Free Republic

Russia has continued to get rid of US Treasury bonds as the country's share in American debt is arriving close to zero. Russia was one of the biggest holders of US debt with a $180 billion investment.

Congress admits to having already spent $21.5 trillion (that’s $21,500,000,000,000.00) they don’t have. If you are a taxpayer, your share is a little over $58,000. What your senators and representatives would rather you didn’t know is that our reported debt is like an iceberg: what you see is only the tip. 90 percent of the iceberg lies under the surface. The dirty little secret is that we are obligated to pay around $115 trillion – on top of the national debt – to programs like Social Security, Medicaid, and Medicare. [...] Altogether, the U.S. federal government has run up a...

In recently released numbers, the Treasury Department announced the government, after accounting for some scheduling quirks, ran a $152 billion deficit in August. The budget deficit was $107.7 billion in August 2017, 41-percent less than the newest data. These numbers are startling, but the reality is that the nation’s debt load is actually much, much worse. Washington uses an outdated, inaccurate accounting system that contributes greatly to America’s fiscal irresponsibility. The quality of financial reporting practiced by the U.S. would make Enron blush. The U.S. government is using accounting practices that I would not allow in a first-year business school...

The global debt level is reaching shocking new heights. The Institute of International Finance recently estimated the current total world debt is roughly $247 trillion—a truly unprecedented figure.But as frightening as the global debt has become because of the dangers it poses to the world’s economic stability, Americans should be far more terrified of what this problem might mean for them, especially if the globe endures another major financial collapse before the United States can get its fiscal house back in order. Put simply, America is on the verge of experiencing an absolutely catastrophic period of economic change, and it’s...

The largest financial institution in the world – the U.S. government – issued its financial statement just a few days ago, and nobody in Washington seems to care that the deficit is almost twice as large as they once thought. snip In substance-free Washington, the release of the annual financial statements of the U.S. government isn’t a big deal, but it should be. The statements demonstrate that we have gone backward, not forward, with Republicans in charge of all branches of government. According to the annual financial report of the U.S. government published by the Treasury Department, the real deficit...

Imagine you open the faucet of your kitchen sink expecting water and instead out comes cash. Now imagine that it comes out at the rate of $1 million a minute. You call your plumber, who thinks you’re crazy. To get you off the phone, he opines that it is your sink and therefore must be your money. So you spend it wildly. Then you realize that the money wasn’t yours and you owe it back. Now imagine that this happens every minute of every day for the next three years. At the end of the three years, you owe back...

From Tyler Durden: Back in 2011, Standard & Poors’ shocked the world, and the Obama administration, when it dared to downgrade the US from its vaunted AAA rating, something that had never happened before (and led to the resignation of S&P’s CEO and a dramatic crackdown on the rating agency led by Tim Geithner). Nearly seven years later, with the US on the verge of another government shutdown and debt ceiling breach (with the agreement reached only after the midnight hour, literally) this time it is Warren Buffett’s own rating agency, Moody’s, which on Friday morning warned Trump that he...

he federal government is on track to borrow nearly $1 trillion this fiscal year — President Donald Trump's first full year in charge of the budget. That's almost double what the government borrowed in fiscal year 2017.

In its latest reminder that China is a (for now) happy holder of some $1.2 trillion in US Treasurys, Chinese credit rating agency Dagong downgraded US sovereign ratings from A- to BBB+ overnight, citing “deficiencies in US political ecology” and tax cuts that “directly reduce the federal government’s sources of debt repayment” weakening the base of the government’s debt repayment. Oh, and just to make sure the message is heard loud and clear, the ratings, which are now level with those of Peru, Colombia and Turkmenistan on the Beijing-based agency’s scale of creditworthiness, have also been put on a negative...

WOW!

Debt is irrelevant and matters not. It’s different this time. That’s the message from politicians, markets and participants. Tax cuts pay for themselves (they do not), leverage doesn’t matter (it does) and the increased costs of servicing the debt as a result of rising rates will be offset by imaginary real wage growth to come (they won’t). But the calmest market waters in history continue to keep these illusions alive as asset prices keep levitating from record to record. Debt does matter and it was ironically left to Janet Yellen to voice any remnant concerns about the sustainability of debt...

