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America The Insolvent
Watching the world these days, I’m experiencing the same fury that rises up from my gut when the driver in the car ahead me is weaving drunkenly, endangering everyone on the road.
Fury is a normal and rational human response when threatened with unnecessary harm. Women who are groped (or worse) by a disgusting predator like Harvey Weinstein, pensioners whose funds are stolen by Wall Street shysters, everyone who is being fleeced by corporations in search of a few extra dollars this quarter — all have the right to be infuriated.
It’s been especially hard of late for those of us who are “reality”-based; who value data, fundamentals and historical context.
I earn my living by reading, analyzing and making sense of the world, and then working to help orient people’s actions to align with both the current reality and future probabilities. But that’s become pretty damn difficult in a world where the financial markets are rigged and the main news outlets are unwilling (unable?) to cover the real issues, preferring instead to focus on distractions that mainly serve to keep us isolated and divided.
The trajectory our global society is on will not end well, and that infuraties me. And the fact that most of the coming suffering is unnecessary if only we’d make better choices — that really pisses me off.
Here’s just a small smattering of the threats we’ve created for ourselves:
- $247 trillion of global debt, growing exponentially
- Off-budget liabilities well over a quadrillion dollars globally ($220+ trillion in the US alone)
- Massively underfunded pensions mathematically unable to meet their future obligations
- A coming peak in world oil supply somewhere between 2020-2030 (and around 2022 for the US)
- A global economy that requires perpetual growth, but can’t grow for much longer due to planetary resource constraints
- Huge demographic imbalances in Japan, the US, the EU and Russia that will leave too few workers supporting too many elderly
- Collapsing ecosystems and increasing heatwaves on both land and sea, threatening crop failures and food chain disruptions.
Collectively these all point to a future of less. Perhaps even a future of nothing.
Our only option for safely navigating towards a better future is to start dedicating a huge amount of focus, time, energy and resources to addressing these threats.
But, unfortunately, that’s simply not happening right now.
Unsustainable Finances
We don’t have much time left to get prepared. Yes, it’s rare for things to suddenly fall apart overnight — so if you’re playing the odds, we probably have a few years left before the status quo as we know it begins to break down. Maybe until 2020; possibly to 2023. But not much longer after that.
The trends are just too severe. And they’re building up steam.
Setting aside for a moment the frightening ecological and energy trends, a cursory glance at the fiscal and economic data still screams: This is unsustainable!
Look at the projected deficit for the US government:
The US government is currently in fiscal tax year 2018. That means next year’s projected deficit will breach the trillion mark, and things only get worse from there. By 2028 the deficit will be at least $1.7 trillion and possibly as much as $2.4 trillion.
It bears noting that current US tax receipts are just a smidge over $2 trillion. And as the chart below shows, they tend to drop precipitously during recessions:
Delusionionaly, the government’s projection of federal deficits doesn’t include any provisions for recessions over the next decade. This is nuts; recessions are a normal and recurring part of our economic system.
And due to the Federal Reserve’s tinkering to control the business cycle by replacing it with a credit cycle, the next recession is likely to be a doozy — because when credit cycles burst, they are immediately and powerfully contractionary.
So it’s not at all unthinkable that at some point between here and 2028 the US government will find itself borrowing more than 100%(!) of tax receipts in a given year.
That, my friends, is an express ticket to Venezuela-style insolvency.
But wait, there’s more. Two other very much out-of-control elements exacerbating these fiscal deficits will be rising interest costs and Social Security.
Debt Will Become More Costly To Service
Interest costs have a bad habit of being self-reinforcing. The more you borrow the higher your interest costs. But if you’re the government, there’s an added complexity: the more you borrow, the more you tend to also drive up the interest rate, which is an additional compounding factor.
Interest payments are already 25% of tax receipts and are certain to climb as the US federal government tacks on another $13 to $17 trillion in additional debt over the next ten years. Or possibly nearly twice that if a severe recession comes along, as is highly likely.
