Tag: debt

Whistling Past The $70 Trillion Debt Graveyard

Authored by Lance Roberts via RealInvestmentAdvice.com,

The $70 Trillion Dollar Graveyard

On Thursday, Congress passed the spending bill we discussed last week:

“A divided House on Thursday passed a two-year budget deal that would raise spending by hundreds of billions of dollars over existing caps and allow the Government to keep borrowing to cover its debts, amid grumbling from fiscal conservatives over the measure’s effect on the federal deficit.

65 Republicans joined the Democratic majority in the 284-149 vote, with 132 Republicans voting against the bill, despite President Trump’s endorsement and pressure from key outside groups, including the Chamber of Commerce, to avoid a potentially catastrophic default on the Government’s debt.” 

I highlighted the last sentence in red because it is an outright “LIE” used to convince Americans that out of control spending must be done. 

The reality is that “interest payments on the debt” are part of the MANDATORY spending in our budget along with social security, medicare, etc. Currently, about $0.75 of every dollar of tax revenue goes to mandatory spending. For the last few months the Government has been at its statutory debt limit, and “surprise” we didn’t default on our debt. Why? Because there is enough revenue currently coming in to cover the mandatory spending.

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Preparing for the Storm: The Perfect Storm.

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Out here in the still-free internet, the ether lends itself to utilizing a wide array of digital media as the means to provide source attribution as well as to establish commonality and understanding amongst ourselves.  This is, perhaps, the primary reason how internet blogs became the new town square in this millennium.  In the old days it was courthouses and town halls, and pubs.  Today, we meet in chatrooms, and on pages and threads.

It means if this blogger to were to write on how we’ve all become Sarah Conner in the Jeep riding into the storm at the end of the first Terminator film – a photo of that moment could be posted at the top of the article for emphasis.  Or, better yet, a video of that scene could be hyper-linked into the text.

Truly, it is the best of times and the worst of times.

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Time is the Fire By Which We Burn

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

…Tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow
Creeps in this petty pace from day to day
To the last syllable of recorded time.
And all our yesterdays have lighted fools
The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle.
Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player
That struts and frets his hour upon the stage,
And then is heard no more. It is a tale
Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,
Signifying nothing.

– Shakespeare, William (1606).  “Macbeth”, Act 5, scene 5

 

In that passage of Shakespeare’s “Macbeth”, the protagonist turned antagonist swallows hopelessness and nihilism like an opiate. He does so for this reason: If life is meaningless, then so, too, are regret and guilt. It’s also been said that quote represented Shakespeare’s own view of theater – as all the drama was meant to invoke emotional responses from the audience after a suspension of disbelief had occurred.

In so many ways does the inevitable unfurl like a divine comedy; or a Shakespearean tragedy.  Even now as the tin-foil hat-wearing conspiracy theorists and fake news propagandists in the Mainstream Media, along with their comrades in The Resistance, tear at their clothing and gnash their teeth in the wake of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s gigantic nothing-burger.

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All the ways Gen X is financially wrecked

Via Marketwatch

Reality bites.

While millennials garner much of the negative press around financial issues — they live with their parents because they can’t get jobs! They spend all their money on avocado toast! — Gen Xers may be the ones who are really in trouble.

Just 16% of Gen Xers say that they included financial planning in their 2019 goals, according to a recent survey from Allianz Life. That’s compared with 27% of millennials. And when asked what 2019 resolution they were most likely to make, and to keep, just 38% mentioned managing money better and saving more; meanwhile 50% of millennials said that.

That lack of planning and goal-keeping could make a bad situation worse — as Gen X may already be financially worse off than other generations in a number of ways.

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Debt Trifecta at All-Time Highs – Billionaires Panic

From Birch Gold Group

The “trifecta” of national, corporate, and consumer debt has reached all-time highs, and could prove to be catastrophic if a recession hits.

Let’s start by quickly bringing each part of this debt trifecta up to date as much as possible…

U.S. National Debt

The national debt, ever on the rise, currently sits at around $22 trillion:

us debt

In just the short decade since 2008, the debt has jumped from $10.6 trillion to $22 trillion. It also comes with a deficit that’s currently over $1 trillion currently. The interest payments alone may be forming a “black hole” from which the U.S. may never escape.

