This article was originally published by Michael Snyder at The Economic Collapse
The federal government is now 20.4 trillion dollars in debt, and most Americans don’t seem to care that the economic prosperity that we are enjoying today could be completely destroyed by our exploding national debt. Over the past decade, the national debt has been growing at a rate of more than 100 million dollars an hour, and this is a debt that all of us owe. When you break it down, each American citizen’s share of the debt is more than $60,000, and so if you have a family of five your share is more than $300,000. And when you throw in more than 6 trillion dollars of corporate debt and nearly 13 trillion dollars of consumer debt, it is not inaccurate to say that we are facing a crisis of unprecedented magnitude.
Debt cannot grow much faster than GDP indefinitely. At some point the bubble bursts, and when it does the pain that the middle class is going to experience is going to be off the charts. Back in 2015, the middle class in the U.S. became a minority of the population for the first time ever. Never before in our history has the middle class accounted for less than 50 percent of the population, and all over the country formerly middle class families are under a great deal of stress as they attempt to make ends meet. The following comes from an absolutely outstanding piece that was just put out by Charles Hugh Smith…
If you talk to young people struggling to make ends meet and raise children, or read articles about retirees who can’t afford to retire, you can’t help but detect the fading scent of prosperity.
It has steadily been lost to stagnation, under-reported inflation and soaring inequality, a substitution of illusion for reality bolstered by the systemic corruption of authentic measures of prosperity and well-being.
In other words, the American-Dream idea that life should get easier and more prosperous as the natural course of progress is still embedded in our collective memory, even though the collective reality has changed.
The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where many are working two or three jobs just to make it from month to month.
The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where debts never seem to get repaid and credit card balances just continue to grow.
The reality that most of us are facing today is a reality where we work day after day just to pay the bills, and yet we never seem to get anywhere financially.
The truth is that most people out there are deeply struggling. The Washington Post says that the “middle class” encompasses anyone that makes between $35,000 and $122,500 a year, but very few of us are near the top end of that scale…
It’s also situation specific. “The more people in a family, the more money they typically need to live a comfortable middle-class lifestyle,” writes the Post. Likewise, the more expensive your area, the more you need to make to qualify. Overall, “America’s middle-class ranges from $35,000 to $122,500 in annual income, according to The Post’s calculation” approved by the Pew Research Center.
“The bottom line is: $100,000 is on the middle-class spectrum, but barely: 75 percent of U.S. households make less than that,” writes the Post.
In a previous article, I noted that the bottom 90 percent of income earners in the U.S. brought home more than 60 percent of the nation’s income back in the early 1970s, but last year that number fell to just 49.7 percent.
The middle class is shrinking year after year, and the really bad news is that it appears that this decline may soon accelerate. In fact, one major European investment bank is warning that the U.S. economy will “slow down substantially” in 2018.
But we can’t afford any slow down at all. As it is, there is no possible way that we are going to be able to deal with our exploding debts at the rate the economy is growing right now. According to Boston University professor Larry Kotlikoff, we are facing a “fiscal gap” of 210 trillion dollars over the next 75 years…
We have all these unofficial debts that are massive compared to the official debt. We’re focused just on the official debt, so we’re trying to balance the wrong books…
If you add up all the promises that have been made for spending obligations, including defense expenditures, and you subtract all the taxes that we expect to collect, the difference is $210 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap. That’s our true indebtedness.
Where in the world is all of that money going to come from?
Are you willing to pay much higher taxes?
Are you willing to see government programs slashed to a degree that we have never seen before in U.S. history?
If your answer to both of those questions is no, then what would you do to solve the fiscal nightmare that we are facing?
According to Brian Maher, author Robert Benchley once sat down to write an article about this fiscal mess, and what he came up with sums up the situation perfectly…
Benchley sat at his typewriter one day to tackle a vexing subject.
He opened his piece with “The”… when the full weight of his burden collapsed upon his shoulders.
He abandoned his typewriter in frustration.
He returned shortly thereafter and resumed the task anew…
With only “The” to work with… Benchley immediately knocked out the article, presented here in its entirety:
“The hell with it.”