Under the best scenario (“only” $13 trillion) and assuming a very generous average rate of interest of 3%, that will result in some $400 billion of new, incremental yearly interest payments by 2028.
Under the worst scenario, (let’s assume an incremental $25 trillion of new debt at 5%) that would balloon to an incremental $1.25 trillion in new interest costs. Per year.
Social Security Reserves Are On Their Way To $0
Social Security is now in a cash deficit.
It’s drawing down its “trust fund”, even though this “fund” doesn’t have any actual money in it (just IOU’s from the US Treasury). Put simply, every time the SS administration draws upon the trust fund, it hands some of those IOUs to the US Treasury in return for cash.
And how does the US Treasury get that cash? That’s right: by issuing more debt.
As we can see in this next chart from the SS administration, nearly $3 trillion will be required over the 2018 to 2032 period. After which point, the SS trust fund reserves are gone:
NOTE: we will be going much deeper into these kinds of data at our Summit in New York City with David Stockman on Sep 16, 2018. As former head of the Office of Management and Budget under President Reagan, David has a near-unparalleled command of the vulnerabilities of the US economy and financial markets, as well as what likely repercussions their failure will bring. To learn more about that event, click here.
By Definition, This Will End
All of the above is simply an exercise to show that just when looking at the US economy alone — forget about the issues facing other countries and accelerating depletion of key resources (soil/aquifers/fossil fuels/pollinators/etc) around the world — the current trajectory is entirely unsustainable.
Meaning it must someday end. Whether that will manifest in a sudden castrophe, or in a drawn-out crescendo of accumulating crises, who knows?
But what won’t be happening is “more of the same”. Or a straight-line continuation of business as usual.
I can make the same trend extrapolation arguments for water aquifers and glacial flows serving billions of people. And with soil loss, and oceanic dead zones, and oil production.
None of this is sustainable.
This existential threat to our safety is the root reality, whether we’re conscious of it or not, underlying why so many of us are feeling infurated these days.
And while that fury often takes a partisan bent, our predicaments have nothing whatsoever to do with any particular political party. All are the same when it comes to fostering business as usual. All are identical in their support for endless growth. They merely argue over which misguided steps to take in pursuit of those doomed goals.
As the video below explains, everyone buying into the false ‘left vs right’ framing is being manipulated. Just as two rats in a cage, shocked by an unseen scientist, will direct their anger at each other, oblivious to the true assailant:
The Elites Are Already Making Preparations
The sheer obviousness of our collective predicaments combined with the near complete absence of any collective conversation about them is infuriating.
Worse, the powers that be are very busy propping markets in order to send the signal that “all is well” when everything is very much not well. Far too many people fall for this deception for my comfort.
As we can plainly see in the data presented above, the US is now utterly insolvent and headed towards bankruptcy. Most other nations are just as bad off, or worse. All are pursuing the same insane, impossible policy: Grow exponentially. Forever.
Which makes the current crop of politicians and monetary authorities no better than heavily-intoxicated truck drivers, drunkenly weaving their gigantic rigs in front of your family’s car. Their recklessness to everyone else’s well-being is infuriating.
The few paying attention, like you, can see that all of this falls apart sooner or later. The critical question to ask ourselves is: What should we prioritize doing now, in advance of the reckoning?
That’s the question an increasing number of elites are asking themselves. Yes, these are the people controlling the system today and benefitting the most from it, usually at our expense. But they can see that the racket they’re running has an expiration date. And they’re extremely worried about the hell that may break loose when it arrives.
You may have read some of the recent news stories about billionaires drawing up emergency plans for the social disorder they fear will erupt when the status quo breaks down. I can tell you from first-hand experience these stories are true. We’ve had a number ultra-wealthy individuals and families approach Peak Prosperity for consultations on the same topic.
