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Athens On The Potomac - It Could Never Happen Here, Right?
Submitted by John Gabriel via Ricochet.com,
Financial experts in New York, London, and Brussels have tut-tutted Greece’s economic travails as Athens considers its future with the European Union. Why did they borrow so much money? How can they ever pay it back? Do they think that much debt is sustainable?
Instead of pointing fingers at the innumerates running Athens, they should consider our own situation. Jason Russell of the Washington Examiner shows how America’s debt projections look suspiciously like Greece’s recent history.
With all the chaos unravelling in Greece, Congress would be wise to do what it takes to avoid reaching Greek debt levels. But it’s not a matter of sticking to the status quo and avoiding bad decisions that would put the budget on a Greek-like path, because the budget is on that path already.
A quarter-century ago, Greek debt levels were roughly 75 percent of Greece’s economy — about equal to what the U.S. has now. As of 2014, Greek debt levels are about 177 percent of national GDP. Now, the country is considering defaulting on its loans and uncertainty is gripping the economy.
In 25 years, U.S. debt levels are projected to reach 156 percent of the economy, which Greece had in 2012. That projection comes from the Congressional Budget Office’s alternative scenario, which is more realistic than its standard fiscal projection about which spending programs Congress will extend into the future.
If Congress leaves the federal budget on autopilot, debt levels will soar. Instead, spending must be reined in to avoid a Greek-style meltdown.
While we’re right to be concerned about 2040, the U.S. is in deep trouble now. Yet if you mention the debt to most Americans, they’re either confused or indifferent. “But Obama lowered the deficit.” “Just print more money.“ “It’s Reagan’s fault!”
Since most graphs look like this, I created my own user-friendly debt chart focused on three big numbers: Deficit, revenue and debt. (My first version was published a couple of years ago. This one is updated with the most recent figures).
It’s an imperfect analogy, but imagine the green is your salary, the yellow is the amount you’re spending over your salary, and the red is your MasterCard statement.
The chart is brutally bipartisan. Debt increased under Republican presidents and Democrat presidents. It increased under Democrat congresses and Republican congresses. In war and in peace, in boom times and in busts, after tax hikes and tax cuts, the Potomac flowed ever deeper with red ink.
Our leaders like to talk about sustainability. Forget sustainable — how is this sane?
Yet when a conservative hesitates before increasing spending, he’s portrayed as a madman. When a Republican offers a thoughtful plan to reduce the debt over decades, he’s pushing grannies into the Grand Canyon and pantsing park rangers on the way out. While the press occasionally griped about spending under Bush, they implore Obama to spend even more.
When I posted the earlier version of this chart, the online reaction was intense. A few on the right thought I was too tough on the GOP while those on the left claimed it didn’t matter or it’s all a big lie. Others told me that I should have weighted for this variable or added lines for that trend. They are free to create their own charts to better fit their narrative and I’m sure they will. But the numbers shown above can’t be spun by either side.
All of the figures come from the U.S. Treasury and math doesn’t care about fairness or good intentions. Spending vastly more than you have, decade after decade, is foolish when done by a Republican or a Democrat. Two plus two doesn’t equal 33.2317 after you factor in a secret “Social Justice” multiplier.
If our current president accumulates debt at the rate of his first six-plus years, the national debt will be nearly $20 trillion by the time leaves office. That is almost double what it was when he was first inaugurated.
Like many Americans, I haven’t had the privilege of visiting Greece. Unfortunately, Greece will be visiting us unless we change things and fast.
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Exponential debt, baby!
Obama:
Let's do this - destroy the US!
Frank Marshall Davis would love me then.
January 9, 1835 was when this cycle of debt started.
"Fractionalize Everything. Fractionalize Nothing! It Doesnt Matter!"
Bipartisan treason exacerbated by moronic puppets.
Long Physical things...Long independence....
RIPS
You mean the day Santa Ana captured San Antonio?
What debt?
I hear the US National Debt has 'magically' frozen for the last 15-weeks:
http://cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/15-weeks-treasury-says-debt-has-been-frozen-18112975000000
That chart looks like the iceberg that sank the Titanic...
There was no fucking surplus, ever. Show me a year where national debt declined.
is there a photo or statue of the god of math? painting?
Because Obama!
Nothing to see here ... back to your plow, serf!
Seriously, we have the world's reserve currency and the special privilege that comes with it, so why should we worry about whether or not the debt we incur is actually repayable?
Sauce for Greece, Sauce for the Gander.
I like the chart and the article, and this may seem like semantics to some, but wasn't that entire 'surplus' under Clinton just smoke and mirrors accounting tricks involving SS funds, among other things?
yes
Why did they borrow so much money? How can they ever pay it back? Do they think that much debt is sustainable?
How about this:
WHY DID THEY LEND THEM SO MUCH MONEY? ? How can they ever pay it back? Do they think that much debt is sustainable?
How about if it is not loaned against the result of productive work that already exists and instead it is loaned against the expectation that it may come to exist that it is not money but counterfeit?
What is ex-nihilo versus axiomatic?
I don't see Greece playing out in America. Rather, I see huge deflation, followed by bankers going to jail. Wait for the Wall Street criminal round-up after the 2016 election. The jig is almost up.
They read Proverbs 22:7 "The rich rule over the poor, and the borrower is slave to the lender."
Yes
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
Pass it on and don't let morons try to tell you any fucking different.
Sauce your selling glass pearls to natives is forever. See the writing on the wall instead.
All government numbers use the Social Security surplusses to hide the much larger deficits. That becomes yet more debt to the SS fund.
