Disaster Awaits: National Debt Will Be 6 Times The Size Of The Economy

 

Even without changes to the current spending policy, the government’s spending is on an unsustainable path. By the time a child born in 2018 reaches retirement age, the United States national debt will be six times the size of the economy according to an analysis released this week.

It Is Like A Western Movie: A Showdown Is In The Making

It has taken the US military/security complex 31 years to get rid of President Reagan’s last nuclear disarmament achievement—the INF Treaty that President Reagan and Soviet President Gorbachev achieved in 1987.

The Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty was ratified by the US Senate on May 27, 1988 and became effective a few days later on June 1. Behind the scenes, I had some role in this, and as I remember what the treaty achieved was to make Europe safe from nuclear attack by Soviet short and intermediate range missiles, and to make the Soviet Union safe from US attack from short and intermediate range US nuclear missiles in Europe. By restricting nuclear weapons to ICBMs, which allowed some warning time, thus guaranteeing retaliation and non-use of nuculear weapons, the INF Treaty was regarded as reducing the risk of an American first-strike on Russia and a Russian first-strike on Europe, strikes that could be delivered by low-flying cruise missiles with next to zero warning time.

Americans Live In A World Of Lies

The US government and the presstitutes that serve it continue to lie to us about everything. Today the Bureau of Labor Statistics told us that the unemployment rate was 3.9%. How can this be when the BLS also reports that the labor force participation rate has declined for a decade throughout the length of the alleged economic recovery and there is no upward pressure on wages from full employment. When jobs are plentiful, people enter the labor force to take advantage of the work opportunities. This raises the labor force participation rate. When employment is full—which is what a 3.9% unempoyment rate means—wages are bid up as employers compete for scarce labor. Full employment with no wage pressure and no rise in the labor force participation rate is impossible.

The US Economy Is Failing — Paul Craig Roberts

Do the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page editors read their own newspaper?

The frontpage headline story for the Labor Day weekend was “Low Wage Growth Challenges Fed.” Despite an alleged 4.4% unemployment rate, which is full employment, there is no real growth in wages. The front page story pointed out correctly that an economy alleged to be expanding at full employment, but absent any wage growth or inflation, is “a puzzle that complicates Federal Reserve policy decisions.”

JPMorgan Sounds Alarm On Size Of US Debt, Warns Of Financial Crisis

 

After yesterday Goldman mocked Trump’s budget (ironic as it was Trump’s ex-Goldman Chief Economic Advisor who conceived it) and said it had zero chance of being implemented, today it was JPM’s turn to share some purely philosophical thoughts on the shape of future US income and spending, which as we learned yesterday could balance only if the US grows for 10 years at a 3% growth rate, something it has never done, while slashing nearly $4 trillion in in spending, something else it has never done.

What caught our attention in the note by JPM’s Jesse Edgerton was his discussion on the thorniest issue surrounding the US: its unprecedented debt addition, what America’s debt/GDP will look like over the next 30 years, and whether there is any chance it could decline as conservatives in government hope will happen.

Auditor: Government Will Owe More Money Than Entire Economy Produces

Report finds issues with reliability of government’s financial statements, improper payments

An auditor for the Government Accountability Office told lawmakers  Wednesday that in the next few years the federal government will owe more than our entire economy produces.

Gene Dodaro, the comptroller general for the Government Accountability Office, testified at the Senate Budget Committee to provide the results of its audit on the government’s financial books.

Ex-GAO head: US debt is three times more than you think

The former U.S. comptroller general says the real U.S. debt is closer to about $65 trillion than the oft-cited figure of $18 trillion.

Dave Walker, who headed the Government Accountability Office (GAO) under Presidents Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, said when you add up all of the nation’s unfunded liabilities, the national debt is more than three times the number generally advertised.

2015.75 Seems to be On Target

We have been warning that this turning point was different. Instead of a crash in private assets, as in 1998.55 or 2007.15 when the Case-Schiller peaked to the day, this time it was in government. Putin bombed Syria precisely on the day of the turning point (9/30/2015), but there were many stocks that bottomed with 9/30/2015.

It’s Hard to Watch Your Country Die

An older article from 2011 that couldn’t be more relevant today.

 

The talk in global political circles is that the U.S. is washed up. America’s defense secretary, traveling to China in January, addressed the gossip. “I’ve watched this sort of cyclical view of American decline come around two or three times, perhaps most dramatically in the latter half of the 1970s,” Robert Gates said. “And my general line for those both at home and around the world who think the U.S. is in decline is that history’s dustbins are filled with countries that underestimated the resilience of the United States.”

Maybe. But it seems hard to underestimate the U.S. these days.

The secretary’s words ring especially hollow when you look at where he was heading. China has plenty cause for a low estimation of the United States. America owes it probably a trillion dollars. And China looks poised to single-handedly neutralize America’s robust, decades-long influence in the Asia Pacific thanks to a military spending binge that will yield aircraft carriers, stealth planes and aircraft-carrier-killing missiles.

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 3

You may read part one and part two here:

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 1

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 2

 

In the previous installments of this series, we discussed the hidden and often unspoken crisis brewing within the employment market, as well as in personal debt. The primary consequence being a collapse in overall consumer demand, something which we are at this very moment witnessing in the macro-picture of the fiscal situation around the world. Lack of real production and lack of sustainable employment options result in a lack of savings, an over-dependency on debt and welfare, the destruction of grass-roots entrepreneurship, a conflated and disingenuous representation of gross domestic product, and ultimately an economic system devoid of structural integrity — a hollow shell of a system, vulnerable to even the slightest shocks.

This lack of structural integrity and stability is hidden from the general public quite deliberately by way of central bank money creation that enables government debt spending, which is counted toward GDP despite the fact that it is NOT true production (debt creation is a negation of true production and historically results in a degradation of the overall economy as well as monetary buying power, rather than progress). Government debt spending also disguises the real state of poverty within a system through welfare and entitlements. The U.S. poverty level is at record highs, hitting previous records set 50 years ago during Lyndon Johnson’s administration. The record-breaking rise in poverty has also occurred despite 50 years of the so called “war on poverty,” a shift toward American socialism that was a continuation of the policies launched by Franklin D. Roosevelt’s ‘New Deal’.

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 2

You can read Part one here:

One Last Look At The Real Economy Before It Implodes – Part 1

 

Consumer spending in the U.S. accounts for approximately 70 percent of gross domestic product, though it is important to note that the manner in which “official” GDP is calculated is highly inaccurate. For example, all government money used within the Medicare coverage system to pay for “consumer health demands,” as well as the now flailing Obamacare socialized welfare program, are counted toward GDP, despite the fact that such capital is created from thin air by the Federal Reserve and also generates debt for the average taxpayer. Government debt creation does not beget successful domestic production. If that was a reality, then all socialist and communist countries (same thing) would be wildly enriched today. This is simply not the case.

High Debt, Low Integrity

The government shutdown is over. It is back to business as usual – that is, the usual business of out-of-control government spending. As of this writing, the U.S. national debt is over $17 trillion which amounts to $53,764 per citizen, $148,756 per taxpayer (according to USDebtClock.org). The six largest federal budget items are, in order: (1) Medicare/Medicaid ($860 billion); (2) Social Security ($812 billion); (3) Defense/Wars ($607 billion); (4) income security ($349 billion); (5) net interest on the debt ($261 billion); and (6) federal pensions ($229 billion). These sums are astronomical, and signal financial crisis or national degeneracy or both.