President Trump’s policies have decreased the Debt to GDP ratio by 1% while at the same time the Atlanta Fed announced yesterday that the 4th Quarter GDP estimates have increased by 0.2% to 3.4%. Since his inauguration President Trump has focused his efforts on the security of the country and on the prosperity of its economy. The results of his actions are taking shape.The US GDP has increased each quarter in 2017 with the 3rd Quarter GDP increasing to $19.496 trillion – the highest GDP for any country in world history.On the other hand, the President has curtailed US spending....

Something has been going on this past month that has as usual been lost in the shuffle of other mainstream media prioritized news. Lost in the hysteria around the Vegas shooting (of which we still have many unanswered questions) and Harvey Weinstein and Mueller indicting Manafort and the wacky World Series is the rapid rate of growth of the U.S. national debt during the early months of the Trump administration. In October alone, America’s debt has soared by almost a quarter of a trillion dollars. This is on top of already well over $20 trillion. A monumental story. Lost again...

I recently had the opportunity to read "The Creature from Jekyll Island" by G. Edward Griffin, a prodigious tome dealing with the circumstances surrounding the creation of the U.S. Federal Reserve System. I was taken aback by some of its provocative assertions. America joined World War I largely to help a few bankers profit off the war (despite a long-standing Monroe doctrine that prohibited our involvement in European affairs) The Bolshevik Revolution of 1917 was supported by international financial interests in order to destabilize Russia and steal the wealth of the Russian people; and So-called "foreign aid" is merely a...

When it comes to the future, an overwhelming majority of Americans have adopted a mindset that is a variation of Isiah 22:12: “Let us eat, drink and be merry for tomorrow does not matter.” Recently, federal debt surpassed the $20 Trillion mark (additional state and local debt amount to another $2.9 Trillion). That milestone was greeted by the Ruling Class and a vast preponderance of the citizenry with a yawn and a shrug of the shoulder. As the ongoing determination to promote new entitlement spending and the refusal to rein in, but instead to expand, existing programs continues unabated. Any...

U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday urged Congress to approve a "clean" increase in the federal debt limit by the time it starts its summer recess in early August. "I urge you to raise the debt limit before you leave for the summer," Mnuchin told the House Ways and Means Committee. Congress and the administration can discuss future spending cuts, but it was "absolutely critical" to preserve U.S. creditworthiness by paying debts already incurred, he said. Republicans in Congress have sought to use past debt ceiling increases as leverage to force new spending cuts. Mnuchin said his preference was...

That's 370 percent of GDP, but hey, why change anything we're doing? Exceptional work here from economics writer George Melloan, a one-time member of the Wall Street Journal editorial board and an one of the few who really understands the role currency, interest rates and the Federal Reserve plan in setting the nation’s fiscal course. But within a piece that deals with a fair amount of esoterica, Melloan almost matter-of-factly gives us a jaw-dropping fact: This nation is absolutely drowning in debt:

On January 20th, the day of the Trump Inauguration, the US Debt stood at $19,947 billion. On February 21st, a month later, the US Debt load stood at $19,935 billion. Trump cut the US Debt burden by $12 billion and 0.1% in his first month in office! On January 20, 2017, the US debt was $19.947 billion. On February 21, 2017, the US debt was $19,935 billion.

Full title:These are the Countries with the Biggest Debt Slaves, and Americans Are Only in 10th place Americans have been on a borrowing binge. To buy their favorite cars and trucks, they’ve loaded up on $1.14 trillion in auto loans. Young and not so young Americans are mortgaging their future with student loans that now amount to $1.28 trillion. Credit card and other debts are at $1.12 trillion. And mortgage debt stands at $8.82 trillion. So, total household debt was $12.35 trillion, according to the New York Fed’s Household Debt and Credit Report for the third quarter 2016. That’s a...

In the first six months of 2016, foreign central banks sold a net $192 billion of U.S. Treasury bills, notes, and bonds. This is more than double the pace from the same time last year. China, Japan, and Brazil were the leaders in selling U.S. debt. With the U.S. debt running at approximately $19.4 trillion, this could be problematic. A large selloff of U.S. bonds would decrease their price, or in other worlds, increase domestic interest rates in general (bond prices and interest rates always move in the opposite direction).