Last night I posted a graph of the increase in US national debt. The recent ballooning of the debt makes the slope of the graph quite steep, and it will undoubtedly get even steeper.
Our national debt is currently said to be about $34.5 trillion. The latest population estimate I could find for the country is 331 million (the actual figure is probably several million higher than that, due to the huge influx of illegal immigrants in the last few years, but I’ll go with the official figure).
$34.5 trillion divided by 331 million people equals approximately $104,000 per man, woman, and child in the USA.
That figure includes minor children, welfare recipients, and officially acknowledged illegal immigrants, rather than actual taxpayers. I looked at the IRS website to get the number of people who file federal tax returns, and it’s roughly 162 million.
$34.5 trillion divided by 162 million taxpayers equals approximately $213,000 per taxpayer.
Mind you, that includes people who pay little or no tax. And the latter group includes rich people, who usually pay no more in tax than the average minimum-wage employee. Instead they pay a much smaller sum to accountants, and more importantly to lobbyists who make sure that Congress enacts the requisite tax loopholes. It’s a very cost-effective strategy if you’re in the top 1%.
In other words, the tax burden for repaying the national debt will be borne by middle-class taxpayers. I can’t give you an exact figure, but we know the average middle-class taxpayer would be on the hook for well over $213K.
And that’s just for the debt at its current level. Remember, it’s increasing at a rate of approximately $1 trillion every 100 days. That’s $3,021 per person, and an annual rate increase of $6,173 per person. If we just count the taxpayers, that’s an increase every year of $22,531 on the back of each taxpayer. And that’s assuming the rate of increase does not increase (the “delta squared”), which seems unlikely.
The upshot of all this is that the national debt will never be repaid. Productivity cannot possibly rise quickly enough to raise GDP to a level that would bring in enough tax money to pay off the debt.
There are only two possible ways to deal with the debt: (1) Repudiate it, or (2) Monetize it. #2 means printing more money, which is the current strategy. As more and more non-Western countries abandon using “the world’s reserve currency” to settle their trade deals, to keep the debt engine steaming along the USA has to lend the money to itself. That is, the Treasury issues bonds, and the Fed buys them. That’s the same as printing money.
The end result of #2 is hyperinflation, of which we are seeing the earliest signs.
The mandarins of the Deep State are not stupid. They know where all this is leading, and I assume they have some sort of plan to handle a hyperinflation crisis. One possible strategy is to start a major war, possibly even a nuclear one, which will justify all the controls and government repression needed to keep the peasants in line.
But there’s a new solution waiting in the wings: central bank digital currencies (CBDCs). It’s no coincidence that all Western countries are hustling to get their CBDCs online as fast as possible. Then, when the dollar and other currencies become worthless, the populace will be given the option of converting what little they have left into digital currency, which — surprise! — won’t be susceptible to inflation. They’ll just have to limit their driving (if they’re even allowed to have a vehicle), eat the bugs, live in a pod, and give up any hope of saving up to buy a house. But they’ll be allotted their Universal Basic Income in CBDC so that they can just barely stay alive.
I guess that’s better than having no money at all, but it sure sounds like a dismal future to me.
For a long time I am a believer in a scenario where “Atlantis” succeeds in creating AI powered society of android servants who will be alloted resources and workload by an app…
…but there might be a great miscalculation on the part of the computer freaks in that the whole thing might not survive the encounters with “more primitive methods of banking” – namely, the oldschool islamic gold for gold banking.
China is clearly the model society of high tech controlled servants but even they have some problems I heard with “motivation”, since there are no good ways to save money the Chinese keep on building crubling buildings and ascribe asset value to that, but that is so vastly inferior to plain old gold and silver as a store of value…
I predict that it will be Islam and their “fair banking” that will help Islam come to rule the world, because men can put up with Islam, but they can’t put up with high tech robotic slavery.
And then, who knows, maybe the Imams will take the spoils and reprogram the Apple wristwatch to mark everyone who critisizes Islam? Wouldn’t that be heaven on Earth?
It’s happening in most western countries who transferred billions in the Covid scam to Pfizer, Gates and other oligarch’s who were on the receiving end of the scam. The other scam is green energy where govt (taxpayer) money is transferred to oligarch’s for dubious projects. Once they have the money they move onto the next thing and the small number of taxpayers is left with the bill. The bills keep escalating.