In Part 2: The Rich Are Planning For Catastrophe, we explain what the wealthy are doing and what frightens them the most. Like them or not, these people have access to the best information and the most resources with which to take action. We’d be foolish not to pay attention to what they’re planning for and how they’re planning for it.
Time is short. The elites are making their own preparations. Be sure to get your own in place soon.
162 Comments on "America The Insolvent"
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 7:35 pm
Americans always play the “blame game”. From Cognitive Dissonance’s blog
“”I don’t think I understand this “victimhood” thing.” Well my hunch is, you don’t play the victimhood (a.k.a. the blame game), so quite naturally it is foreign to you.
On the other hand, in many cases, even for those that DO play “the blame game” they are generally quite unaware that they are doing so. It becomes so ingrained, so natural, that it is strangely unobserved by the actor themselves. Other’s may see it, recognize it instantly, but alas, the actor cannot.
Now mind you, a great deal of it is, sad to say, a cultural thing. Fostered, encouraged by misinformation, various mediums, and snake oil salesmen who have peddled a deviation of what was once considered “the norm.”
Peoples thinking, or more to the point, their lack of thinking, but instead, emoting, is quite in vogue in the modern society, which quite naturally leads to a dramatic INCREASE of victimhood! We can leave other’s to debate how all that came to pass .. which is certain to become another thing of “blame” heaped upon an endless list of suspects, you know the drill.
Lastly, the blamer is quick to see fault in other’s, but slow, or completely unable to see fault in self, where ALL fault quite logically, resides .. soooo it becomes a matter of the blamer, our actor, escaping their own responsibility through means of projection (blaming other’s for whatever circumstance they find themselves) rather to come to terms with self, or in short, break down the ego in the great “I am.”
As to your particular method in licking the alcohol, smoking trouble, I say good on you, and whatever works!”
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 7:52 pm
“American military leadership depends upon global dollar dominance which in turn demands persistent trade deficits. These are the three essential aspects of America’s global empire. If you remove one, you threaten the survival of the other two and the continued existence of the American empire itself….
As an imperial power and as the issuer of the world’s reserve currency, though, America can never have a balanced trade account….
Finally, without the tribute payments represented by its persistent trade deficits, how could America continue to fund its military commitments?…
Meanwhile, other countries who understand the damage Trump’s incompatible aims may inflict on global trade and prosperity are busy constructing alternatives to the U.S. dollar for international payments and reserves. …the International Monetary Fund is also working to create a cryptocurrency version of their existing reserve currency (called the ‘Special Drawing Right’ or SDR) which could similarly be used to denominate, record and settle international trade.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-22/trade-deficits-and-american-empire
Slip slidin’…
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 8:12 pm
Expert makes the case for $400 per barrel oil
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/policy/energy/expert-makes-the-case-for-400-per-barrel-oil
400 oil would be like 12 dollars a gallon gasoline….(shoots himself)
Davy on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 8:30 pm
“Americans always play the “blame game”. From Cognitive Dissonance’s blog”
3rd world, where is your link? What part of the comment is your words or theirs. You are one intellectually lazy senior.
JuanP on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 9:01 pm
Google it, Exceptionalist? Or, are you a retard, too?
Boat on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 9:04 pm
Mak
The US Trump is trying to end those trade deficits. Your military protection will come to an end soon for some. When China comes calling you’ll be begging for help. You will run outta help shooting all those vaginas from the increased drug trade.
MASTERMIND on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 9:05 pm
Trade War May Spark a Chinese Debt Crisis, Stevenson-Yang Says
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos/2018-07-23/trade-war-may-spark-a-chinese-debt-crisis-stevenson-yang-says-video
HAHA! See you in hell china man! or as Trump would say Jina!
lmfaO!
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 9:14 pm
Boat, don’t you understand that those trade deficits are necessary for the Us to exist? The value of the USD depends on them. If there are no dollars going out, for countries to buy US debt (treasuries and bonds) there is no reason for other countries to hold or use them. The value of the dollar would collapse.