Expect your kids and grandkids to disconnect your oxygen and heart monitors when you get older. They are not going to feel obligated to repay a debt they did not run up.
it will not get paid. 1st off would be to cut the defence by min. 1/2 and allow the the fallout to ripple thru. unemployment would spike. it would be tough on the economy, but spending would drop 500 billion, hmmm, cost to gov, guessing 100 billion. next up would be eliminate d of ed., nsa, homeland sec, and all redundent law enforcement. also stop the foreign aid, esspecially the zion freebie.
i'll stop because it aint happening and we are so fucked and we all know it's hopeless.
ah, it was worth the keystrokes for while.
fuck a duck (a good friend usta say). ha, lol, ...
National debt 01-01-1834 $4,760,082
National debt 01-01-1835 $33,733
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/govt/reports/pd/histdebt/histdebt_histo1.htm
After the War between the States, the debt was off to the races.
If you get out your super duper magnifying glass, you can see an ever-so-slight uptick (reduction) around 1999. After that brief moment of insanity, spending resumed its exponential growth and all was back to "normal".
that was march 6, 1836. It has been brought up to remove the alamo because it offends mexicans, btw.
The morning the battle started Travis woke up predawn, got some coffee and went to the wall where Crockett was standing. As the sun came up it revealed 5,000 mexicans, puzzled Travis asked Davy 'Did you know we were pouring concrete today?'
OH MEH GAWD!! US&A is completely exaclty same as Greece!! +US debt is exactly like your credit card i.e. NO WAY OUT
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-FAzOohCMJ3I/T9G0f2wxdFI/AAAAAAAAAWc/pp1xoAftZ-...
The USA is NOT exactly like Greece...it is MUCh worse. Greece is so small, that it can actually be rescued....it is so small that it can exist as a financial parasite in the EU as long as it's not competing with too many other parasites. The US can not exist as a parasite, it's way too big. We crossed the Greece Point (or should I say oil spot) when we started QE. Greece can't QE their way out so thus the current Greek dilemma. When the US shell games finally come to an end...there will be NO ONE having weekend meetings about whether or not to rescue us.
What kind of fuckan idiot would up vote this post?
BTW James, it is over 100% now so that chart is not accurate.
What does James Wayne's appointment to the Supreme Court have to do with this?
Ah do believe that was dey lass day o' freedom from debt heeya in da USSA.
Kind of obvious when the anti-banking President was truly in charge, isn't it?
Is it possible to be for Banking, nowadays? At least outside of the 0.1%
Exponential explains everything. You know, interest on interest????
Referring to Jackson? Possibly, but the chart indicates the trend started when Nixon took us off the Gold Standard.
Exactly. you were played like a cheap fiddle.
Debt plus unfunded liabilities = ~ 1.5mm per US citizen.
The US dollar is an IOU for an unpayable debt.
Caveat Emptor.
Good article but you have to remeber the Federal Government is paying back that debt in "inflated dollars." Hence "economically speaking" the debt is an ASSET not a liability (try and run country without one as Greece is now attempting to do.)
The other thing not mention is how the Federal Debt is CREATED in the USA...besides excessive spending of course...namely in the case of the USA DIRECTLY IN THE OPEN MARKET USING DOLLARS.
I know of no other country in the world that does that...so, yes...as interest rates CONTINUE to rise in the USA (and elsewhere) FISCAL DISCIPLINE will be imposed ...but "debt servicing costs" insofar as the USA goes are quite low because folks bought that paper in the open market...
You have a lot of confidence in a one legged stool.
Yes, exponential debt. It is a requirement of our monetary system. If it stops increasing exponentially, there won't be enough FRNs, physical, electronic or otherwise to service the debt. It must grow. It's a fucking ponzi scheme.
Since the Nixon Shock, the debt has doubled, on average, every 8 years. 2 becomes 4 becomes 8 becomes 16 becomes 32 becomes 64... It seems innocous at first, then all of a sudden, there is a huge fucking problem. Exponential functions are brutal like that.
The increasing [global] debt level is a geometric progression that roughly follows the ponzi equation.
In the case of this so called "financial system", QE is the substitute for a continuous stream of new money flowing in.
88 percent of the participicants lose everything in a ponzi collapse.
When this ponzi collapses, it is liable to be worse than that. If nobody accepts FRNs anymore, most if not all of our imported oil goes away and so does most of our exported grain.
People are going to be accepting FRNs many years after you and I are 6 feet under.
then we all need to do our best to be part of that 12% who got the fuck out of it first. I've been doing my best to be well on my way out of everything and I hope you all are too!
It is in this sense, much like a game of musical chairs.
When the music stops, cash and physical gold is a good mix, because the cash provides liquidity and the gold protects the purchasing power of the cash [and then some] plus every other contingency.
In every SHTF in history including all the modern ones, the ones who owned the gold protected their wealth.
I guess we'd better lower taxes!
Moar stawks! Moar debt! Debt good. Gold bad.
Bitches
silence ! i kill you !!!
We were inverted in a negative g parabolic dive.
Gutsiest move I ever saw, man.
I don't like you because you're dangerous....
"Exponential Debt, baby!"
Yeah, "loaned" into existence by the very act of asking for and getting the "Loan", using FRB.
Babylonian Money Magik, sheeple! The timeless wealth-transfer mechanism -- from the many to the select, chosen few.
No dude. Exponential wealth.
It is just not for you. Did you not know America's total wealth is?almost? 90 trillions?
Thank you Fed.
