Unfortunately, there is a limit to how long such payments can go on. Even printing money can't create wealth to distribute to these people. We only have to look to Venezuela to see that.
The crash that comes will entail five to fifteen years of adjustment to lower expectations on the part of just about everybody. It will be very unpleasant and will probably result in the deaths of millions.
The greatest uncertainty is "when will this happen". The government, I believe, has indulged in lying about our economic statistics. This will permit us to go too long without correcting our behavior and cause much more disturbance when the day arrives that we MUST change our behavior.
Today we have artificially low interest rates. This distorts the real value of economic activity. The result will be stubborn lack of economic growth and a continuing decline in standard of living. The relative tax burden on those who produce will grow with time until the productive become criminals.
I just heard George Will stating that Trump represents an angry electorate and that that is not who we are. I think he underestimates the anger by a dangerous amount.
“The government, I believe, has indulged in lying about our economic statistics. This will permit us to go too long without correcting our behavior and cause much more disturbance when the day arrives that we MUST change our behavior.... Today we have artificially low interest rates. This distorts the real value of economic activity. The result will be stubborn lack of economic growth and a continuing decline in standard of living.”
You describe the current situation very well, and hit the nail on the head with your prognosis of “a continuing decline in standard of living”. I believe this is completely by design. These people, the global bankers, are not stupid. Foolish, definitely, but they’re fully aware of the outcome their market manipulations will produce. It is completely by their design that the wealthier nations of the world will have a declining standard of living, particularly the United States, in order to bring about level financial playing field across the globe, themselves and their cronies (the propaganda artists and the ‘law’ makers) excepted of course.
They’ve been very successful in hiding the true nature of what their doing, which is nothing less than creating a nationless era of global rule, control, and power, themselves at the top, by convincing an increasingly dumbed-down, unintelligent, pleasure seeking, and ever growing portion of our population that what they’re doing ‘fair’, ‘benevolent’, and ‘just’, by robbing the producers through taxes and currency devaluation, and then doling out a pittance to those willing to be good little serfs. Further, they’re doing an excellent job at fomenting anger and hatred not only in those who are genuinely lacking basic needs, but also those who work hard and watch their labors dissolve before their very eyes.
This increasing national dissatisfaction and anger is also clearly by design, pitting one demographic against another on multiple levels. I suspect the global banking cartel fully desires some form of genuine war in our country in order to bring about a population reduction in which the remaining public will consist of those who are all too willing to go along with a global rule, content to never raise their standard of living beyond a set point, but willing to be good little worker serfs, rewarded with various forms of entertainment and self pleasure in exchange for playing their small role in a ‘glorious’ New World Order. Ugh....