton Albion.^[2]

His son Robert has played cricket for Nottinghamshire County Cricket Club.^[3]

References[link]

This biographical article related to English football is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Ugo Panizza

Nationality	Error creating thumbnail: convert.im6: unable to open image `/var/sites/mediawiki-1.19.1/images/0/03/Flag_of_Italy.svg': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2638. convert.im6: delegate failed `"rsvg-convert" -o "%o" "%i"' @ error/delegate.c/InvokeDelegate/1065. convert.im6: unable to open image `/tmp/magick-nnTVqXf6': No such file or directory @ error/blob.c/OpenBlob/2638. convert.im6: unable to load module `/usr/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu/ImageMagick-6.7.7/modules-Q16/coders/svg.la': file not found @ error/module.c/OpenModule/1278. convert.im6: unable to open file `/tmp/magick-nnTVqXf6': No such file or directory @ error/constitute.c/ReadImage/583. convert.im6: no images defined `PNG:/tmp/transform_189867e-1.png' @ error/convert.c/ConvertImageCommand/3044.  Italy
Institution	Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva
Field	Development economics, International Finance, Sovereign Debt, Sovereign Default

Ugo Panizza is an Italian economist. He is a professor of International Economics and Pictet Chair in Finance and Development at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva. He is also the deputy director of the Centre on Development and Finance at the Graduate Institute.

Panizza is known for co-establishing the concept of original sin in development economics, alongside economists Barry Eichengreen and Ricardo Hausmann.^[1] His recent work on the costs of sovereign default, on the links between finance and economic development, and on the relationship between public debt and economic growth has been widely cited in the international press.^[2][3][4]

Panizza has also taught at the American University of Beirut and the University of Turin and worked at the World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank, and United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD).

He holds a PhD in economics from the Johns Hopkins University.^[5]

References[link]