It's not like Boehner and McConnell give a damn. Soros has promised them prime condos in Elysium.
Posted on 05/22/2015 5:14:38 PM PDT by fhayek
Did you know that if you took every single penny away from everyone in the United States that it still would not be enough to pay off the national debt? Today, the debt of the federal government exceeds $145,000 per household, and it is getting worse with each passing year.
Many believe that if we paid it off a little bit at a time that we could eventually pay it all off, but as you will see below that isn’t going to work either.
It has been projected that “mandatory” federal spending on programs such as Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare plus interest on the national debt will exceed total federal revenue by the year 2025. That is before a single dollar is spent on the U.S. military, homeland security, paying federal workers or building any roads and bridges. So no, we aren’t going to be “paying down” our debt any time in the foreseeable future. And of course it isn’t just our 18 trillion dollar national debt that we need to be concerned about. Overall, Americans are a total of 58 trillion dollars in debt. 35 years ago, that number was sitting at just 4.3 trillion dollars. There is no way in the world that all of that debt can ever be repaid. The only thing that we can hope for now is for this debt bubble to last for as long as possible before it finally explodes.
It shocks many people to learn that our debt is far larger than the total amount of money in existence. So let’s take a few moments and go through some of the numbers.
(Excerpt) Read more at zerohedge.com ...
I’ve come to the conclusion that all the elites know it’s just a matter of time before there is a total collapse and they’re just trying to put together a plan where they will be safe and able to live the high life.
They’re getting the military ready to do their bidding.
Sort of tries to become everybody’s mama and papa instead.
however because of this debt,something has to change.
There are easy answers
Give me a couple
It’s all about economic growth, ie , Revenue !!!
But, we need to simultaneously freeze/cap out money that is currently flowing to the Feds.
I think Paul Ryan’s plan is a good starting point.
Basically, tell the feds “your are responsible for x, and those funds will flow. However, you, the feds, cannot take on any additional liabilities after a certain point.
There’s certainly more to this.
Suppose SS went kaput now, would it cancel this thing (I don’t think so)
No it isn’t impossible. If just the nat’l debt of 18 trillion, they just take our 401k accounts which I read recently total about 19 trillion. Or just sell our natural resources which I read totaled over 140 trillion. Wouldn’t put any of these options past consideration of the crooks in DC, and I know they’ve discussed the first a couple times.
I don’t know about the premise, but it does get to a point where inflation and wars are invoked.
Bill Bonner: What this year’s college grads need to know
From Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners:
Last year about this time, we waited for the phone to ring.
Not calling were thousands of universities in need of someone to give the annual commencement speech. Last year at about this time, we waited for the phone to ring.
Every year, we prepare an appropriate graduation speech. And every year, with the unanimous accord of America’s institutions of higher learning, we do not give it.
With six children who have gone to college, we have heard more than our share of these speeches. They are almost always dull, embarrassing, earnest and trivial.
The University of Virginia had a TV newscaster. St. John’s College had socialist philosopher Cornel West.
We can’t remember the others – most likely because they had nothing memorable to say either.
Class of 2015: The Most Indebted in History
It is unlikely that we would ever be called upon to give a speech to graduating students. But if we were, we would say the following: Congratulations, Class of 2015: You chumps!
The Wall Street Journal reports that you are the most indebted generation in history.
The average graduate with student debt has a little more than $35,000 of it. The whole bill for student debt this year is expected to reach $68 billion – a tenfold increase over the last 20 years.
That may seem like a lot of money. And big numbers get reported in the headlines along with the celebrity news.
But student debt is like the foul smell of gangrene: It testifies to a deeper, inner corruption.
We are now 25 centuries after Pericles and Socrates. But today, the typical university has no more interest in learning than a rat terrier or a congressman.
Our government is a disgrace to honest democracy, if there were such a thing; it is a scam and a deceit.
Rich, powerful special interests wager billions of dollars on hollow puppet candidates, knowing their investment will pay off hugely if they are successful.
Our money system is an elaborate fraud, too. It steals from laborers, merchants and artisans and rewards speculators, insiders and layabouts. The entire system is sick and dysfunctional
But you probably have no idea what we’re talking about, because you’ve just spent the last four years of your life – and paid a fortune – so you could avoid learning about it.
Victims of the System
If you’ve studied the sciences or engineering (especially petroleum engineering, according to a study done by Georgetown University) maybe you’ll be able to earn enough to pay back your student debt.
But most of you have wasted your money with degrees in subjects that won’t help you understand the real world we live in or earn an extra dime in it.
Many of you have spent the best years of your lives… and borrowed a fortune… to learn things that aren’t true.
History, economics, government, politics – for every useful and truthful insight you may have learned, there are probably 100 more that were buried under claptrap.
There’s a big difference between the real world and the world of a college student. The real world is grittier, harder to understand, more cynical than you can imagine.
And it’s big.
The world of academia is much smaller. There are the well-defined limits of the school… the limits of the work… limits on student conduct.
There are also tests – and they are limited too. Generally, you know when the tests are coming… what they will cover… and what you have to do to succeed at them.
