By MN Gordon
No-one Cares…
“No one really cares about the U.S. federal debt,” remarked a colleague and Economic Prism reader earlier in the week. “You keep writing about it as if anyone gives a lick.”
We could tell he was just warming up. So, we settled back into our chair and made ourselves comfortable.
The federal debtberg, which no-one cares about (yet). We have added the most recent bar manually, as the charts published by the Fed will only be updated at the end of the quarter. The devastation wrought by the recent hurricanes in Texas and Florida gave Congress a convenient excuse to postpone the debt ceiling debate by until at least December and to wave through a more than $300 billion jump in total federal debt without much ado. It is worth noting that while the growth of the debtberg has accelerated over time, growth in US economic output has concurrently slowed down rather dramatically. The main obstacle to maintaining this state of affairs is that it will sooner or later become mathematically impossible. Perhaps the fact that people don’t care reflects a decline in mathematical literacy? Per experience, throwing more money at public education won’t help – and soon it may no longer even be possible anyway. [PT] – click to enlarge.
“The voters certainly don’t care about the federal debt,” he continued. “They keep electing the same spendthrifts to office. And the politicians know the voters don’t care. They also know that making more and more promises is the formula for getting reelected.
“Deep down, the aging masses know they need massive amounts of government debt to pay their social security, medicare, and disability checks. On top of that, many of the so-called gainfully employed are really on corporate welfare; they hang their hats on government contracts to fund their paychecks.
“You know as well I do how this crazy debt based fiat money system works. The debt must perpetually increase or the whole financial system breaks down. The best we can hope for is that the ongoing currency debasement merely leads to a subtle erosion of living standards. That’s the best-case scenario.
“But, again, no one except maybe a handful of your readers’ gives a rip about the federal debt. Plus, if you’re gonna keep writing about it you need to use better terminology. The federal debt has grown at such a rapid rate that standard dollar units no longer capture what’s going on. The debt numbers are so large it is difficult to distinguish between hundreds of billions and tens of trillions of dollars.
Going Broke at Mach 30
“For better perspective, you need to describe the debt growth in astronomical terms. You see, astronomers use light years to adjust for large distances. A light year, as its name suggests, is the distance light travels in one year. One light year converts to light traveling about 5.87 trillion miles per year, excluding leap year of course.
US government debt-to-GDP ratio. In view of the fact that government spending is part …read more
Source:: Acting Man
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