These facts alone should raise concern in any interested observer.

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The Most Interesting Man in the World: Two Faces on the Same Coin

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

Presidential elections are planned distractions

To divert attention from the action behind the scenes

Like a game of chess when the house is a mess

Or a petty money squabble when your marriage is in trouble

Or a football game when there’s rioting in the streets

It’s just another movie, another song and dance

Another poor sucker who never had a chance

– Timbuk3. “Just Another Movie”, Greetings From Timbuk3 (1986), Mamdadaddi Music/I.R.S. Music, Inc. admin. by Atlantic Music

 

Before the big game there’s a coin toss and by the luck of the draw, decisions are made even before the teams take the field. It is the same for politics with, perhaps, the exception of luck having anything to do with the outcomes.  Regardless, the games play on our screens and we passively watch; anxiously waiting to see what happens.

It’s an all-or-nothing blitz to score big and winners take all.  In the interim, there are the commercial breaks revealing ads refined by the fires of focus groups and in boardrooms.

Edward Bernays, the influential pioneer of public relations and the nephew of iconic psychologist Sigmund Freud, wrote in his 1928 book “Propaganda” (page 37) regarding an “unseen mechanism of society” that constituted “an invisible government” that was, assuredly,  “the true ruling power of our country”. Bernays added:  “We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of.”

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U.S. Debt Worries Fed Chairman Powell – Fears May Be Confirmed in March

From Birch Gold Group

us debt worries

As we enter 2019, the U.S. national debt continues to grow, approaching $22 trillion with global Government debt sitting at $72 trillion.

It seems like the 21st century is hitting the U.S. with a debt “haymaker,” according to CNBC (emphasis ours):

U.S. debt began accelerating at the turn of the 21st century. The total jumped 85 percent to $10.6 trillion during former President George W. Bush’s two terms, another 88 percent to $19.9 trillion under President Barack Obama and has risen 10 percent during the first two years of President Donald Trump’s term.

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A Satirical Dream: Trump’s 2019 State of the Union Address

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

Mr. Speaker, Mr. Vice President, Members of Congress, the First Lady of the United States, and my fellow Americans:

It’s been another year since your president has stood before you to, once again, deliver yet another State of the Union address.

Tonight, however, will not be the standard fare.  Instead of half-truths and false optimism, I am going to set aside all that in order to say what I believe is true.

Dear citizens, we now stand a crossroads and we must choose.  We must choose if we are to move forward and deal with the real problems facing our nation, or to progress as a country of corruption; whether to return to our roots as an honorable republic – a nation of laws,  or to continue our decline into lawlessness and the abyss.

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New Year’s Notions Loosely Liberated and to Some Extent in Sequence

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

You can’t stop what’s comin’. It ain’t all waitin’ on you. That’s vanity.

– “No Country for Old Men”, 2007, Miramax Films

 

It’s a new year and time for new beginnings. But what does it mean exactly? Of course, it’s about time.  I mean, that’s the answer.  It is, truly, about time.  Think about it.  Time has a beginning, middle, and an end.  You were born, a bunch of stuff happened, a lot of stuff is going on now, and, soon, more things will occur. Right up to the end. The very end, that is.

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2019 FROM A FOURTH TURNING PERSPECTIVE

“An impasse over the federal budget reaches a stalemate. The president and Congress both refuse to back down, triggering a near-total government shutdown. The president declares emergency powers. Congress rescinds his authority. Dollar and bond prices plummet. The president threatens to stop Social Security checks. Congress refuses to raise the debt ceiling. Default looms. Wall Street panics.” – The Fourth Turning – Strauss & Howe

Image result for budget impasse trump schumer

Strauss and Howe wrote their book in 1996. They were not trying to be prophets of doom, but observers of history able to connect events through human life cycles of 80 or so years. Using critical thinking skills and identifying the most likely triggers for crisis: debt, civic decay, and global disorder, they were able to anticipate scenarios which could drive the next crisis, which they warned would arrive in the mid-2000 decade. The scenario described above is fairly close to the current situation, driven by the showdown between Trump and the Democrats regarding the border wall.

