Some quick thoughts.

1. John Adams reportedly commented, there are two ways to conquer a nation, by the sword or by debt.

2. Excessive debt is a common aspect of failed socialist economies.

3. Formal "debt' usually does not include unfunded liabilities, promises to pay $$ in the future that exceed the amount of $$ that will be available in the future to make those payments (like social security and a number of gov't pensions). When unfunded liabilities are included, the debt picture looks uglier.

4. When gov't raises taxes, they often don't get the projected increase in tax collections as people alter their financial dealings to reduce their taxes.

5. The gov'ts marginal propensity to consume exceeds 1.0; meaning if they plan a tax/revenue increase of $100K, they will usually increase spending by ~$105K. So tax increases often increase the debt hole, not reduce it.

I believe sooner or later the debt will burn us.

quote:

Originally posted by sigalert:
Personally, I can’t see any way we pay it off.

I can.

You just run those printing presses hard, all day and all night!

You act like a dollar is a real thing.

One of my favorite memes from the Reddit Silver Squeeze thread carried the caption "What do you mean you sold all our silver for Monopoly Money?"

The "money" is conjured out of thin air by the fed. The problem is that the interest on that money is not.

ie. They create $100,000 @ 1% say. The .gov sends over a bond and the Fed sends back $100,000. But the interest is $1,000. That interest was never created so where does it come from if it doesn't exist? The current system is bankrupt and will always be short of enough "money" to ever pay the interest. We can never redeem all the bonds out there. That's a Ponzi scheme.

Glenn Beck and William Devane have advice for us.