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The U.S. government just hit $18 trillion in debt this past Friday
afternoon having taken only 403 days to accumulate its most recent trillion compared to 205 years to accumulate its first trillion in debt (1981) and then less than five years to accumulate its second trillion. There has been a great deal of misinformation and propaganda – outright lies – about this debt article examines 5 of the biggest such lies.
The above introductory comments are edited excerpts from an article* by Simon Black (sovereignman.com) entitled Five complete lies about America’s new $18 trillion debt level.
Black goes on to say in further edited excerpts:
[Below are 5 such lies about America’s new $18 trillion debt and my response to each:
1) “They can get it under control.”
What a massive lie. Politicians have been saying for decades that they’re going to cut spending and get the debt under control.
FACT: The last time the U.S. debt actually decreased from one fiscal year to the next was back in 1957 during the EISENHOWER administration.
FACT: For the last several years, the U.S. government has been spending roughly 90% of its ENTIRE tax revenue just to pay for mandatory entitlement programs and interest on the debt.
This leaves almost nothing for practically everything else we think of as government.
2) “The debt doesn’t matter because we owe it to ourselves.”
This is probably the biggest lie of all. Two of the Social Security trust funds alone (OASI and DI) own $2.72 trillion of U.S. debt.
The federal government owes this money to current and future beneficiaries of those trust funds, i.e. every single U.S. citizen alive!
I fail to see the silver lining here. How is it somehow ‘better’ if the government defaults on its citizens as opposed to, say, banks?
3) “They can always ‘selectively default’ on the debt”
Another lie. People think that the U.S. government can pick and choose who it pays.
They could make a big stink about China, for example, and then choose to default on the $2 trillion in debt that’s owed to the Chinese. Nice try, but this would rock global financial markets and destroy whatever tiny shred of credibility the US still has.
Others have suggested that the government could selectively default on the Federal Reserve (which owns $2.46 trillion of US debt). While that is possible but, given that the Fed (the issuer of the U.S. dollar) would become immediately insolvent, the resulting currency crisis would be completely disastrous.
4) “It’s the NET debt that’s important”
Analysts often pay attention to a country’s “net debt” instead of its gross debt. If you have a million bucks in debt, and a million bucks in cash, then your ‘net debt’ is zero. It washes out. Problem is, the U.S. government doesn’t have any cash. The Treasury Department opened its business day on Friday morning with just $71.9 billion in cash, or just 0.39% of its total debt level. Apple has more money than that.
5) “They can fix it by raising taxes”
No they can’t. Just look at the numbers. Since the end of World War II, U.S. government tax revenue has consistently been roughly 17% of GDP. They can raise tax rates, but it doesn’t move the needle in terms of revenue as a percentage of GDP. In other words, the government’s ‘slice of the pie’ is pretty consistent.
You’d think with this obvious data that, rather than try to increase tax rates (ineffective), they’d do everything they can to help make a bigger pie or, better yet, just leave everyone the hell alone so we’re free to [m]ake as much as we can but no, they have to regulate every aspect of people’s existence:
- how you are allowed to educate your children,
- what you can/cannot put in your body
- how much interest you are entitled to receive on your savings.
All of this costs time, money, and efficiency. So do never-ending wars….Great powers often feel that their wealth and success entitles them to spend recklessly and wage endless, arrogant wars: the Romans, the Ottoman Empire, the British [and for the past number of years the USA.]…History shows that every leading superpower from the past almost invariably fell to the same fate.
History may not repeat but it certainly rhymes and the lesson here is very clear:
- debt weakens a nation,
- debt weakens a society…
and the people in charge of the system have backed themselves into a corner where there is no way out other than to default
- either on their creditors (creating a global financial crisis),
- the central bank (creating a currency crisis),
- or on the citizens themselves (creating an epic social crisis)…
Editor’s Note: The author’s views and conclusions in the above article are unaltered and no personal comments have been included to maintain the integrity of the original post. Furthermore, the views, conclusions and any recommendations offered in this article are not to be construed as an endorsement of such by the editor.
*http://www.sovereignman.com/trends/five-complete-lies-about-americas-new-18-trillion-debt-level-15661/ (© 2014 Blacksmith PTE LTD – All rights reserved)
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Your article is very useful and have good knowledge, thanks for the post.
If the US is in so much debt why is the dollar ratio above 88?
Why do they constantly smash down the price of precious metals? Surely it would be better to allow the price to rise so people would have more money to spend.
I had a thought that it is possible that other countries have managed to debase their currencies against the dollar. Why isn’t it working for America?