In real life, if there are any limits, you don’t know where they are. You never know when you’ll be tested. Often, you can be in the middle of a major test and not know it. You don’t know what you need to do to pass either.
And you surely don’t know this: You are being tested right now. You are now confronted with a problem you probably have never thought about. But it’s one that could ruin… or at least greatly impair… your entire lives.
You are victims of a system set up before you were born. The benefits of that system, such as they are, go to your parents and grandparents.
But you have to pay for it.
You’ll find it hard to keep up with the payments. As a result, it is unlikely you will be able to enjoy the material wealth and freedom of action that we, your parents, took for granted.
A Lifetime of Debts
You may know this already… but as economist Laurence Kotlikoff told the Senate Budget Committee in February, when properly accounted for, Washington has racked up more than $210 trillion of debt that you will have to pay… and pay… and pay for all your lives.
That is the money that will go to fund programs that were voted on before you were born.
It will also pay for retirees and sick people… people who your government sent to Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan to get their legs blown off… people who got sweet union contracts from their city and state governments… and people who have learned to game the system.
None of these bills are for things that you had any say in. Many of them were a waste of money from the get-go. Some were a curse. But – good or bad – you’re supposed to pay for them.
And that’s just the first toke…
Now, at least you are getting free of the education industry. Now, you can go out beyond the campus and take a deep breath in the real world.
But watch out, you may choke on the foul air…
Regards,
Bill
But first we must get rid of unions, environmental regulations, financial reglulations, OSHA, Workers Compensation, the EPA, the NLRB, the ICC, Davis-Bacon, minimum wage legislation and Obamacare.
Good f'in' luck.
I would agree if our country continues on its current track, however because of this debt,something has to change.
And it will.
I agree.
One third of the land mass of the country is owned by the federal government. Aside from the fact that a mere 5% or so of these lands are sitting on trillions in fossil fuel wealth, much of the lands, and therefore TH ENVIRONMENT, would benefit from private development.
These now public lands could be sold off to private interests without violating their "pristine" qualities, and the budget could have a surplus in about a day.
Public lands are being mis-managed today, from unnecessary forest fires to misuse and abuse, our lands are being "protected" to the point that they simply atrophy from a combination of government neglect and over-regulation.
This country is one big mass of mineral wealth, with a little grass growing on top.
Harry Browne ran for president on this platform many years ago, and I've always thought it had a place in the discussion.
It will simply blow up some day and our economy will freeze up like my 1983 Caprice that went 35,000 miles without an oil change.
I disagree.
We need to re-industrialize America.
Not keep finding reasons not to do so. We have given away the finest industrial base in history.
Gone. Now it belongs to a massive communist country.
Dude. Check that oil from time to time...
Read ALL of this.....if you dare......
Bill Bonner: A generational storm is coming
From Bill Bonner, Chairman, Bonner & Partners:
Yesterday, we began our high-minded graduation speech to the Class of 2015.
We explained how the young graduates were not only the most heavily indebted in history, but also the least likely to be able to pay their debts.
Median wages have been going down since these graduates were about five years old… So have economic growth rates.
Today, we continue the speech no one wants us to give…
Heirs to Claptrap
You are heirs to claptrap, nonsense, bogus theories, and trillions of dollars in debt.
The systems, programs, and institutions your parents set up are mostly worthless scams. Worse, they produce outcomes contrary to their stated goals.
Health care programs do not make them healthy; they make them dependent on the drug industry.
Defense industry spending doesn’t make us safer; it funds drones, bumbling interventions, and assassinations… and it creates more foreign enemies.
We end up not only poorer, but also less secure.
All of those assertions take more time to explain and prove than we have time for now. But here’s a little example that you will appreciate…
25 Years of Poverty
Under President Johnson, the government set up the Federal Direct Student Loan Program to provide “low-interest loans” (back then, “low” meant 8%) to students.
Private lenders make the loans, but they receive the full backing of the feds.
The idea was to help you afford higher education… and earn larger salaries as a result. And with your increased earnings you were supposed to be able to pay off the loan.
But at over 11% of outstanding debt, the Student Loan Program now has the highest delinquency rate of all forms of household debt (mortgage loans, auto loans, credit cards).
And it will probably go much higher… as students take on more debt. Total outstanding student debt is expected to bubble up to $3.3 trillion by 2025.
What do you do if you can’t pay?
Well, the feds have a solution for you. The trouble is, it turns you into the very thing the program was meant to avoid.
Here’s how it works…
As long as your income is low, you are allowed to make small token payments every month. Keep this up for 300 payments and your debt is considered satisfied, no matter how little you paid.
In other words, the Student Loan Program encourages you to live in poverty for a quarter of a century to get rid of your student debt.
Most likely, this will be easy for you to do anyway.
First, because most college degrees do little to make you more valuable to employers.
Second, because your parents’ rigging of the economy will make it difficult to make any financial progress anyway.
The median household income – after you account for inflation – has been falling since the late 1990s. And good jobs are hard to get. There are fewer “breadwinner” jobs today in America than there were in 1999.