Unfortunately, we can’t afford to say that.
Our exploding debt is a crisis that we must tackle, and the first step is to understand that our current financial system was literally designed to create as much debt as possible. Once we abolish the Federal Reserve, our endless debt spiral will end, but until we do our debt problems are only going to continue to grow until the system completely implodes in upon itself.
Michael T. Snyder is a graduate of the University of Florida law school and he worked as an attorney in the heart of Washington D.C. for a number of years.Today, Michael is best known for his work as the publisher of The Economic Collapse Blog and The American Dream.
If you want to know what is coming and what you can do to prepare, read his latest book [amazon text=Get Prepared Now!: Why A Great Crisis Is Coming & How You Can Survive It&asin=150522599X].
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Most likely!
Cant keep going, and the people cant pull them out of the hole they created, i say hold the political class responsible since they are the ones who created this mess.
Who is John Galt!
I hope everyone will carry extra supplies this coming weekend. I’m switching from easy grab 40 cal to easy grab 5.56 in the truck.
The Fading Scent of the American Dream
“This is the reality: the American Dream is now reserved for the top 0.5%, with some shreds falling to the top 5% who are tasked with generating a credible illusion of prosperity for the bottom 95%.”
“If you talk to young people struggling to make ends meet and raise children, or read articles about retirees who can’t afford to retire, you can’t help but detect the fading scent of prosperity.
It has steadily been lost to stagnation, under-reported inflation and soaring inequality, a substitution of illusion for reality bolstered by the systemic corruption of authentic measures of prosperity and well-being.
In other words, the American-Dream idea that life should get easier and more prosperous as the natural course of progress is still embedded in our collective memory, even though the collective reality has changed.
For the bottom 95%, life is typically getting harder and less prosperous as the cost of living rises, wages are stagnant and the demands on workers increase.”
ht tps://dailyreckoning.com/fading-scent-american-dream/
Direct link…
https://dailyreckoning.com/fading-scent-american-dream/
All symptomatic of one thing- Keynesianism
Or- State involvment in the affairs of men [the economy]
Or- (((The men behind the curtain)))
Lord Keynes liked to put his cock in the wrong hole. . .
Years ago, I had a friend (since passed away) that I had a long standing argument with over the changing “rules.” I was young enough that I couldn’t put my finger on it but I knew things were changing. She was able to retire albeit not with a fancy income but comfortably.
My argument was about the Broken Promise. Anywhere I looked in my life, the “rules” had changed drastically from what I was brought up to believe as solid. I could not count on anything I was brought up to believe in. The rules for family life and even dating had changed; single parent families are the new norm. Womens Lib did not liberate me–only enslaved me with limited options. The 401ks would never substitute for pensions and the problem of women making less income than men made the retirement funding even tougher. Throw in crazy economic times and….well, here we are.
Now, as I’m searching for new job, I’m horrified to find that the demands of the worker are ever increasing. Qualifications range from ever more education and to more certifications just to get considered for an interview. And it will be amazing if I can get the same wage.
So, yup, the American Dream is pretty much fantasy now. I hope I don’t have to work until I’m 100 years old before I can retire.
Menzo, I’ll be traveling this coming weekend and will have easy grab 9mm, with extra mags and a few extra boxes of ammo.
With the government’s power grid failure drill and the commie pricks rioting planned the same weekend who knows. The commies intend to dress as patriots and police but their actions will give away their true identities. If I encounter them I’m going to engage.
Menzo, if they encounter me and refuse to back off I’ll also be engaging. They’ll get shot before they could have their way with me.
It would be better to simply avoid going into the cities when it’s all happening. I’m staying far away.
It would be better to simply avoid going into the cities when it’s all happening. I’m staying far away.
Just bought 5 of those rubberized combat packs of 223, and 250 rds of 30-06 AP (The AP is OLD but it’s the best I could find.) Also bought some silver coin. So to be truthful; NO I’m not worried. Only concern is I’m old enough I may not get to see how it turns out. But a guy named Vern Meyers said 40 years ago: We were over the cliff then, and it made no difference if we had our foot on the brake or the gas. We cannot possibly pay off, so why not spend like it makes no diff. It doesn’t.