It has not reached the stage where all hell breaks loose, but if it extends until the end of January and food stamp money is not distributed to 40 million people (mostly in urban ghettos) all bets are off. The likelihood of this scenario is small, but there are numerous potential triggers which could still make 2019 go down in history as a year to remember.

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The Intersectionality of Online Shitfests, Political Tribalism, Religion, Systemic Oppression, & Useful Idiocy

By Doug “Uncola” Lynn via TheBurningPlatform.com

 

– Liberal democracy is antithetical to multiculturalism.

–  Z-man

 

Of course, Z-man’s quote above would cause a gaggle of snowflakes to scream in unison: “Racism!”.   And, if the past is any indicator, then the next exclamation out their collective mouths would be something like:   “America has always been a nation of immigrants!”  Yet what they fail to consider is how past generations of United States immigrants assimilated into American culture.  This is not happening today.  Indeed. It does appear liberal democracies the world over, have been sacrificed upon the altar of multiculturalism and via the thought-control mechanism enforced by the globalists:  Political Correctness.

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How the Country Goes Broke…

Guest Post by Bill Bonner

DELRAY BEACH, FLORIDA – We’re down in Florida to meet a new grandchild.

It’s a different world down here – different from Ireland, Maryland, France, Argentina… our usual haunts.

Florida is flat. And barely above sea level. If the North Pole keeps warming, much of South Florida will be underwater soon.

The people here are different, too. They are either young, tanned, and taut… muscled and contoured. Or they are old, broken-down retirees. There don’t seem to be many in the middle… ordinary people, that is.

And they all seem to have a shorter outlook, as if they were aware that they will soon be swept away by the waves. People here are more eager to go out… to show off… and to spend money.

Cars, for example, are newer and cleaner than those you see on the streets of Baltimore. And they are bigger and flashier than those you see on the country roads of Ireland. Houses, too, at least along the coast here, are bigger and fancier.

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Debt, Death, and the US Empire

Guest Post by Antonius Aquinas

Deep State Operative John Bolton

In a talk which garnered little attention, one of the Deep State’s prime operatives, National Security Advisor John Bolton, cautioned of the enormous and escalating US debt.  Speaking before the Alexander Hamilton Society, Bolton warned that current US debt levels and public obligations posed an “economic threat” to the nation’s security:

It is a fact that when your national debt gets to the level ours is, that it constitutes an economic threat to the society.  And that kind of threat ultimately has a national security consequence for it.*

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Investors Are Going to Get Scalped

Guest Post by Bill Bonner

BALTIMORE – We spent a delightful, long Thanksgiving weekend in the country, entertaining children and grandchildren. Not once did we open our laptop computer or look at the headlines.

But now, it is another workweek, and we’re back on the job. As usual, we are looking at dots… and wondering how they got to be so goofy.

Particularly Moronic

This morning, for example, brings a particularly moronic news item from CNBC. The report tells us that the Dow has another 2,000 points left to drop before recovering:

More than half of the members of the CNBC Global CFO Council think the Dow Jones Industrial Average will fall below 23,000 – roughly 2,000 points from its current level – before the stock market barometer is ever able to top the 27,000 level. The 23,000 level would equate to another 8 percent in decline among the Dow group of stocks before the selling stops.

But hey… why stop there?

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Seventh-Inning Debt Stretch

Guest Post by John Mauldin

Science tells us energy can neither be created nor destroyed within a closed system. Whatever amount is there will stay the same, though it might change form. If only the same were true for debt.

Within the closed system called Earth, we are much better at creating debt than eliminating it. But when we have too much, we eventually eliminate it in painful and unpleasant ways via some kind of debt crisis. This has happened over and over again throughout history.

Today we’ll look at a new book by Ray Dalio called Principles for Navigating Big Debt Crises in which he examines those debt cycles and what we can do about them. I read it on my recent trip to Frankfurt and I highly recommend you do the same. That link is for Amazon but you can also get a free PDF copy here. I read it on my Kindle so I could highlight and save notes in the cloud for later reference. Worth every penny of the $14.99 I spent.

At a minimum, you should read the first 60 pages, which explain his principles and thoughts. The rest of the book dives deep in the weeds of 48 modern debt crises, sorting them into different types and then analyzing each type. Data wonks will love that part. Ray gives us a brilliant tour de force examination of how debt crises arise and what you can do when one strikes.

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