Editor’s note: The print version of this article indicated U.S. debt was at $28.4 trillion. Updated information shows U.S. debt at $30 trillion.
This letter is a warning from a Cassandra. I see a rhino on the horizon and it’s coming straight at us. We are treating it much as we are treating global warming — i.e. it’s an illusion, it isn’t happening, we can solve it if and when it gets here; don’t worry about it unless it arrives, our leaders are aware of it and will take care of it. Like Cassandra, who was given the gift of prophecy by the Greek god Apollo but was doomed to never be believed, I fear I too won’t be believed.
Only half of our federal budget is funded by our taxes, with the other is borrowed against the dollar — not funded by production or other tangible assets. This is like maxing out our credit cards to live while also asking the bank to give us a second mortgage on the increased value of our home. All of this is being done so we can continue our standard of living in spite of inflation.
As a nation, and as individuals, we are borrowing and going into debt at an ever-accelerating rate. We seem to have a generation that assumes debt is a good thing — student debt, mortgage debt, national debt, etc.
It isn’t. This is why our federal debt is now over $30 trillion and climbing.
The only way we could have prevented this from happening is to have paid higher taxes or spend less back 1971. Yes, those same taxes on the wealthy and corporations that have not been paid, but instead are being used to fly to Mars or buy Twitter. If we had not lowered taxes on the wealthy, produced something to sell, prevented the importation of everything from other nations, and lived within our means, we would not be the biggest debtor nation in the world.
The rhino will come crashing the stock market and housing values within the next three years. When it does, the collapse will be way worse than 2008. The banks are not legally allowed to get bailed out this time. They will have to bail in by taking all of your accounts and limiting what you can spend just like they have done in India, Greece, Cyprus, Argentina, Venezuela, Brazil, Sri Lanka, etc.
If you hope that your leaders will solve the problem in one election cycle, dream on. They’ll go to the same financial advisors that got us here in the first place for a solution, the same advisors that are lying to us about how this inflation is only temporary. If you think inflation is bad now, just wait until all our borrowing against the dollar finally comes home to roost.
I suggest you get prepared, and I don’t mean learning how to bug out in a tarp and survive by rubbing two sticks together. Learn how to bug in. Read “Surviving the Economic Collapse” by Fernando Ferfal Aquirre — it’s how he and his family survived the Argentine collapse of 2001.
Eugene Clegg
Enumclaw