CV Myers of Myers Finance and Energy. I have a few of his letters in my old attache case. I’ll look them over tomorrow.
Just checked get home bag contents and i always keep sks paratrooper in truck.
Who is still stuck on first base.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kTcRRaXV-fg
John Galt is not who.
It is foolhardy for me to wish that the government had to balance the books like I do for myself? If I don’t have the money, I can’t buy something. Credit is just putting off paying and paying more for the same thing due to interest; so, I don’t use credit. When this all finally becomes evident to the powers that be that those 2 statements are just plain and simple truths, then we as a nation have a chance. Until then, the problem only worsens. But what the hell?!?!? What real difference does it make how high the guillotine blade rises before it falls to the neck it is cutting off?
The US government quietly added $200+ billion to the debt this month alone.
“There’s been something happening this month that very few people have noticed…”
“In the month of October alone, the US national debt has soared by nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.”
“Consider the following: the US government spends nearly the ENTIRETY of its tax revenue on Social Security, Medicare, and Interest on the Debt.
Throw in national defense spending and the budget deficit is already hundreds of billions of dollars.”
ht tps://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-us-government-quietly-added-200-billion-to-the-debt-this-month-alone-22558/
Direct link…
https://www.sovereignman.com/trends/the-us-government-quietly-added-200-billion-to-the-debt-this-month-alone-22558/
It lasted much longer than I thought it would. Printing presses and secret, huge, off shore bank assets can work wonders. For awhile. Wiemar Republic, here we come.
They say the parties and fun were never ending up until it finally fell apart. No point in worrying about your bar tab on the Titanic.
They have pulled every scam going and then some. And they will keep doing so until it all blows up from systemic break down. But that can take another decade. What we will see is decay, not a one-off moment. It happens quietly and slowly. You look around and notice pretty well everyone under 30 has tattoos all over their bodies and the women look like trash bags with their body piercings. That’s one sign: it shows they don’t care anymore about their personal dignity and deportment and being dressed for work.
Another sign is how many women are turning tricks on the side to make ends meet. It is now common on most university campuses even Ivy League. Then you have ‘Sugar Babies’: smart women who can be your little whore if you pay for their apartment and give them a living stipend.
I was in Russia in the 1990s. Pretty well every woman who looked good was ‘available’. And that is what happens when the economy dies and money dies. This is happening to America and it is happening to ALL the Western states. And it will get much, much worse as the debt system unravels. You will know the breakdown is complete when charter airlines bring in flights of horny Chinese men on sex holidays.
FT, the same conditions exist in my area. Hell there’s even some people over 30 and 40 with tattoos and body piercings. No one gives a shit about their appearance anymore. They also have personalities to go along with their appearance. I avoid such people all I can.
Correction: I meant to say ‘personalities to match their appearances’.
Its actually good that such people advertise self by appearance. It gives you a heads up.
When I was 18 long long ago when there were still good jobs to be had at Mobil, Texaco, BP, DuPont, Hercules and Monsanto my father put me in a shirt and tie with a good haircut and I put applications in every one of those places and a few more. The process was repeated every 2-3 months so they seen my face again and again. I see the humanoids today with the “I have a right to look the way I want”. They’re correct and an employer has the right not to hire you. Therefore just because you have “the right” to do something doesn’t necessarily translate to it being the right thing to do. There is no way I would hire what I see walking around with the exception that their skill was vitally necessary and they were the only candidate. Maybe the absence of good opportunities puts one in the position of it doesn’t matter anyway. Bad workers and bad jobs makes nothing good.
Kevin2, very good points. If I was self-employed today I would simply have to become a one-person operation. No way I would hire any of the ‘humanoids’ out there as you correctly describe them. It’s a safe bet that the majority of them, if not all of them, couldn’t pass a background check or drug test.
When you see someone who’s skills are taxed to the limit (unable to make change in their head) in a fast food environment you wonder if the 80s band DEVO isn’t right, we’re reversing evolution.
Kevin2, all things considered, I think DEVO was trying to tell us something.