The number of taxpayers is diminishing as a proportion of the economy in my belief as many of the new migrants don’t work. All our “asylum seekers” are fully funded by the taxpayer who is under more and more pressure and I don’t know how long this can go on. The next threat to the taxpayer is AI, many of the taxpayers will “fall over” as they will lose their jobs and there wont be another one because of spreading AI.
I would recommend to any young Australian just have children and get fully funded by the govt/taxpayer because it is too hard now to work, pay tax and have a decent life. There is just too little left at the end of the month to fund a quality lifestyle.
Eventually, computers will control all the essential functions and processes of society, leaving humans ample time to scrounge for food, protect themselves and their property from other humans, and watch Happy Fun Ball.
“Eventually, computers will control all the essential functions and processes of society”
WILL control? I think they DO control..
I agree with your general premise, but we should be getting our facts correct.
First up, rich people do pay accountants to find all of the tax loopholes possible but they STILL pay more tax in both absolute terms and on a percentage basis.
In 2019, the latest year for which there is public data, the top 1% of earners in the US earned 20.1% of the income reported but paid 38.8% of taxes for an effective rate of 25.6%. The bottom 50% of earners only reported 11.5% of the total income but paid only 3.1% of the taxes, for an effective rate of 3.5%.
The uncomfortable truth that everyone who equates “the rich” with the oligarchical elites that want to rule everything doesn’t want to face is that currently the top 10% of wage earners paid 71% of all income tax paid, and that’s AFTER they have paid the accountants to do every trick that can be found. It’s not “the rich” that aren’t paying their fair share. Indicating otherwise is buying into the Marxist propaganda and is not helpful.
Source: https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/summary-latest-federal-income-tax-data-2022-update/
Second, your math could use a little work.
If the debt is going up $1 trillion every 100 days, then that is indeed $3021.15 per (legal) resident, but there 3.65 100 day periods in a year so the annual increase is $11,027.19 per resident, or, yes, $22,530.86 per taxpayer. But the number of taxpayers is dropping fast as the Boomers fully retire out of the work force so this problem is worse than it appears on the bare face of it. There is absolutely no way, demographically, for an aging society to increase productivity short of killing off all of the elderly we need to take care of (Covid19?).
I agree there is no possible way for this debt to ever be paid back in kind. The only possible path forward is to inflate the value of the dollar away so those debts can be paid in meaningless money. What people don’t realize is that inflation is a tax on everyone who uses that money, so it will be in effect a giant bail in. This means the end of the dollar as a reserve currency, the end of American hegemonic power, and a reduction in the American standard of living of at least 30%.
And possibly, not owning anything and eating bugs.
And then theres guys like me who are going to go Galt by the end of the year when they steal or delete another election.
Im done supporting this BS in any way shape or form.
I don’t see any of our current systems surviving the thing that already is amongst us. All of this “stuff” requires a lot of electricity, oil, coal, nuclear and the rest, to operate, and with the kind of chaos we’re headed into, the systems that produce and distribute the energy we need to maintain the world we’re in, will collapse. Professionals are needed to run the grid, and we’re losing them daily, and not getting good replacements. Wokage graduates won’t fit the slots any better than children. The oil will stay in the ground, and the coal, and the ships and trains that move it, won’t move themselves. The dollar being a worthless piece of paper is only the tip of the iceberg.
You are largely correct, I think. The future of the “First World” looks more like South Africa than Disney’s Futureworld.
Take a trip to Switzerland, open a bank account and a safety deposit box, convert dollars into gold 1 ounce coins and Swiss Francs, that is what is called a hint. Otherwise suffer when the dollar collapses.
Re: “Mind you, that includes people who pay little or no tax. And the latter group includes rich people, who usually pay no more in tax than the average minimum-wage employee. Instead they pay a much smaller sum to accountants, and more importantly to lobbyists who make sure that Congress enacts the requisite tax loopholes. It’s a very cost-effective strategy if you’re in the top 1%.”
There’s the rub of the thing. The “1%” at the top of the wealth pyramid are wealthy, but the real big-dogs on the financial porch are the top-most 1/10th percenters, the multi-billionaires.
Billionaire Warren Buffett did a radio interview about fifteen years ago, maybe close to twenty, in which a financial reporter spoke with him about his businesses and so forth. The “Sage of Omaha” at one point boasted that he paid less in annual income taxes than his executive secretary. This is so because the very wealthy take most of their earnings as capital gains, which are taxed differently than income.