And also very misleading, proving there are lies, damned lies, and statistics! The facts are clear, while all recent presidents increased the national debt, this chart is laughable! It doesn't co pare it to GDP! Who wrote this? An eighth grader? Since Nixon, only 2 presidents have not increased the debt to GDP ratio, Carter and Clinton. Reagan increased it by 40% taking the ratio from 32% -52%. Yes, it is Reagan's fault! W bush was the second worst offender raising the debt from 56% of GDP to 84% of GDP. Tis article isn't even factually correct! Ratio is currently 102.7%!
What's really funny is you're gullible enough to take those numbers at face value. Or do you really believe GDP and debt figures from 1980 are still determined the same way they are in 2015?
It was and still is C+I+ G-Imports+exports=GDP
One example: the G component is much larger today -- even though it shouldn't even be included in the calculation because it boosts the GDP on a nominal basis -- and that represents a large inherent bias in favor of higher government expenditures when measuring economic health.
Sorry, Reagan ncreased the debt by 60% and W Bush increased it by 66%
Yes, and misleading and factually incorrect, proving there are lies, damned lies, and statistics! While all recent presidents have increased the debt, only 2 have not increased the debt to GDP ratio since Nixon! Carter, and Clinton both lowered the debt to GDP ratio! Yes, it is Reagan's fault! He increased the debt to GDP ratio the most of any modern day president by 40% taking it from 32% to 53%! The second worst offender is W bush who took it from 56% to 84%! Thie author doesn't even know the current ratio is now 102.7%! What a hack!
http://38.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ma500aj2rG1rqpx0x.gif
Did we use the Dot Com surplus to bring Democracy to some folks?
If you like your Alta Vista, you can keep your Alta Vista.
That little surplus blip is when Slick Willie raided the Social Security Trust Fund and made it available for governmnet to use. Volia, a majical suplus appeared overnight out ot thin air. Social Security has been an unfunded liability ever since
18.2 trillion in Debt, 6 trillion off balance sheet and 211 trillion in unfunded liabilities and god only knows what else with a tax base just north of 3 trillion a year. Yep the point of no return was passed long ago and everyone in Washington knows it ,so are selling the remnants down the river and lining their pockets. We, my friends are Greece on steroids the most indebted nation in the entire history of the planet.
Everyone has had 8 years any maybe a few short more to get their shit together and get out of personal debt and out of the banking system as much as possible. What is the average american doing? Riding around in a brand new 84 month Escalade, racking up student loans and HElLOCing any equity in their 30yr mort as soon as its available to get 200 dollar hair perms and nail jobs,
People laugh at those of us trying to warn them of a day like Greece today and we are ridiculed, scorned and laughed at. When the waiter finally brings the check for this orgasmic feast, I will have as much sympathy for them then as I have for the Greek people trying to get to an ATM today after 5yrs of bullshit. NONE.
There wasn't a surplus. Total debt (public and private) of the Fed Gov never declined. Even with Slick Willy's accounting gimmick, THERE WAS NO SURPLUS!
correct!
+100 what is amazing is the way this *obvious lie* is still unpacked, over and over, by the partisan hacks.
And never challenged by the same people who claim they're enlightened. I'd get slammed if I said over and over that Obamacare lowered health insurance costs, or Bush's invasion of Iraq was a resounding success. But 'Bill Clinton had a surplus!!!' Gets a free pass. Fuck me. I guess Greece didn't have a massive, crushing debt when GS used accounting tricks and gimmicks to hide the real debt.
Come on ZH, you guys are some of the smartest and most in touch with reality. Don't parrot this shit. I've learned a lot from commenters here so forgive me for being vociferous in doing my part to spread the truth; you guys deserve nothing less and I owe it to you.
http://www.craigsteiner.us/articles/16
Actually, it's more like the tax increases that offset the liabilities.
More lies from a republican.
http://www.ssa.gov/history/InternetMyths2.html
Hahahaha!
http://www.fedsmith.com/2013/10/11/ronald-reagan-and-the-great-social-se...
Raiding SSI trust fund increases national debt as it is still accounted for. Sorry to burst your republican fallacy.
Unfunded liabilities are almost $97 trillion according to the USdebtclock.org.
I'm starting to get that feeling that we should start saying "known unfunded liabilities."
Time for an Accounting change.
AGREED. wasnt the last one sometime in september of '01
Mark to Fantasy?
$122 trillion as of Dec 31st 2012 according to http://demonocracy.info/infographics/usa/us_debt/us_debt.html
Try $211 trillion and counting:
http://www.npr.org/2011/08/06/139027615/a-national-debt-of-14-trillion-t...
Due to the mark-to-unicorn accounting practices, I doubt anybody really knows what the number is, other than it's BIG.
Very fucking BIG, so big it deserves an expletive.
just as well they don't print it anymore, otherwise the earth would be denuded and barren.
Just like Detroit.
Exactly. The "definition" of what actually constitutes debt is continually changing, so it's somewhat like to solve the quantum riddle of position versus speed. And since fiat money IS debt, the future is grim indeed.
The Good News, Vaquero and young Kirk, is that this artificial problem will eventually be solved.
In my time, all Money in the Federation of Planets is backed by Precious Assets: Precious Materials and Precious Energy. No FRB.
As a known Paradigm-shifter, I will remind you that "Sometimes how you see the problem is the problem".
(Old) Kirk out.
Wait..should I sell my AMAZON stock now?
Krugman says the unfunded liabilities don't count because, "We owe that money to ourselves."
There's that damned "we" again.