Not we, but (((THEY))) are reversing evolution.
Some of these dudes have tats on their faces and wonder why nobody hires them. DUH.
Relax I figure their body piercings are going to get a lot more visible.; and larger.
Twat for gold-backed yuan. Sounds like our hoes can make bank.
Frank: Many very good points my friend. I mean seriously, look at Backpage for example. The number of women willing to suck and fuck for a few stinking hundred bucks is horribly awful and down right disgusting. There are obviously some serious problems if so many women are now whores…the country is in seriously very poor condition…I do think the “American Dream is DOA or KIA, however you care to look at it.
Frank Thoughts
In the end the truism of the phrase, “They’re sitting on a gold mine” comes to mind. Yes it’s prevalence is indicative of both social and economic decay.
I think it will happen one Tuesday morning after a bank holiday -probably in 2018-2020. By then the US Debt with be $22+T. The MSR 2017 says $22.3T for 2020. https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/omb/budget/fy2017/assets/17msr.pdf
Interesting link name…
John Galt lives!
I sincerely believe we
will experience a dramatic
depression. Everything is
overvalued, stocks, houses, cars,
labor, land, PMs, et al.
This artificial inflation
that the Government engineered,
is what is killing this country.
Debt is a big problem, but in reality
we hold most of our debt notes,
so it can be internally deal with,
although it will be politically
painful. Any day a retired
Democrat unionist gets a
“haircut” is a good day.
The unfunded liabilities award the entire GDP 4x +.
“Any day a retired
Democrat unionist gets a
“haircut” is a good day.
Why is that? They were promised it. They worked for it. I know I did. Why relish in the misery of your fellow American. I don’t understand the mindset. As for those “Damn Unions” the Textile Workers, certainly not overpaid by any standards lost their employment to virtual Asian slave labor. Its a globalist race to the bottom.
When debt keeps outgrowing the economy until it becomes unmanageable it will explode, it must, and the longer it is delayed the worse the it is. This is a simple but absolutely true and inviolable economic law. The shrinking of the middle class is but a symptom. Extreme wealth concentration is a corollary also causing national impoverishment. One works hand in glove with the other, there is a collusion of gov’t and corporate interests, you may call them TPTB.
I will give an example but first I will say I have no issue with women working outside the home. As recent as the 1970’s an average family where a wife chose not to work outside the home could still afford a decent home, a new car every few years, a yearly family vacation, and still save a not insignificant amount of money, on the husband’s income. Now, that is not possible. The middle-class life up to the 1970’s can only be enjoyed with both spouses working. Even so, the quality of life is not the same. Gov’t and big business finally succeeded in getting two people to work for the price of one. Officialdom knows this and the .1% knows it. Without going into all the reasons why they are doing this suffice it to say on a visceral level they despise us. They have been draining our wealth now they must also complete their work by stripping away our rights.
Gov’t is at its most powerful when the people have no choice but to rely on and depend on gov’t. When the general population has a sufficient degree of wealth, opportunity, independence, etc, they don’t need or want intrusion in their lives. TPTB doesn’t want it that way, they want preeminence, even if it is destructive. Even a poor society can speak their mind, own a gun, be protected from illegal searches, have freedom of movement, and so on; this means the citizens in general still have some power. That too cannot be allowed to exist much longer. Wealth and power must only be for the “elite”, the rest must only exist for the benefit of the few.
The people still possess one great power, that power is numbers. TPTB neutralize that power with a huge number of social issues and conflicts, the divide and conquer strategy, it is used to prevent us from uniting as a force for real and positive change. Another effective method employed is the destruction of public education, society is being dumbed-down, I see it every day.
Back in the 70’s people got actual interest on their money in the bank.
There was still jobs that paid decent to good wages.
People did not have to spend a lot of money on technology like today.
We didnt have zillions of illegal taco benders running around like we have now.
Sports stars back then were real men, not punks.
