Replies

--- The Gen, writes of "simply looking for a free ride."

Free ride? Really? Indeed, but we are involved in careeing down the free ride highway at full speed. Here is data, since I prefer information and sources to assertions.

2000 -- $5,674 and 55% debt to gdp ratio
2001 -- $5,807 and 55% debt to gdp ratio
2002 -- $6,228 and 57% debt to gdp ratio
2003 -- $6,783 and 59% debt to gdp ratio
2004 -- $7,379 and 60% debt to gdp ratio
2005 -- $7,933 and 61% debt to gdp ratio
2006 -- $8,507 and 61% debt to gdp ratio
2007 -- $9,008 and 62% debt to gdp ratio
2008 -- $10,025 and 68% debt to gdp ratio
2009 -- $11,910 and 82% debt to gdp ratio
2010 -- $13,562 and 90% debt to gdp ratio
2011 -- $14,790 and 95% debt to gdp ratio
2012 -- $16,066 and 99% debt to gdp ratio
2013 -- $16,738 and 99% debt to gdp ratio
2014 -- $17,824 and 101% debt to gdp ratio
2015 -- $17,824 and 101% debt to gdp ratio
2016 -- $19,573 and 105% debt to gdp ratio
2017 -- $20,245 and 104% debt to gdp ratio
2018 -- $21,516 and 105% debt to gdp ratio
2019 -- $22,719 and 107% debt to gdp ratio
2020 -- $27,748 and 129% debt to gdp ratio
2021 -- $29,617 and 124% debt to gdp ratio
2022 -- $30,824 and 123% debt to gdp ratio
As 2023 is incomplete, the debt now rises quickly to $33 trillion, and only when we end this year will the final figure be known. It will pass the $33 trillion mark before year's end.

--- Stanne writes: "33 trillion in debt Hello!!! No our idiotic government dethroned it."

The latter conclusion links quite well to the first assertion of "seeking a free ride."

I didn’t mean to imply our government is a paragon of fiscal responsibility. Far from it. However, due to fortuitous circumstances nobody in our current government set up, we are better off than most of the other countries in the world. We benefit greatly from the fact that there isn’t any other better run. similar sized economies. We’re just luck as can be.

I love old cars. I read about them, I watch YouTube videos on them, and one thing often catches my eye. This or that car cost X dollars when new. Today that is ten, twenty, or thirty times as much money...for the same value. The dollar that I saved before Obama took office was worth about .13 cents when left office. He doubled the amount of dollars in circulation...not once, but twice. Then they did “quantitative easing” adding 87 billion dollars per month. It did nothing for economy. Why? Because he was a communist and everyone took their cash out of the economy and waited for Trump. It wasn’t so much Trump’s policies that made the economy shoot up, though they helped. It was all that cash flooding back into the economy that Obama had frightened away.

It’s the nature of our political system that we’ll never have a “stable” economy. It’s also the nature of our system that the rest of the world will be worse off... on average.