Obama Debt in 45 days 294,000,000,000$-2017 set to be 2.45 trillion- Over 106% of GDP

106% of GDP, and has soared to 294,000,000,000$ in 45 days. If we stay this course we will have a 2,450,000,000,000$ debt in 2017.

Is level of debt an OK thing?

What happens when and if the govt cant use our system to keep the thing rolling?

According to data released by the Treasury Department yesterday, the US national debt has soared by a whopping $294 billion since the start of the 2017 fiscal year, just 45 days ago.

o if they keep up this pace, the national debt will increase by $2.4 trillion this fiscal year, surpassing $21 trillion by next September.

It’s hard to believe how rapidly the debt is growing; debt growth is far outpacing the growth of the US economy… and there’s no way to pretend that this is good news.

That doesn’t stop leading economists from trying.

Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman says “debt is good” because the US economy has grown so much over the last 200 years despite not having been debt-free since 1835.

This kind of logic is astonishing.

Aside from a few anomalies like World War II and the American Civil War, debt levels over most of early American history were low.

100 years ago in 1916, US debt was about $3.6 billion; as a percentage of GDP (i.e. the size of the US economy), that was about 7%.

Today’s debt of $19,867,119,032,053.28 is actually bigger than the entire US economy at over 106% of GDP

Yet in Krugman’s view, the fact that America prospered a century ago when the debt was 7% of GDP means that the nation will continue to prosper with a debt at 106% of GDP.

Amazingly enough, Krugman has been awarded our society’s most esteemed prize for intellectual achievement. It boggles the mind.

To be fair, there is such a thing as “good debt” versus “bad debt”, and it’s not difficult to distinguish between the two.

If you can borrow money at 5% in order to make a safe investment that has a 25% return, for example, that may very well qualify as “good debt”.

If you borrow money at 5%… or even 1%… and then squander the borrowed funds on useless trinkets, that’s clearly “bad debt”.

In 1803, the startup US government negotiated the Louisiana Purchase from France, a real estate acquisition that doubled the size of the US.

It was the mother of all distress sales. France was desperate for cash, and the administration of Thomas Jefferson negotiated a price that valued the land at around $15 million.

Adjusted for inflation to 2016 dollars, Thomas Jefferson paid about 40 cents per acre to acquire the land that comprises fifteen states and has generated trillions in economic activity.

Naturally the US government had to borrow money that year to conclude the Louisiana Purchase with France, so the national debt increased slightly in 1804.

But when you consider the extraordinary economic benefit of that purchase, it clearly qualifies as “good debt”.

Fast-forward to our modern era and we see that the debt is increasing by more than a trillion dollars each year.

What are the good citizens of the United States receiving in exchange for taking on so much debt?

It’s not like the government bought up half of Mexico or colonized Mars.

No, instead they wasted $2 billion on the Obamacare website, most of which went to a company whose top executive just happens to be an old friend of Michelle Obama.

Today, the US government has to borrow money just to pay interest on the money it’s already borrowed. This is almost the textbook definition of bad debt…

In fact, the government now spends nearly all of its tax revenue just on mandatory entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare, plus interest on the debt.

The real kicker is that Social Security and Medicare are massively underfunded and quickly running out of cash… so they’ll both require a major bailout (i.e. MORE debt).

Interest payments, meanwhile, total hundreds of billions of dollars each year even though interest rates are at record lows.

Today the government pays less than 2% interest on its debt.

Ten years ago in 2006, the average interest rate on US debt was over 5%.

Back then 5% was considered incredibly low compared to the higher interest rates of the 1980s and 1990s.

But today, 5% would bankrupt the US government. It’s pitiful.

So unless interest rates stay at these record lows forever (or perhaps go negative), the government’s interest payments are going to explode.

Debt… particularly bad debt… is an absolute killer.

Excess debt has been responsible for bringing down some of the largest companies in the world. It bankrupts individuals.

And excess debt has caused the decline of some of the largest superpowers in the history of the world.

There are a lot of people, led by their cheerleader Paul Krugman, who outright ignore this problem and pretend that the US government can continue expanding its debt forever without ever suffering a single consequence.