Apparently Trump either doesn’t understand this or he is deliberately destroying the Us. Either, or both are possible. We shall see.
Makati1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 9:16 pm
MM, your insane braying is only displaying your lack of education and ignorance of the real world outside the US MSM Iron Curtain.
Anonymouse1 on Sun, 22nd Jul 2018 11:26 pm
Not sure what the point of trying to converse with a complete imbecile like boatietard is.
“You will run outta help shooting all those vaginas from the increased drug trade.”
Wtf does that even mean? Or is supposed to mean? This retard is so dumb he makes the exceptionlturd look like a rhodes scholar by comparison. Think about that one for a minute.
I’ll tell you what it means. Means he is returded, and requires specialized care. He shouldn’t even be on the interwebs. He belong with Jerrys kids, playing with blocks or watching cartoons in a playroom with his own kind, you know, retards just like him.
Cloggie on Mon, 23rd Jul 2018 1:18 am
Clogg has stated before that he has had so many sexual encounters with women that he lost interest for the most part.
Slightly different… there were more women in my life than was good for me, mostly foreigners. Now that I am at the stage in life of looking back and reflection, I should have remained loyal to my high school sweetheart, one of the few things I regret. Marriages with foreigners are highly problematic and it is difficult to find stability and partners inevitably bring their identity with them into the marriage.
Regarding “atheist Jews”… I abandoned Protestant Christianity at the age of 15, never to return and never will. I am an atheist Dutch or Dutch for short (with neo-Roman potential.lol). I’m “bio-Dutch” and I despite being “atheist” there is still a lot of (secular) Christianity in me, more that I like. I would even go so far to say that at the current point in time, the European race is more Christian than ever before (feelings, morality), with potentially catastrophic consequences for the prospects of survival of said race.
Likewise there is such a thing as “bio-Jews”, who come at the flavor of Sefardim (real biblical Jews) and Ashkenazim (Khazars, “Jews-of-choice”). For sure, there is a lot of “race-mixing” with Jews, but the “Jewish type” definitely exists. I have meanwhile developed a pretty accurate j-dar and am seldom mistaken in identifying “at first sight”.
Jews are highly intelligent, but (obviously) use their intelligence to their own advantage, against us. It is mostly verbal intelligence (dialectics), where words are used as weapons (“you are not a racist, are you?”). They are ruthless and are, like Muslims, not bound by any sort of compassion. They see other races as something that needs to be exploited to the max. Jews are the least sympathetic people on this planet. Their greatest joy in life is to manipulate other people to the tune that they start to slaughter each other (Bolshevism, WW2, Iraq). That is why I identify millimind as a Jew, his sadistic gloating about rape and intentions to kill millions of Russians for the greater glory of the US deep state and its Sanhedrin of “elders”. The fact that he denies it, doesn’t mean anything. Lying and deceiving is their trade. No mafioso will volunteer in public to say that he is a mafioso. Hence the tendency to glue a yellow piece of cloth to these people throughout history, as a warming sign. Avoid him. I simply apply the method looks/swim/quack/duck. There might be a small chance I am wrong, but I don’t care. He talks like one, he is going to be treated as one.
Ueber-neocon Michael Ledeen once hinted at the intentions of his group:
Creative destruction is our middle name, both within our own society and abroad. We tear down the old order every day, from business to science, literature, art, architecture, and cinema to politics and the law. Our enemies have always hated this whirlwind of energy and creativity, which menaces their traditions (whatever they may be) and shames them for their inability to keep pace. Seeing America undo traditional societies, they fear us, for they do not wish to be undone. They cannot feel secure so long as we are there, for our very existence—our existence, not our politics—threatens their legitimacy. They must attack us in order to survive, just as we must destroy them to advance our historic mission.
There is not a shred of doubt about their intentions. They admit that we (Europeans) will have to attack them in order to survive, because it is their “historic mission” to destroy us (via third world immigration) and setting us up against each other (for instance Anglos vs continental Europeans). The ultimate Jewish goal is to enslave the entire planet.