"Like many Americans, I haven’t had the privilege of visiting Greece. Unfortunately, Greece will be visiting us unless we change things and fast."
Someone explain how Merika is going to pay off that 20 trillion. Greece will be visiting us no matter what we do.
We passed the point of no return some years ago. We cannot "change things fast" anymore, the debt is too high... and we have no meaningful way of creating new value. At this point, the only thing left to us is to fasten our seat belts.
Better strap on a helmet, elbow pads, knee pads, and a cup over your scrotum - THEN buckle your seatbelt and hope the airbags haven't been recalled.
There are essentially three ways out of unsustainable debt:
1. Destroy it with hyperinflation.
2. Destroy it with default on debts. National bankruptcy.
3. Self-sufficiency, also known as isolationism - no more imports of any substantial size.
My guess is that USA will be seeing all three in heaping measure.
4. Hide it in a worldwide convrsion to SDRs.
But wouldn't those solutions all cause a great deal of societal angst?
This will be heard at the Fed!
OWOOOOGA! OWOOOOGA!
ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO REMAIN OUTSIDE OF THE PRINTING ROOM. ENGAGING NUCLEAR POWERED PRINTING PRESSES! ALL PERSONNEL ARE TO REMAIN OUTSIDE OF THE PRINTING ROOM.
And then we'll "pay" for it by defaulting via hyperinflation.
Yes, that's the way I think they have planed it. After the hyper-DEflationary scares.
There’s a severe drought and heatwave that’s going to lower the industrial output even more.
they can’t even put asphalt on the new roads because it’s to hot and the water pressure in my city just dropped by half.
Where does you live?
It will be a long, hot summer for everybody. Particulalrly for Europe...
Get a paid off house and make unfunded pensioners do chores with the cute college girls… In the basement.
Fuck yeah, we'll have all that red paid off in no time!
Too bad dead people can vote but they won't pay taxes.
They can if they vote demoncrat.
Go to Rio Arriba County in NM. Dead people have voted there.
It's ok. We owe it to ourselves.
Your joking - but that is how this is going to end. The Fed buys it all up and forgives it, more or less simulaneously with the dollar replaced as the reserve currency by the SDR.
the national debt will be nearly $20 trillion by the time leaves office
But debt and unfunded liabilities will easily exceed $180 trillion or about $1,500,000 per taxpayer when Obama leaves. Kotlikoff has that at nearly $2,000,000 per taxpayer.
Good luck ever paying that back.
Financial System Will Collapse Just a Matter of When-Laurence KotlikoffRenowned economist Laurence Kotlikoff recently testified at the U.S. Senate about the runaway U.S. budget. How bad is it? Kotlikoff says, “I told them the real (2014) deficit was $5 trillion, not the $500 billion or $300 billion or whatever it was announced to be this year. Almost all the liabilities of the government are being kept off the books by bogus accounting. . . . The government is 58% underfinanced . . . . Social Security is 33% underfinanced . . . . So, the entire government enterprise is in worse fiscal shape than Social Security is, but they are both in terrible shape.” So, how much is America on the hook for in the future? Kotlikoff contends, “If you take all the expenditures that the government is expected to make, as projected by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), all the spending on defense, repairing the roads, paying for the Supreme Court Justices’ salaries, Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, welfare, everything and take all those expenditures into the future . . . and compare that to all the taxes that are projected to come in, and the difference is $210 trillion. That’s the fiscal gap. That’s our true debt.”
http://usawatchdog.com/financial-system-will-collapse-just-a-matter-of-w...
They question is when do we reach the "Thatcher Date" - the date when socialism runs out of other people's money?
That is a damn ridiculous way to think about the problem. "Socialism?" Bullshit! Here is a better explanation of the past and most probable future:
http://www.conspiracyarchive.com/NWO/silent_weapons_quiet_wars.htm
Silent Weapons for Quiet Wars
"Energy is recognized as the key to all activity on earth. Natural science is the study of the sources and control of natural energy, and social science, theoretically expressed as economics, is the study of the sources and control of social energy. Both are bookkeeping systems: mathematics. Therefore, mathematics is the primary energy science. And the bookkeeper can be king if the public can be kept ignorant of the methodology of the bookkeeping. ... In this structure, credit, presented as a pure element called "currency," has the appearance of capital, but is in effect negative capital. Hence, it has the appearance of service, but is in fact, indebtedness or debt. ... if balanced in no other way, will be balanced by the negation of population (war, genocide)... They must eventually resort to war to balance the account, because war ultimately is merely the act of destroying the creditor ... War is therefore the balancing of the system by killing the true creditors (the public ...)"
The world's DEBT SLAVERY situations, generating numbers which have become debt insanities, that are going to provoke death insanities, are NOT due to any stupid superficial labels like "socialism," et alia! Those problems are due to the world being controlled by the principles and methods of organized crime, as mastered by the international bankers, the biggest gangsters, the banksters. Furthermore, if one fully faces those facts it becomes clear that the only genuine resolutions to the real problems are perhaps for the eruptions of death insanities to have some survivors who eventually develop some better death control systems.
The problems that both Greece and America have are due to the ways that there is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition groups, both spouting similar bullshit language, while the vast majority of people have become incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple, who have been brainwashed to believe that bullshit. Anyone who relies upon stupid, superficial, labels like "socialism" is a political idiot! Anyone who promotes bogus "solutions" based on other similarly stupid labels is also a political idiot. There are NO ways to stop the debt controls from being backed by the death controls. There are NO ways to stop money being measurement backed by murder. There are only some possible ways to perhaps change the dynamic equilibria between the different systems of organized lies operating robberies that are working through those means.