And I know there are a lot of people keeping their fingers crossed hoping that a new administration will steer the ship in the right direction.

Look, I’m all for hope and optimism.

But it’s important to stay rational. These problems aren’t going away.

www.zerohedge.com...

a reply to: seasonal

Well, it will be fixed. See, Trump has a plan. He says he will order that more money be printed. Seems mathematically sound to me.

Taxes, deficit, and debt are irrelevant. All that matters is the purchasing power of median worker's take home pay. You can't talk about taxes, deficit, and debt without considered the cost of goods and services. If you are only concentrated on half of the equation you might as well cut off one of your legs. The problem we have in this country is from having no free markets and no competition. Corporations can charge whatever they want. CEOs can take has much pay as they want. When you have no competition you get rid of the excesses in the privately owned bureaucracies.

The problems with our country are not rocket science. The lobbyists force the politicians to pass laws creating cartels and monopolies in exchange for campaign financing. There's are specific reasons why wealth inequality in this country, and the rest of the world, is at all time highs. Money talks, and the people without money have no representation.

You know the good thing about the debt. Whoever holds it sure as hell isn't going to get it paid back!

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: seasonal

Well, it will be fixed. See, Trump has a plan. He says he will order that more money be printed. Seems mathematically sound to me.

his economic plan is pretty sound actually
See, he is gonna spend a lot more on military, and infrastructure, and cut taxes.

..wait, this is a stupid plan.

oh, here it is, okay. the plan is to make tons of jobs. jobs like you wouldn't believe. bigly lots of jobs, and voila.
seems solid.

Makes for a great headline doesn't it? Last 45 days Obama goes on a spending spree. Not. The majority of the debt is actually service (interest) on the existing debt. As you probably have seen with your credit cards, if you can't pay down the balance it increases geometrically. Remember those times when Congress played economic-chicken with the country? Each time their solution? Raise the debt ceiling. So there you have it. We have a bunch of people running this country that could care less about fiduciary responsibility. They're all just interested in getting 'theirs'. But as soon as Mr. Trump buffs up the military and builds his wall and hands out his corporate tax breaks I'm sure he'll be all over that debt. So don't you worry.

a reply to: seasonal

Don't worry, you will finally get all those cuts, get rid of medicare, Medicaid, social security. There is no reason why it can't all happen now without Obama and democrats in the way.

a reply to: dfnj2015

yep
and that`s why politicians no longer care about the debt they know that we have long past the point of no return of being able to repay the debt so might as well just keep borrowing as much as we can,in for a penny in for a pound.

when the time comes that we can no longer afford to even pay the interest we`ll default on the entire debt.defaulting on 50 trillion in debt will have the same consequences as defaulting on 20 trillion debt so might as well keep borrowing and enjoy the good times while we can.If we can kick the can far enough down the road we`ll all be dead when the default comes and it will be someone elses problem to deal with.

a reply to: Tardacus

The debt is irrelevant. It's not within our control to get rid of it:

"So our debt just keeps going up and up and up. While Barack Obama has been in the White House our national debt has risen by more than 9 trillion dollars, and at this moment it is sitting just under the 20 trillion dollar mark.

But we shouldn’t be surprised by this, because this is precisely what the Federal Reserve system was designed to do to us."

theeconomiccollapseblog.com...

originally posted by: reldra
a reply to: seasonal

Well, it will be fixed. See, Trump has a plan. He says he will order that more money be printed. Seems mathematically sound to me.

If he order the US Treasury to print legal tender or interest free money we have chance. As long as the Federal Reserve controls the money supply we are doomed.

"Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws". Mater Amschel Rothschild

Ya gotta admit that Obama has spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
This kind of spending will catch up to us all in the end.

a reply to: jtma508

Obama single handedly doubled the debt during his term.

And he never had a budget passed either.

He has been using the stimulus funding as a nearly trillion dollar slush fund every year as well.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Ya gotta admit that Obama has spent like a drunken sailor on shore leave.
This kind of spending will catch up to us all in the end.

That's BS. The president have very little power over spending.

originally posted by: Deny Arrogance
a reply to: jtma508

Obama single handedly doubled the debt during his term.