I don’t think there’s any stop to this runaway train. I think trump can slow it a little but it’s to late. What’s scary is these young fruit loops that can vote in a few years. Then I’m afraid we are outnumbered and we will have puff daddy or ice cube or ice pick or whatever else dumbass name they got as a president. Then we’re officially done. A whole generation of kids that don’t wanna work and tattooed up and pierced like they crashed into a barb wire fence. And the single parents running rampant, especially the single parent with a interracial kid. Society is looking like a freak show more and more. This whole thing needs busted to be rebuilt. Can you imagine another 10 years? Probably inter species marriages then. If the Andy Griffith show debuted today it wouldn’t make one season. Not enough gays minorities and sex and foul mouths. The United States moral compass is broke. I hope it just crashes so we can restart this thing. Happy Halloween. Gotta make sure my kids costume don’t offend no one. Not really. I don’t give a shit if it does.
Scary enough is the over 30 years of age fruit loops voting.
Coyote: ABSOLUTELY 100% true! Its the “moral decay of society”. The country is utter shit. NO one has any god damned respect for anything or anyone. Nigger$ ruining the streets of America. God damned freaks, fruits, queers, he-she, goat-fuckers, one deviant after the next. WTF has happened to this flipping cesspool of a 3rd world hole?
Wile E. Coyote, I hear you loud and clear. I really dread what we’re heading towards.
Thanks, leftists. Nice work turning America into Detroit, or maybe even Venezuela or Zimbabwe (all leftist “paradises.”
I know you think the Cloward-Piven attempt to destroy America to remake it in your leftist fascist version of Amerika from the ashes is the game plan. However, just as you are so utterly IGNORANT to think socialism actually works (it has never worked anywhere at any time, just for the record), so, too, you are too STUPID to know that, just like the USSR, the will put a stake thru the heart of your socialist hell once people see what it has done to them. Think Venezuela as one example.
“Nice work turning America into Detroit”
Nothing was more responsible for this than the Free Trade Agreements designed by the Neo-Conservatives and carried through by Bill Clinton. Don’t for a nano second say that BH & GW Bush weren’t 100% + in agreement with this policy.
Do what Iceland did and refuse to pay the artificially created Federal Reserve debt. Jail them and start issuing your own currency instead of using rent a currency.
4 Steps to Freedom
1.) Send the alphabet agency to locate, apprehend, rendition every descendent of Rothchild, hold in Gitmo until they sign over ALL of their wealth.
2.) Nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank, and print our own money. Print more when our economy grows, retire it back out of existence when our economy shrinks. Do it all at no interest.
3.) Nationalize the electoral process, (finance the run-off elections and public tv debates with tax money, put so-called ‘public tv’ to good ue.) No more rich foreigners donating to ‘Foundations’ so no more ‘Pay 2 Play’.
4.) Make all government officials live under the laws they pass, NO Congressional ‘exemptions’!
“2.) Nationalize the Federal Reserve Bank, and print our own money. Print more when our economy grows, retire it back out of existence when our economy shrinks. Do it all at no interest.”
Fiat currency (currency by decree) has to be done away with. There needs to be fiscal responsibility. As productivity through technology increases prices should drop raising the standard of living and rewarding savers. Money should be a store of value.
I can hardly believe that I read ” abolish the Fed”. Once that becomes the conversation those BANKERS are gone. Then the treasury will print the currency. Hopefully that will slow down the corruption we see in high places.
Americas prosperity is little more than a ponzi scheme where our currency has international value because of both force and coercion into it being in demand. Its not the US production capacity nor its raw materials and agriculture / farm livestock but rather the post Bretton Woods agreement which ended in 1971. We have been in default since then and in essence write hot checks while everyone is too frightened to call us on it. I cannot image its indefinite continuance.
K2,
I have often stated money is not wealth,
it is a means to transfer wealth.
Paper money backed by “Promises”
is just that, a promise. Name a single
currency that is more trustworthy than
our crap. There are none.
Some here will say PMs are the way.
Were it an open and free market I would
agree, but prices are set by professional
“Traders”.
That is like trusting international
banks to operate in our best interests.
The world will stay with the dollar.
Indefinitely is a long time. There are cracks in the dike that have necessitated the use of force (Iraq & Libya) to keep it going. Let China the greatest oil importer buy oil in its own currency and that crack opens a floodgate and the response will not be Libya / Iraq like.