Since the world is overwhelmed by Zombie Sheeple, that were being fleeced to exhaustion, while being set up to be slaughtered, the most realistic futures appear to be for them to end up mostly being slaughtered. Since they could not stop their debt slavery from becoming debt insanity, there are no good grounds to doubt that they will not be able to stop that from changing gears to become death insanities. Furthermore, to regard that realistically means that the only other real resolutions to the real problems must be different death control systems, because civilization is necessarily operating according to the principles and methods of organized crime, since it could not actually exist any other way.
Those who continue to promote stupid bullshit, like blaming the problems on "socialism" and/or who promote stupid "solutions" based on other superficial labels, are still being incompetent political idiots, that are not able and willing to understand that there is only one system, which is organized crime, and there is only one possible realistic solution, which is better organized crime. Anyone who does not do the historical research into how the international bankers created the existing systems stays on too superficial a level of understanding of what the real problems actually are, as well as how and why those problems developed to become the automatic runaways that are now manifesting more or less everywhere ... Furthermore, those systems are now more criminally insane and psychotic than can be fully imagined, because the old systems of paper frauds, backed by gunpowder force, have been replaced by electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs.
Nobody controls that anymore, including the international banksters that originally made and maintained those systems. Anyone proposing "solutions" which do not address that the FACTS are electronic frauds, backed by atomic bombs, is spouting old-fashioned bullshit, while they tend to use old-fashioned labels, which are ridiculously misleading! Anyone who thinks that the problems of debt slavery generating numbers which are debt insanities could be resolved within those systems is a political idiot. We are going to be forced to go through some series of psychotic breakdowns and crazy collapses into chaos, because the established systems are based upon being able to have governments enforce frauds by privately controlled banks, which enforcement never stops those frauds from still being false. Therefore, the source of the established systems is organized crime, and so, the established systems have become runaway criminal insanities, and so, none of the old-fashioned labels for sociopolitical systems are useful anymore!
Theoretically, the only genuine solutions which are realistic would be to better understand and apply the principles and methods of organized crime. However, the vast majority of people are too much like incompetent political idiots to make the possible. Instead, the most probable futures continue to be that most of the various Greek and/or American Zombie Sheeple will continue being fleeced to exhaustion, until they are eventually slaughtered. It seems politically impossible to do anything else, because of the ways that way too many people continue to rely upon the bullshit language of old-fashioned controlled opposition, and therefore, promote false fundamental dichotomies, like between capitalism versus socialism, when there was never anything but the basically same organized crime underneath and throughout all of the actually existing sociopolitical systems.
However, I know that political idiots like Thisson are impervious to any of that kind of information, and therefore, it was another waste of time to bother to articulate the reply that I made above, regarding that the most important form of "other people's money" is that privately controlled banks are allowed to make the public "money" supply out of nothing as debts for everyone else, while that fraud is enforced by governments.
"Taxpayers" inside of the established systems of globalized electronic frauds backed by atomic bombs have become relatively trivial, compared to the amounts of "money" created out of nothing to gamble with. Taxpayers have always more and more been acting like incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple, as the MAD Money As Debt systems automatically got worse, faster, at an exponential rate, due to the inherent structure of that MAD system being a debt engine treadmill. Pretty well nobody is able and willing to address the underlying ways that money is measurement backed by murder. Instead, they want to promote impossible ideals about what money "should be" that deliberately ignore what it actually is!
Being able to back up lies with violence was the foundation of social pyramid civilizations, which became more sophisticated systems of legalized lies, backed by legalized violence, or the financial enforced frauds which are the foundation of the existing political economy. Anybody who does not admit and address those basic facts, in ways that approach some deeper understanding of how and why that happened, continues to be another of the incompetent political idiots, who only superficially perceive the problems, and therefore, promote superficial "solutions" using some superficial language, such as those which employ the label "socialism," in ways that have nothing to do with either the dictionary definition of that term, nor anything to do with the real social facts.
I get annoyed by that kind of Zombie Sheeple stupidity because it means that we continue to be on the path towards death insanities, being provoked by debt insanities, while those are mostly going to happen to younger and poorer people. If it was only that the adult Zombie Sheeple were going to be slaughtered, then I would not be so upset. However, it will be much more the case that their still innocent Lambs are going to be the ones whose lives are most destroyed due to debt slavery systems being allowed to become debt insanities, that provoke death insanities.
The so-called "Thatcher Date" is NOT relevant, and NOT real. What matters is that "money" made out of nothing has been used to "pay" for strip-mining the planet's natural resources at an exponential rate, which process is running into real limits in the form of diminishing returns, which show up first and foremost in their effects upon the financial systems based upon enforcing frauds, becoming more and more desperate to continue to double down, while no longer being able to do that (which often has counter-intuitive consequences to those who totally take continued exponential growth for granted.)
If one is serious about the sociopolitical situation, then we should be developing financial accounting systems which are consistent with general energy system accounting. HOWEVER, that can not be done without facing the ways that governments are necessarily the biggest forms of organized crime, controlled by the best organized gangs of criminals. At the present time, enough public recognition of those facts is politically impossible. Too many people have been deeply brainwashed to believe in bullshit too much, as demonstrated by how common it continues to be to read ridiculously stupid statements like those made by Thisson above, which do not care that those kinds of statements have nothing in common with dictionary definitions, and/or the real social facts.