Buffett also let the mask slip a bit for a moment, saying “There’s war between people like me (a.k.a. the billionaire class) and people like you (ordinary working stiffs) and my side is winning it…”
Whenever the subject of this wealth disparity comes up, the billionaire oligarchs shift into a red-herring strategy which has been quite effective historically. Their cutouts, hired help and surrogates in Congress and the media then cry “Tax the rich!” but of course they don’t mean the billionaires. They mean tax the moderately wealthy, the folks who probably earned their money the old-fashioned way and maybe have wealth in the low seven-figure range and the like.
See how that works? The folks with the most-immense wealth on earth want to shift any tax burden onto the folks farther down the economic food-chain.
Between the loop-holes, off-shore tax shelters, and all of those accountants and lawyers, that’s how the super-rich get off the hook.
I am not arguing that these ultra-high net worth individuals should be cleaned out entirely by the IRS, but it seems wrong at very many levels indeed for them not to even pay as much in taxes as the regular working stiff.
But then, the rich live by a different set of rules than the ‘proles, right? As billionairess Leona Hemsley once said derisively, “Rules are for the little people…” Not for nothing was she called “The Queen of Mean”…
These super rich folks are in for one heck of a shock when the dollar and then the world economy crashes, it is why I offshored years ago.
It is germane to note that the Federal Reserve system, which was inaugurated in 1913, has presided over a 95% reduction in the real (inflation-adjusted) buying power of the U.S.dollar (USD). The dollar has lost that much real value over the 111-year time span the Fed has existed.
More than seventy percent of that decline has occurred since the 1970s when the Nixon Administration severed the last links of the USD to precious metals, in this case gold or silver. Which is why a brand-new Cadillac Endorado cost about $10,000 fifty years ago, but about five times that amount today. Debasement of the currency.
The late great Dr. Walter Williams, the renowned economist, once wrote that inflation is a form of hidden taxation, or less politely, theft. Every time the central bankers – meaning the Fed – inflate the money supply, it makes the dollars in your wallet or purse worth less, and therefore have less buying power.
The big banks profit immensely from this creation of money out of thin air; they then turn around and loan it to businesses, individuals and governments at highly profitable interest rates.
Inflation is sold by dignified bankers in expensive suits as an inevitable part of economic life. They solemnly intone that it is “necessary” to inject “liquidity” into the system for everyone’s benefit.
Gee, how come when Joe Average prints greenbacks in his basement, the cops come and arrest him and thrown him in prison, but when the Fed does it, it isn’t called “counterfeiting” but “increasing the money supply” instead? Nice racket they’ve got going there!
The Fed doesn’t exist to protect the economic assets of ordinary Americans or their well-being; it exists to do those things for the ruling class. It is, in a manner of speaking, their piggy-bank. Their ATM machine without a limit.
“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system, for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.” ~ Henry Ford
Those who want more of this ugly financial sausage-making are urged to read “The Creature from Jekyll Island,” by G. Edward Griffin, a well-done and meticulously researched “secret history” of the Fed.
When you start a new company, they teach in business school, it is wise to plan for a lifecycle of your product from start to finish.
The bankers are big into occult and they presumably carry ancient knowledge from as far in history as Babylon.
The point is, the “better bankers” probably plan the lifecycles of their currencies decades in advance.
The Dollar printed by the Federal Reserve seems to be following the same Bankster bait and switch plan where a currency once valuable, for it was based on gold or silver, is being debased for the benefit of big government and big business at the expense of ordinary people, and there will come a day when the Dollar will be worthless and a new currency will have to be established ASAP.
It’s nothing new under the Sun.
PS: It is a debt based system, meaning it multiplicates money through loans. Where before the loan there was a dollar, after the loan there is a dollar and a debt certificate which is tradeable for dollars – thus increasing of the money supply is an inherent feature of the debt based system. We are now so far in that people completely forgot that the first loans of their monetary system were in gold… Now we are running completely in debts which can never be repayed due to exponential growth of debt.
Debt based currencies are good for economic growth. But if unchecked, they end up in a monopoly game of the bigs who eat up the smalls.
In ancient Israel they would erase all debts every 50 years. It’s also a way, I guess. But the banksters who rule the currencies today seem hell bent to run the old bankster scenario through, bait them on good dollar and then give them loads of bad dollars.