How debt could blow up the economy

[BA Deere]

While small minds are focused on small stories like Stormy McDaniels and invisible, non-existent  Russian boogymen, this debt thing is fixin` to nail us with a real left hook.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/how-debt-could-blow-up-the-trump-economy/ar-BBKeOXQ?ocid=spa...  

To the chickens afraid to click on a MSN link, this is about all you need to know....oooo pretty picture!

[hardnox]

https://www.cbpp.org/research/economic-downturn-and-legacy-of-bush-policies-continue-to-drive-large-...

Unfortunately a solid minority of the American people failed to learn the lesson and elected for Bushonomics on steroids.

[r3020]

Says the progressive that wants free health care and free college.

[wehav]

The MAJORITY of Americans don't have the slightest clue about compound interest. 

20% have more credit debt than savings.

70% have less than $1000 in savings.

I believe many have no idea how little their social security check is going to be in relation to their cost of living. 

I know of some people that are in their 70's and still have years left to pay off their house.  Houses are a foolish investment in my opinion if they exceed the size a family needs.  Or if they are being looked at as an investment.

This attitude carries over into their voting and with the Democrat/communist/socialist phrase calling taxes investments it's no wonder we're in deep debt.  The current administration still isn't fixing the problem.  You can have all the freedoms you want but if you are still paying people to have freedoms at other peoples expense it's wrong and going to ruin the country.

[bruce MN]

Reading this thread is like going through stuff like we did when we moved. Running across an old book or maybe some magazine that you kept with an article bookmarked and reading it again.  I re-read Huckleberry Finn and Great Expectations in my 50’s as the result of moving a bookshelf. ( note: I see that the liberal PC police are banning Huck in some places. Morons.)

Somebody must have just stumbled over Atlas Shrugged.

[hardnox]

We've nearly doubled the debt every 8 years.

I will submit that doubling $20T will be quite a feat, but I wouldn't rule it out.

Actually not that hard if you think about it- there will be a hard recession sometime and given the structural limits to revenue now in place we could lay down a couple 5s in a row.

[hardnox]

Since 1981 we've basically purchased every cent of incremental GDP growth with sovereign debt.

[BA Deere]

Actually in the 80`s national debt to GDP% was 40%....so Reagan and Bush #41 could sorta kinda borrow $1 and get $2 in GDP growth (to a point).   Now (Obama/Trump era) the nat debt is +100% of GDP, so unless you spend very wisely you slip like racing slicks on a frozen pond.  

Regan had a gimmick of low debt in a growing economy, all he had to do was give it reign.  Obama`s gimmick was the 0% interest rate that gave breathing room before the "balloon payment come`s due".  The task Trump signed up for is to find a new gimmick, all I can think it would be is to somehow give our creditors a haircut.   Whatever the new gimmick is, it will not continue as business as we`ve known it.

A $40 Trillion national debt?  We would have to peel off too much of the world`s GDP...there is a point were there isn`t enough money in the entire world to keep this going.  

When there`s a new crop of 18yr old "skin head lesbians" chopping at the bit, basing their upcoming vote on which politician promises the freest healthcare and freest college cost.   I don`t see how fiscal sanity stands a chance in politically flattening the debt growth curve.  It will have to come from the caterers just refusing to continue refilling the punchbowl.

PS.  We aren`t even talking about personal mortgages, farm debt, credit card debt, student loans ect

[hardnox]

I was certain that Good People had nothing to do with any of it.

[BA Deere]

Good people had as much to do with "it" as anyone, they fight for their God given right to buy pink, plastic flamingoes and $5 t-shirts at Walmart.  China gladly picked up the slack, putting 12yr old to sewing and doing other "jobs that Americans won`t do".   

Even today, click on US Farm Report and Tyne Morgan and Jon Phipps only see appeasing counties that buy our ag products, at the expense of the bigger US export economy.  Good people are selfish too.