I have already complained about that in comments posted under several Zero Hedge articles, over the last couple of years, and I have always found that to be almost totally a waste of time. Guys like Thisson are practically guaranteed to continue not to care that their use of the word "socialism" has nothing in common with its dictionary definition, nor the real social facts. Moreover, that is merely one of the tips of the iceberg of the actual political problems due to civilization being based on thousands of years of backing up lies with violence, which currently is expressed as our entire political economy being based upon fundamentally fraudulent financial accounting systems.
Not only is the real world always manifesting the principles and methods of organized crime, it must also continue to do so, due to the underlying situation that human beings and civilizations operate as entropic pumps of energy flows, which have developed in paradoxical ways whereby the greatest lying about that was the most socially successful strategy. The degree to which the vast majority of people do not understand that, and do not want to understand that, is the degree to which they are behaving like incompetent political idiots, or Zombie Sheeple, being fleeced to exhaustion, while they being are set up to be slaughtered. These days I have become more than 99% convinced that is the only possible future, because anything else would take some series of political miracles, whereby guys like Thisson stop spouting ridiculous bullshit, in ways which continued to be based on using language in ways that had nothing to do with the dictionary definition of the words they used, nor anything in common with the real facts.
However, since there is almost nothing but a core of organized crime, surrounded by controlled opposition, we continue to see almost nothing but the same kinds of bullshit dominating the public spaces. The human species is driving itself towards committing collective suicide, due to the ways that runaway triumphant organized crime has created a civilization that is behaving in criminally insane ways. There are no genuine solutions to those problems which can exist outside of the ways that organized crime actually operates. We can not change the basic realities, however, we could change the ways that we perceive those basic realities. BUT, as long as so many people like to indulge themselves in spouting ridiculous bullshit, like the quote from Thisson above, which he obviously thought was apt and witty, then we continue to be controlled by huge lies, and therefore, we continue to behave in ways which are increasingly psychotic.
...
Game over, man ... game over.
How do we actually know there exists a "future"? Has anyone ever been there?
How do we know there exists a "past"? We may believe we've been there, but it's gone forever.
The whole silly idea of "free will" depends on completely believing in these two abstract metaphysical notions.
Nobody owes anyone anything. No one can "agree" to pledge anything, since "free will" is merely a religious construct.
There is a future. For you, it's next month when bills come due... That's a certainty !
No. You merely belive it's a certainty. It's your religion.
Well what you post is your delusion.
Let me know how it works out...HEH HEH HEH.
What I supposedly posted is not real. It's only real when I click the mouse.
NOW!
No bills will ever come due for me. Such things are fake records of the nonexistent "past".
I do have some "due" ones right now. Why should I pay them? Will someone punish me in the "future"? Of course not. And not in "heaven" either. The "future" notion is all about fear and vain goals. I'm not such a fearful coward.
But feel free to pay yours.
Are you posting from your Obamaphone using a McDonald's WiFi?
Just curious...
Nah he's got the 5 star treatment at the debtor prison sorted....please sir make space for other ZHrs we'd like to chant our harmonious luminous reality together!
The economy dies when we believe our future is dead. Prosperity is a function of assets in surplus to consumption. If people think there is no future to save for, to work for, they won't. Outside of our more obvious financial problems, I see this loss of future as our greatest threat. Of course there are damned good reasons why so many don't believe in a future, but for me, it is simply the fact that we have already spent it, by consuming debt. Like a body that has lived on meth for years, they have accelerated the consumption of their body, looking 60 at 40. Our economy looks down right geriatric.
Is that why TPTB are letting in the tidal wave of illegals, to rejuvinate us with young blood?
Wrong on all counts.
We know there's a past because we've all experienced it, and all we had to do was talk to our parents grandparents and others of age to know that there is a past. By extension, we know there is a distant past- genetic studies, archeology, geology and other sciences prove this.
As for the future it's fairly easy to surmise that when you will wake up tomorrow -you have faith that you will- and that there will be another tomorrow.
Free will is simply our ability to make choices and live with the results.
You're a failure as a philosopher.
Seek, your choice is determined. How do you know what to choose? Ans
Past experience...therefore caused. Nice try.
Nothing could be further from the truth.
All humans have the free will to chose good or evil, and reap the consequences of each.
And all humans have the ability to chose good, accept Jesus Christ as their savior, and be redeemed.
But most choose the broad road that leads to destruction rather than the narrow gate that leads to eternal life.
For me, this all started when I befriended this sociopathic fellow. I began to be aware of his condition after he squashed a neighbor's little dog while backing out of the driveway. He acted very contrite for a short while, but by the end of the day over a few beers it became very clear that his remorse had completely evaporated. He would pay me back with checks that bounced -- No remorse. He took heroin knowing he would become addicted -- and thereupon became addicted. He knew intellectually there was a past and future, but he didn't feel it. Just like we all intellectually know that on a long enough time line our survival rate will drop to zero -- but we can't feel it too deeply or we'll go mad. So my friend's personality was condensed into the a tiny frame with a very short past and future, and this made him more real than the rest of us in the present moment. This attracted other people to him, and led to constant trouble.
So one day I expressed to him that there was no actual past nor future, and he was genuinely appalled. He said there would be no free will, or good, or evil, or even consciousness. On some whim, I responded that, no, there is no free will, but there is still consciousness and also good and evil. He totally freaked out.
Since then I have offered this argument to communists, conservatives, and assorted others. About 90% of the time they totally freak out. Without this free will, their world would cease to work. But is free will always your friend? Every year thousands of people plead guilty to crimes they didn't commit, and go to prison simply because of the power of their free will to waive their right to a fair trial, to avoid harsher punishment. Shouldn't they have the power to bargain themselves into slavery? No?
