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Thursday, July 5, 2012

US Federal Debt

Just wanted to take a quick moment to post about US Government debt.
Back in 2008, I posted about US debt, and linked to a movie called I.O.U USA.
That movie projected a scary budget debt for 2008 at 410 billion. (ended up 460 Billion).
In 2009, the final year for George Bush budgets, the debt was 1.4 Trillion.
Since then, Obama has managed to keep the deficit each about  1.3-1.5 Trillion.
This chart shows 2010,11,12 each one about 1.3 trillion per year.

So at end of 2009, US total debt was at 11.9 trillion.  the projected debt at end of 2012 is 16.4 trillion, a run rate of about 1.5 trillion per year.  I am confused why the site that I used doesn't align with the 1.3 trillion figure.  So lets go with 1.5 trillion per year for Obama, 100 billion more than final year of Bush.

That is a WHOPPING 41% gain in debt in 3 years!!

One can clearly see this is not sustainable.  Matter of fact, if the chart was a stock chart, many would call for stock collapse as it can't continue to be a parabolic rise. See below.



The key element to keep in mind is a DEBT BASED system with the chart above CANNOT continue forever.  However, there are many ways to morph this system.
One is to eliminate debt based system.  If US simply printed money or the Federal reserve bank bought 100% of US bonds, debt magically becomes irrelevant.

This of course can bring on new problems, one of which could be currency collapse.
But theoretically, it could solve the parabola above.

As for blame, well, there is blame for each political party.  Using the chart below, clearly every president since WW 2 was fiscally responsible, until Reaganomics.  Since then Reagan the big W clearly did much to blow up the debt.  If Reagan and Bush where fiscally responsible, we would have been debt free by the time Obama rolled in.   I hear much about how horrible Obama is, I am not a fan.  But he isn't any different than Reagan or Bush for budget responsibility.


I would love to see deficits of 460 billion, seems so reasonable now.....and I am sure in a few years 1.5 trillion will seem like the "fiscally responsible days".  Republican or Democrat, the outcome is the same, pander and kick the can, it is only a matter of the packaging.  

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