And he never had a budget passed either.

He has been using the stimulus funding as a nearly trillion dollar slush fund every year as well.

It's pure delusion to think the American people cannot produce enough wealth to have everyone's needs met 3 times over. The problem is wealth inequality and the Federal Reserve will not allow our country EVER to get out of debt.

a reply to: reldra
Well if he printed the money and paid off the debt, and didn't add to it, let's do it. Right now we are adding to it at an alarming rate.

Well, it will be fixed. See, Trump has a plan. He says he will order that more money be printed. Seems mathematically sound to me.

Both parties have proven they are going to continue to spend like a teen aged girl with daddys credit card...So why do people keep voting for them?

a reply to: jtma508

So where did 10 trillion of that debt come from? The buck stops where?

Makes for a great headline doesn't it? Last 45 days Obama goes on a spending spree. Not. The majority of the debt is actually service (interest) on the existing debt. As you probably have seen with your credit cards, if you can't pay down the balance it increases geometrically. Remember those times when Congress played economic-chicken with the country? Each time their solution? Raise the debt ceiling. So there you have it. We have a bunch of people running this country that could care less about fiduciary responsibility. They're all just interested in getting 'theirs'. But as soon as Mr. Trump buffs up the military and builds his wall and hands out his corporate tax breaks I'm sure he'll be all over that debt. So don't you worry.

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: reldra
Well if he printed the money and paid off the debt, and didn't add to it, let's do it. Right now we are adding to it at an alarming rate.

Well, it will be fixed. See, Trump has a plan. He says he will order that more money be printed. Seems mathematically sound to me.

Legal tender is not the same thing as Federal Reserve Notes. If the home of the once brave ever finds enough courage to become free again Lincoln showed us the way:

"During the Civil War (1861-1865), President Lincoln needed money to finance the War from the North. The Bankers were going to charge him 24% to 36% interest. Lincoln was horrified and went away greatly distressed, for he was a man of principle and would not think of plunging his beloved country into a debt that the country would find impossible to pay back."

"Eventually President Lincoln was advised to get Congress to pass a law authorizing the printing of full legal tender Treasury notes to pay for the War effort. Lincoln recognized the great benefits of this issue. At one point he wrote: "

"(we) gave the people of this Republic the greatest blessing they have ever had – their own paper money to pay their own debts..."

"The Treasury notes were printed with green ink on the back, so the people called them "Greenbacks". "

"Lincoln printed 400 million dollars worth of Greenbacks (the exact amount being $449,338,902), money that he delegated to be created, a debt-free and interest-free money to finance the War. It served as legal tender for all debts, public and private. He printed it, paid it to the soldiers, to the U.S. Civil Service employees, and bought supplies for war.
Shortly after that happened, The London Times printed the following: "If that mischievous financial policy, which had its origin in the North American Republic, should become indurated down to a fixture, then that Government will furnish its own money without cost. It will pay off debts and be without a debt. It will have all the money necessary to carry on its commerce. It will become prosperous beyond precedent in the history of the civilized governments of the world. The brains and the wealth of all countries will go to North America. That government must be destroyed, or it will destroy every monarchy on the globe."

Lincoln was then killed because of this policy. There was an attempt to murder Andrew Jackson because he created interest free money. Kennedy was assassinated for creating interest free money. It's probably too much to ask a president to be so brave as to create a new batch of treasury notes.

"Give me control of a nations money supply, and I care not who makes it’s laws". Mater Amschel Rothschild

originally posted by: seasonal
a reply to: jtma508

So where did 10 trillion of that debt come from? The buck stops where?

One thing is for sure. The who ever holds the debt is SOL because it's never going to be paid back.

a reply to: MOMof3

The are funded with $ from payroll taxes, and I doubt will go anywhere. They may have to adjust the taxes or benefits like have done with medicare/aid.

Don't worry, you will finally get all those cuts, get rid of medicare, Medicaid, social security. There is no reason why it can't all happen now without Obama and democrats in the way.

originally posted by: Thoren
Both parties have proven they are going to continue to spend like a teen aged girl with daddys credit card...So why do people keep voting for them?

I agree. Voting is a complete waste of time and has no meaning.