Maybe the world would work better if we were all sociopaths -- and not just the folks at the top?
I get what you're saying. I don't agree with it, but I understand you're position.
My argument in favor of free will goes like this: no living creature wants to die. It goes against the strongest desire in the universe: the desire to live. Yet, approimately 1 million people each year take their own lives. Explain that, if they don't have free will.
I will agree that it can be very difficult to exercise free will.
No past or future.... if one is serious in this belief; this puts more responsibility on each of us to be dignified and responsible and extremely active in our own lives and those of our family. No past or future means that every action now is vitally important....unless its an excuse to be lazy.
Reality is, I have no idea if there is "free will", not even of what it might "mean".
It's one of the slipperyest ideas I've ever encountered.
However. It is virtually the entire basis of our social, political, and spiritual life.
Doesn't it make you wonder a little?
A man is most free when he's in chains?
"Free will" might be an illusory social construct. Give those in chains (of the state) the illusion that they have free will. When in fact they have none. Any developed society must of neccessity ensure that the people go about their lives within a certain set of imposed boundaries, or chaos and anarchy prevail. And we cling to the illusion we are in a free society having accepted the rules imposed upon us. We agree to abide by the rules to partake of the protections offered; shelter, food, safety.
Trees do make noise when they fall.
The US isn't going the way of Greece b/c they have an asset purchasing program to kick the can. Like Japan (currently in a 20+ year quasi-depression).
Japan is the neo-keynesian model, especially for sovereign states with their own CBs and militaries who use propaganda and fraud to make things "look" like they are afloat. The Nikkei has wild swings, but you know what's been consistent in Japan? Wages declining.
The Greeks accepted the Euro (more like the Greeks connected at the top accepted it on a will of good thoughts, and ended up doing what all others do at the top: skimming off all the money) and they've accepted a fate that the US at least doesn't have: the denationalization of not only their currency, but of their democracy. The Greeks accepted the leech because they thought it would make them better; now they realize that maybe the parasite is actually what it is: a parasite.
The US is getting THERE, but the country itself has power, people. and value that can make even the biggest government deficit go away, either by surplus or by just printing money to back it down. The US Dollar is backed by blood, Paul Krugman said so himself (as awful as that is). It is sustainable? No, but countries have limped along being backed by worse.
The FED however, is a different story. The Fed is in way more assloads of debt that the US is, and the beauty of it: we actually don't know HOW much toxic shit is on their book b/c of the black market derivitives system (as well as counterparty bets on the books on sovereign debt, i.e. MF Global times 1000). What's concerning is that as US monetary policy is being handled over to Wall St more and more, the debt for both the Fed AND US keep rising.
The Neo-Keyesians have one mandate: keep the DOW and S&P up at ANY cost, USD at the levels THEY want, Treasury bonds to NOT go haywire....even if it means fraud. That is all they care about; not petty government deficits. The FED can print up this $18 trillion dollar deficit and pay it off no problem. The deficit on the govt's books isn't what the FED is worried about. It's the debt on THEIR books (which, unfortunately, is tied to US citizens thanks to 1913).
But if a CDS negatively affected the Treasury yield in some black swan event that would end up causing the debt to times itself at a 100x multiplier (an estimated leverage of the FED's balance sheet) of that $18 trillion? They would run out of trees and computing space to cover that up.
It's FED vs Math... and you're betting on the FEDs ?! Good luck with that one !
Pretty good synopsis. Bottom line, the Fed and all the useless paper-pushers that are contributing and benefiting from the ongoing fraud can only really control one thing, the underlying paper/digital credit. Once producers of essential goods and services realize (as many already have) that it is physically impossible to, much less "economically viable" to keep delivering, they will stop doing so. Trade is everything, but especially the trading of food, medicine, fuel, etc. None this can be created out of thin air, no matter how many quadrillion paper/digital claims that there are out there. Whenyou see Jamie Dimon and other financiers heading for their bunkers and private islands, then you can panic. We have some time yet.
YES! Great follow up on what I was trying to intimate.
That's my sypnosis (and I agree with Keen here): CBs have the ability to "CTRL-P" for public debt....almost any type of public debt. Because it is public; the liabilities can be spread and pushed to infinity because of faith of the credit that the country will always exist. "Citiband and JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs will exists...FOREVER". Not only is this dangerous for libery in general, that is really challenging the laws of mathematics to go fuck themselves. The batting percentage of those who try to go against the math I think is 0.0000010%.
But the FED believes it can both backstop PUBLIC and PRIVATE debt. And that's what's so arrogant of the neo-keyenesian model. They really believe they can CTRL-P to the moon when they please. When you let private debtors know, "I got your back" - they will ALWAYS end up being drunken fools addicted to the punch. Always.
Private debt has many variables; most of which end in violence and fail, because private debt is the same EV as any investment, or even gambling, which is "low".
I am not "betting on FED" to be able to stop the public debt bubble. They are hedged properly against that, and "the state" is their collateral.
But private debt? From student loans, to Wall St bullshit? There is NO way they can cover everyone's ass at once when SHTF. And eventually, SOMEONE will be pissed they didn't get their piece of the pie.
The FED also favors Wall St over the public debt; this will also end in fail.
Where do you come up with the 100x multiplyer? Do we have any idea or reliable way to estimate the Fed's balance sheet?
Touch screens at McDonalds will fix this. No prob...
The debt holders know we are coming for them so they are preparing to attack us first. Actually we are already under attack by the NWO banksters.