Fortunately there is a huge increase in awareness among the elites on this planet of this state of affairs, namely that the Jews own America (well, until November 2016). The Russians know, the Chinese know, the Muslims know, Trump knows. Europe is about to crawl from under the ZOG-tomb stone and America itself is about to neutralize itself in a potentially devastating (military) conflict between the white right and mixed leftists.
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2018/06/11/cw2-brewing/
That opens up immense opportunities for Eurasia to finally deal with the Anglo-Zionist problem, we only have to wait until the ticking time-bomb explodes… and intervene and split up.
Problem solved for another two centuries or so, comparable to the downfall of Jewry after the fall of Grenada 1492,which prompted the highly anti-semitic Inquisition and the return of the Jews in London 1690, piggy-backing on the Dutch troops, who consolidated their Protestant religion by defeating a Catholic King and involuntary laid the foundations of Anglo-Zionism, by catapulting “these people” at the helm of the newly founded English central bank, as a little “Danke-Schoen” for financing the entire Dutch operation. From London it went to New York and from New York it went to Petersburg-1917. And from there it went to 1933 and the formation of the grand (((Anglo-Soviet alliance))), directed against continental Europe. Thanks to Stalin and his national Bolshevism, J-power was nullified in the USSR after WW2, the only reason why the former allies got embroiled in the Cold War. The US won and between 1990-2000 Russia was theirs, until Vladimir the Great appeared at the scene, until today. He understands the problem completely, acts upon it and as a consequence is under constant attack by western media harpies. But he maneuvered his country in an undefeatable alliance with China. And on top of that we have a Putin-wannabee in the White House. Now everything is in place to destroy the ZOG-system. And the only way to solve the problem is to split the country up. If I were Trump I would have explained my problem to Putin and Xi, and simply suggest my intentions, namely that Trump wants to start a war he intends to lose. So Russia, China, please cooperate. And don’t throw nukes, I won’t either. The whole purpose would be to sacrifice so many Americans somewhere in Eurasia, that the risk of getting killed in an armed uprising at home would be smaller than getting killed in a Eurasian meat grinder.
Did Trump do that? I don’t know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HH0AvaG3SqQ
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5232605/Chinese-President-Xi-tells-military-ready-war.html
Antius on Mon, 23rd Jul 2018 8:28 am
Britain is toast. For reasons that have nothing to do with Brexit:
1. On a post-ECoE basis, prosperity per capita in Britain has fallen by 10.3% (£2,540), to £22,020 last year from a peak of £24,550 in 2003.
2. Aggregate debt at the end of 2017 (£5.25tn) equates to 258% of GDP but 361% of prosperity, the latter number having risen markedly since 2007 (283%).
3. More worryingly, the rise in debt exposure has been matched by sharp increases in proportionate financial assets, a measure of the size of the banking system. The most recent figure, for the end of 2016, puts Britain’s financial assets at 1124% of GDP, but this rises to 1547% when prosperity, rather than GDP, is used as the denominator.
All of this has happened whilst Britain was a member of the European Union and has nothing to do with Brexit. Indeed, the situation has been worsening steadily for 15 years.
I suspect that our goose was cooked by the privatisation apocalypse in the 80s and 90s that allowed the country’s then world beating industries to be asset stripped by foreign buyers. This was masterminded primarily by the Jewish Neocon Nigel Lawson. Thatcher was a useful idiot.
The decline was cushioned by inward foreign investment (basically, selling off national assets, leading to, amongst other things, the house-price boom) and a surge in production of North Sea oil & gas until the early 2000s (a commodity boom). Now those things have run their course. The hydrocarbons are gone and lack of domestic demand and declining prosperity are leading to house price collapse. Soon we will sit down to a banquet of consequences.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2018/07/20/131-not-about-brexit/