And you can forget about starting your own business. The rate of new start-ups is collapsing. (The U.S. ranks 46th on the World Bank’s list of the easiest countries in which to start a business.)
You can thank your parents for that, too. The system is designed to protect them, their Social Security benefits, their health care, their stock market portfolios, and their businesses.
Protect them against what?
Against you!
You are the future. You are the competition. You are the ones who should want to shake things up and tear down the walls of bureaucracy, taxes, paperwork, and regulation that make it so difficult for you to start new businesses, get good jobs and build real wealth.
You should be talking revolution – overthrowing your parents’ multitrillion-dollar debts and pulling out of their wars on poverty, illiteracy, Iraqis, Afghans… you name it.
You need to stop these silly, pointless, and expensive programs so you can have the resources to pay for your own programs and launch your own stupid wars.
You need to get rid of your parents’ zombies – the millions of unproductive people who get money from the government – so you can afford your own families… your own pet projects… and zombies of your own.
A Suicidal System of Credit
You need to stop your parents’ suicidal credit-based money system, too.
You don’t know about this, do you?
Your professors of government, politics, economics, and finance didn’t mention it, did they?
Well, the system is corrupt and self-destructive. It works only by increasing the amount of debt in the society – including student debt.
And it works only until the debt bubble gets so big it blows up.
But there’s a logic to it… a sinister logic that turns you into chumps for older generations.
Spending on credit favors the existing owners of capital… and people who have existing claims on the government money.
Let me explain…
When the government borrows money it gives the money to a zombie to spend, or it spends it directly.
Usually, the money goes to an older person – your parents or grandparents – in some form of social welfare subsidy, pension, job, contract, or support program.
When they spend the money, it goes into the coffers of corporations. This increases profits… and share prices.
Who owns those corporations?
Do you?
You don’t?
Then who does?
Your parents and grandparents benefit again. They are the owners of the nation’s financial assets. By increasing credit, they shift real wealth from the future to the present… and from you to them.
This is the money you haven’t earned yet.
I’ll spell it out for you: The government borrows a dollar. It gives the dollar to one of its pet zombies. (It could be a health researcher, a drug addict, or somebody who makes bombs.)
The money goes – one way or another – to a corporation, which registers it as a sale.
If it has a 10% profit margin, 10 cents is recorded as a profit. If it sells at a price-to-earnings ratio of 20 times, its stock price goes up $2. This makes the owner of the stock – it could be one of your parents – $2 richer. (I’m oversimplifying… but you get the point.)
But the government now owes $1 more. And who’s going to pay it?
You are!
Your parents and grandparents are retiring… and collecting their Social Security and health care benefits. They think they will be able to sell their stocks, too… and their houses… and have even more money to spend.
Time to Wipe the Slate Clean
Now, it’s up to you…
You need to get a job so you can pay for their health care benefits. You need to pay your taxes so they can keep their wars going. You need to buy a house, too, so they can move to Florida and retire.
You need to vote for their candidates… work for their companies… and pay their bills.
This is the test you face. You are arriving in the economy at the tail end of a 60-year credit expansion.
Debt has boomed. The economy has boomed. We, your parents, enjoyed an economic expansion that began when we were born and continued, with only short interruptions, until we retired.
We got out of school with little or no student debt. We could start businesses with fewer impediments. We could borrow money to fund our businesses and our lives. We could hire, fire, switch jobs… buy and sell houses… move from place to place.
We were freer – and richer – than you will be…
…unless you can wipe the slate clean of our debts… our foolish wars and dumbbell programs… and our attempts to hold back the future and prevent you from living rich, full, free lives of your own.
If you don’t rise to this challenge, you will inherit our bills, our regulations, our restrictions, our obligations, our delusions, our prejudices, and our vanities.
You will also inherit a financial crisis – worse than the crisis of 2008 – and a long and grinding economic slump.
The debt expansion of the last 60 years will turn into a dreary debt contraction, possibly dragging the economy into another Great Depression.
Either you find a way to shuck off, default on, or inflate away your parents’ debts… or you’ll stagger under the weight of them for the rest of your lives.
Either you break free from the jackass things your parents have done to you… or you deserve what you get.
Congratulations, chumps.
Regards,
Bill
Correct!
Throughout history that is how it has always been done.
They just inflate the money until they can pay the debt off for the price of a new car.
But they are not really interested in paying the debt off anyway.
Too many well connected people are making fortunes off the annual interest on the debt.
It's not like Boehner and McConnell give a damn. Soros has promised them prime condos in Elysium.
You cannot re-industrialize if the unit cost of labor is 75 time someone elses. I hear ya man. I see your posts. But we have priced industrial labor into the stratosphere in this country.
All unfunded mandates equal $222 trillion.
It isn’t happening.
They will continue to devalue the dollar.
Watch your retirement account. It will be folded into a new National Retirement Account. The $18 trillion in retirement assets is the largest pile of untaxed money in the US.
China steals from America, never pay the Chinks back.
Something will be concocted to wipe the debt off the books. There’s many ways it can be done.
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