As I do here from time to time, I want to talk about the general economic state of the USA. We as a nation are currently in debt to the tune of $30.448 trillion. Despite the fact that the entire budget deficit for FY2022 was supposed to be $1.0 trillion, we have far surpassed that. At the beginning of the fiscal year, we were $28.428 trillion in debt. The beginning of the fiscal year was two trillion dollars ago, and we still have 2 3 months left in the fiscal year. Not to mention that interest rates have skyrocketed.
The interest on our national debt is skyrocketing, and the CBO is underestimating the costs IMO. For the month of May, interest on that debt was nearly $25 billion. Still, we keep borrowing.
We have to. The only way to fix this disaster is to cut everything. The majority of government spending goes to so-called ‘mandatory spending’ and interest on the money that we have already borrowed. Mandatory spending includes entitlements like Medicare, Social Security, VA benefits, etc. which are REQUIRED by law to be paid. Interest on the debt must also be paid. The money that must be paid totals about $5.2 trillion a year (ten years ago, it was $2.5 trillion). You get that? Social Security, interest on the debt, Medicare, and the like already total more than we take in through taxes.
So the only answer to the debt problem is to cut it all by 50 percent: Defense, Social Security, the VA, all of it. The problem is that is not politically possible. Any politician that advocates cutting Social Security in half can measure the remaining time in his career in milliseconds. Same with any other program.
Nope. We are riding this debt train all the way to the bottom.
18 Comments
dmlmd · June 23, 2022 at 5:15 am
Read a book with this economic scenario, it became famous as a how to disguised as a novel, and its called Patriots, by James Wesley, Rawles. Time for a review ….
Cargo Cult Czar · June 23, 2022 at 5:36 am
You have to burn it all down in order to build the CCCP back better.
Pods and bugs in the favela will bring the indispensable equality of results for all.
Loudspeakers will sound out, I’m from the government and here to help.
southernborne · June 23, 2022 at 5:49 am
I think there are 3 months left in the physical year-9/30.
Divemedic · June 23, 2022 at 9:40 am
True. But it’s FISCAL year.
southernborne · June 23, 2022 at 3:37 pm
lol, true
Don Curton · June 23, 2022 at 7:02 am
Yeah, we get worked up over sending a billion to this country, several billion to that country, wasting a hundred million on some “study”, throwing millions at this or that program. The reality is that is all pocket change to the mandatory spending you outlined above. We could cut all of it and still be unable to keep up with the debt. Doesn’t mean we should just accept sending 40 billion (or however much) to the Ukraine, but even if we got it all back we are too deep in debt to recover.
There was once a point in my personal life where, after mortgage, electricity, gas, food, we couldn’t even make the minimum payment on the credit card debt. Which meant, even if we didn’t use the card that month, the debt load just got worse. Worse much faster than any pay raise. We managed to work our way out of that situation, but it was very difficult. I could easily see where any mistake and we would be too underwater to recover. The USA is there now, it’s just a matter of how long can we move balances around to different cards until it catches up to us.
Mark · June 23, 2022 at 7:37 am
We need to pay the true entitlements, the things that people have paid into or sacrificed for, and are therefore “entitled” to: Medicare, Social Security, VA benefits, etc. We need to stop paying for things that aren’t entitlements: EBT, welfare, Medicaid, SNAP, Section 8 housing, etc. We need to stop all payments and benefits to illegals.
Divemedic · June 23, 2022 at 9:47 am
It won’t matter. Paying interest on the debt we already owe, Social Security, Medicare, and the VA already add up to more than the government takes in through taxation. That leaves nothing for prisons, courts, general government, the military, border security, or the other hundreds of things that a government must do, much less for the boondoggles of education, welfare, food stamps, regulatory bodies, port inspections, policing, and everything else.
We are broke and living on borrowed money. We can’t afford to pay social security. The money is gone, it’s been spent. But your expectation that you “paid” for it and thus deserve to receive it is echoed across the country, and is the main reason why we will continue to borrow until the economy collapses.
Anonymous · June 24, 2022 at 10:36 am
Debt slavery is where people are told they owe a debt which they can never pay off. Debt slavery is only slightly less bad than chattel slavery. Repudiate the national debt. Spend your FRNs now for PM coins which you keep at home.
Gary North reported that around 1955 when he was in high school, his teacher showed him the math for why SS would go actuarially bankrupt around 2011. The SS sales rep said that no other group in California asked him hard questions.
It doesn’t matter how much people have paid into Medicare, Social Security, or VA benefits; these programs are bankrupt, therefore nobody is entitled to a payout, because there is no magic genie to make it happen.
EN2 SS · June 23, 2022 at 10:35 am
All of the debt will disappear, when the country collapses into bankruptcy and states/regions setup their new country.
Skyler the Weird · June 23, 2022 at 11:31 am
The FED could print that $30 trillion and pay it off right then. Course a plain McDonald’s hamburger would be $1000 then
Divemedic · June 24, 2022 at 8:15 am
Along with that would come the absolute destruction of everyone’s life savings, pension funds, and every other means of saving for the future. The only thing left will be tangible assets like real estate and any good that can be held in your hand: PM’s, appliances, vehicles, furniture. People who are massively in debt to buy cars and jewelry would make out like bandits.
Angus McThag · June 23, 2022 at 12:24 pm
I will, grudgingly, give up my VA bennies if that cuts off the parasites.
I’ve sacrificed for the greater good before. That’s how I got the VA bennies!
Getting the gov’t out of all the shit it’s in means I would be able afford everything the VA provides now anyways. I didn’t even sign up for most of it until Obamacare kicked us off my wife’s work plan.
Divemedic · June 23, 2022 at 12:30 pm
The rough part is that taxes would need to stay the same. So bennies gone, but taxes remain. Thank the boomers for all of the free shit that they voted for themselves.
southernborne · June 23, 2022 at 3:41 pm
Boomers weren’t around in 1973 and 1932 when this really got rolling. They share the blame, but plenty to go around!
it's just Boris · June 23, 2022 at 1:00 pm
Apart from DM’s point about the tax revenue needing to be about the same, I have the suspicion that things like VA benefits and social security will, in the end, be cut well before “entitled” spending.
RobL · June 24, 2022 at 8:01 am
Paying interest on USD created out of thin air. Great racket if you can get in on it.
“It is well enough that the people of our nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning”. – Henry Ford
Anonymous · June 24, 2022 at 9:48 pm
Paying interest on USD created out of thin air. Great racket if you can get in on it.
But the USD representing the interest are NOT created out of thin air. Suppose taxpayers pay the bankers interest of 3%/year. Then each year, the bankers gain ownership of 3% of the total count of dollars. After 10 years, the bankers own 30% of the total currency supply. The bankers may not hold the dollars as savings, they might exchange the dollars for stocks and real estate and hold those as savings.
Compare that national situation with an individual situation of paying a credit card 18%/year of interest. This does not mean the credit card company owns you 100% after 100/18 = 5.6 years, because each year you are producing NEW wealth by your NEW labor that year. But taxpayers don’t create any more dollars, and so the national debt interest percentage totals up across the years.
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