We will see. I Imagine this was discussed in Spain and England before.
The national debt is something “all of us owe?” They can f*cking bill me for all I care. I never authorized the expenditure of one single penny of this money. Good luck with trying to collect. Do you accept lead? How about hot lead?
They don’t bill you. They take your pension, your social security, bank account, IRA, 401K.
The government can take it all anytime they want. All pensions, both public and private, are “under-funded” (meaning stolen from).
Social Security is broke and bankrupt. The government can turn that off at any moment.
Obama passed “MyIra,” a revenue stream. Anybody who participated in this PONZI scheme was never going to see that money. Fortunately, President Trump repealed it. Killed it. But the other revenue stream, Obamacare, still must be killed.
The 401K was never meant to be a pension. It was a tax cheat created by the rich to be used when they retired and went from a higher to a lower taxable rate.
The 401K means nothing as most Americans lost up to 40-percent of their money when their old-age-nest-eggs were exposed to risk. The Crash of 08-09 exposed the fraud that 401Ks are.
Bank accounts and IRAs are just another kind of asset forfeiture.
I know a shit pile full of blue collar guys with well over a million in their 401K / IRA, some with two or more. They lost 40% and then the DOW went from 12,000 (2007) to over 22,000 (2017). Personally I never suffered the loss having bailed out in Feb 2007 but I did not have enough faith to get back in either (with little exception of in and out with relatively small amounts).
Economic Rule of Law. “When everybody is a millionaire your money counts for nothing. Your money is worth nothing. You are by definition broke.”
Case in point.
Remember how, back in the 1960s, it was “Millionaire” Bruce Wayne. And how, today, he is now known as “Billionaire” Bruce Wayne. How long before the evolution from millionaire to billionaire becomes trillionaire?
Meanwhile, the average American is even more f*cked than ever before.
Blame-e, I’m right there with you. Once the whole system crashes, there won’t be a damn thing to collect from anyone.
This is what happens when the gold-coin standard is abandoned.
Fuck these clowns. I will write them a check for 5 cents and they can sit and spin or kick rocks…how about them apples.
A non issue. Most of you reading this do not understand the situation. It is NOT a debt! It ceased being a debt long ago. It now is simply a fiat money printing scheme. It can go on as long as there are people that will take the dollar in payment. There are small revolts in some parts of Europe where they will not take dollars (you must convert to euros to pay for something) but it is far from being serious. As long as we are the 400 pound gorilla we can go on as we are. Everyone knows we are the ONLY reason Russia doesn’t take over the world. They pay us for preventing that by letting us get away with our printing scheme.
Long ago when Carter was pres, the “debt” was about $280 billion. The same panic-people were predicting crash, crash, crash. Now, 280 billion is a joke! We will see 100 trillion in fiat printing in our lifetimes. And all will be going on just fine!
This is all part of the plan to transfer wealth by debt and interest on the debt.
YES!
“But very quietly behind the scenes there’s been an extremely rapid uptick in the US national debt.
In the month of October alone, the US national debt has soared by nearly a quarter of a trillion dollars.”
ht tp://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-10-30/us-government-quietly-added-200-billion-national-debt-month-alone
This is the way the elite planned everything at those secret meetings at Jekyll Island.
The banking elite make perpetual interest on loaned money they never had.
The government works in collusion with the elite by getting to spend whatever dollar amount they want without having to worry about paying it back.
Taxes are increased through inflation despite the naive belief of some people that a politician is going to cut their taxes.
The IRS works as a collection agency for the banking elite with the added threat of imprisonment and fines enforced by the U.S. government.
The individual income tax is theft of money taken right from your paycheck and given to the elite.
The entire banking system is a scam.
The constant wars, recessions, debt, bank failures, and unsustainable cost of living were all things the elite knew the Federal Reserve System would cause.
By the time most Americans have figured out that all the talk of government conspiracy was true it will be too late.
At least some of us tried to warn others despite being mocked.
Keep stacking ladies and gentlemen.
As a great man once said here.
Be well.
Who do we owe it to?