Wasn't there a story on ZH a while ago saying that is now mathmatically impossible for the US to pay off the debt? If that was correct, the "we need to change things and fast" crowd are bit too late.
Muching the popcorn, waiting for these dam previews to end.
I saw a video presenting all the known numbers from the GAO showing that to continue this, we need to have something like 6% (or more?) growth for 16 years in a row. So I'll have to agree with you, no matter how much popcorn I'm offered to deny it.
Most those assumptions are 6% growth along with no increase in spending or social programs. I remember when we briefly ran surplusses and it dawned on me that it was a disaster. With the short term surplus the spending had no limits or controls and I remember actually getting flushed as I contemplated how the surplus would be assumed on into infinity and 200% of the assumed amounts would be spent.
I argue there is only one single way to eliminate the deficits and debts which will never be done. You must stop asking government to do "stuff". Until you eliminate the actual obligation, the government will never balance the books.
That's why the debt is frozen. The math doesn't work anymore, not even the common core version. It's permanently broken to infinity and beyond.
US debt = global warming, it's too late! So party like its 1999!
These guys in DC drop their pants anytime they get a spending opportunity. Nothing will change. We will go down, because that's what history shows. 15% of the people will totally get it, while the balance of them, with bank lines a week away, will say the president is "doing a good job on the economy".
The United States of America is already insolvent at $17 Trillion DEFICIT and will _never_ pay the outstanding DEBT, or DEFICIT. Who in their right mind would ever think that the United States of America was not insolvent at these numbers? The United States of America has been completely insolvent since March 10th 2008, Mr. Gabriel. QE Infinity just exacerbated the problem further, but did not actually do anything significant to repair the damage done by the Committee to Ruin the World, and an incompetent Congress, as well as, Whore House, BuckO.
Sigh.
Net debt isn't at the headline number. If you strip out what the Fed has on the balance sheet and other IOUs that aren't even interest bearing, it's 11 trillion.
Further, debt to GDP should fall as long as rates stay low and employment high. Greece is on a somewhat different trajectory.
Finally, Greece can't print their way out, and we can. This leads to other problems, but not Greece's problems.
common sense will fall on deaf ears here, ajkreider... all these guys care about is "the US = Greece", which of course is incorrect...
oh fuck you, you stupid knee jerk emotional downvoters... Greece and the USA have nothing in common and you know it... you guys are worse sheep than those you claim to be...
Interesting graph. Scary too. But it does not show US GDP which is about as much as its debt. It also does not show outstanding future social security obligations but then the graph would be really too big to display.
End the debt as money system and you could eliminate this debt overnight.
Healthcare is near 18% of gdp. The benchmark for universal care is 8%. 10% gdp savings from sound regulation yields $1.8 trillion per year in savings. Interest savings from issuing zero interest UST notes is $250bn per year.
The plantation economic model in the U.S. Is the problem. We are all slaves. The sooner people wake up the sooner it might end.
It appears the revenue and deficit tracts are going to cross so, everything looking good for now. Debt was never meant to be payed down in the idea of goverment fiscal planning.
Maybe some /sarc
spot on, debt can be taken off balance sheet, call it deferred assets, send it to disneyland. debt is like a shot of heroin. you create 10000 of debt, that goes into labor and material for an infrastructure that we dont need. the workers and capitalists all pay taxes on that 10000. revenues go up based on new debt that will never be paid
the people holding treasury bonds which are the catalyst to monetize the debt. the us hands them to the chinese through the bis as payment for dollars the chinese made to us companies. obviously if the chinese just asked for dollars the amount of dollars would inflate away the dollars value rather quickly. if the bis functioned property these exchanges would be done at the conclusion of the sale, so we borrow money from the chinese to give american consumers lots of stuff to buy. ergo inflation is rather subdued and the rate on new t bonds is still at zirp levels, but the day comes when those old zirp bonds get hammered because rates head higher. i cant imagine the chinese coming out well in this deal. they may feel a lot richer but they are holding the hot potato.
See . . . the problem is you fuckers aren't privy to what they know is coming. That's why they don't give two shits about paying this off! EVER!
A year from now . . . reading comments from Zerohedge will seem like the good old days as you're scrounging for food and trying to survive.
Good luck to you all! You'll need it.
Its a telling example of the true nature of human social relationshps; civiilizations say they are uber-men; but act like crack whores.
It can't happen here the way in Greece, no. We're not going to have the IMF loan us money.
Being the reserve currency, we can generate debt until the cows come home and print print print.
We can, however, lose reserve status and have a currency crisis. That makes Greece look like child's play.
"but imagine the green is your salary, the yellow is the amount you’re spending over your salary, and the red is your MasterCard statement."
That chart looks familiar...
Hey, how did Zerohedge get a copy of my MasterCard statement?
Greece would be in much better shape had it not joined the euro. Greece's interest rates fell too low for a low productivity net importer, due to the implied ECB bailout, sharing a currency with net exporters, and plain old lying. Having surrendered monetary sovereignty, Greece can't devalue or monetize debt. Puerto Rico is in a very similar spot, with a few added quirks. The US is obviously in a much different place, since we retain sovereignty over the dollar and can monetize quite a bit of government debt without sparking high inflation. Japan shows us that this can run a long time.
Note though: all composite things decay, and there will come a time when the dollar fails and is replaced. When? No one has any idea. I thought 70s-style inflation was coming with QE, and I was really wrong, because I misunderstood the nature of debt-backed currency.
part of the longevity of japans monetary shenanigans, is due to the semi functional world economy during the period. that isn't the world condition now.