Democrats constantly bewail the generational transfer of unearned wealth, but have zero problems with their own generational transfer of unrepresented public debt to future generations.
Wake up Gens XYZ. Decades of Democrat prolifgacy lands on your laps. How did this happen? The book "While America Aged" (Roger Lowenstein) is a good place to start understanding the massive government employee pension debt you will be forced to pay off.
TJ What are Gens XYZ reading about the public pension tsunami getting dropped on their laps? No skin off my nose if Gens XYZ ignore these warnings because one author who wrote about the future debt pattern in 2008 sounding early warnings is "too old" to listen to today. I myself will be long gone by the time it hits.
But we can all do something about this today, since it was created on our watch - if the question ever gets asked what did you do during the War, Daddy? I can at least say did my best, son. I hope at least a few prepared for what is coming. That is all I can do. Cassandra is no stranger.
JL. I agree with you. But, guessing your age, it is so out of touch that it's just not going to happen. Things for better - or mostly worse - are happening on tick tok. As most of this group hates the MSM - anyone under 40 won't touch a book etc. So you can lay it out about the war or whatever, you'll get zero traction. Not to age bias - but that is one of the biggest issues with the SB current - most of the posters are 60-70- and from stories of wwII older. It's just not relevant with the gens we're speaking of.
Is anyone posting here younger than 50? We had the Catholic Tom for a while but he left. We have the angry Real estate agent Brain who got blown out of the elections despite is his mother-in-laws trying to help, what is he in his 50s? The rest seem to quote movies from the 1980s and talk about where they were when Kenndy got shot. I enjoy the thoughts presented an argued here - but they are mostly aged out.
TJ, I don't care if they choose not to listen. I care that I at least tried to send out a warning. It is out of my hands after that. You do what you can do. But everyone is responsible for their own lives in the long run. Everyone.
The sheer number of this US public debt is unprecedented. We oldsters who facilitated it and now can only warn against it, have but one role to play - stop it as best we can and warn those who will be most impacted
Sweeping back the sea is another name for this activity. But I won't lose sleep if no one listens. Only if I don't speak up.
Did you see that last Hail Mary DemocratHarris ad showing young people sitting around a campfire in bombed out NYC, bemoaning they used to go to the best parties and did not care about politics.
But now that their lives are in total ruin at this indeterminate time in the future, they finally regret they did not vote Democrat in 2024. What is the real message Democrats wanted young people to hear? Vote for us and the gravy train will be endless.
DB: Corrections, those were RINOS, the neo-cons, who spent like drunken sailors under GW Bush. The very nemesis the new populist Republican party is trying to shed.
The global economy took us off the gold standard, not Nixon. Being forced to sell US gold backed currency for $32 an ounce, when the global prices for gold was many times that demanded going off the former and then out-dated US gold standard.
What would you have done differently? That was the symbolic turning point when post WWII Europe was flexing its road to recover, Measure that time period with the almost required annual title changes to the travel classic "Europe on Five Dollars a Day". I was there, yes you could do Europe on Five Dollars a Day back then. (Convents and soup kitchens.)
Does anyone besides me wonder if they will address the waste at the Pentagon or will it be business as usual? What organization gets seemingly unlimited funding but can't account for where the money goes and still gets seemingly unlimited funding? To me, this is the actual deep state, not some sleight of hand with Soros designed to keep the populous dumb and mad. https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/11/pentagon-fails-7th-audit-cant-fully-account-for-824-billion/
I don't see DOGE playing any favorites. I also see savings from more efficient delivery of government services. Should be an interesting report, but far too early for any conclusions. Then new OMB Director who will have the full data, and even the President who created DOGE have not even been sworn in.
Buckley writes - the crux of the entire issue we face today
"....Oh, and you should know that total U.S. expenditures for fiscal year 2019 – before Covid-19 appeared – amounted to $4.407 trillion.
If we had simply returned to fiscal year 2019’s spending pattern, we’d have posted a five-hundred-billion-dollar budget surplus in fiscal year 2023!..."
When the opposition realizes that giving others money away is a failure then we get a chance.
It is the refusal to admit reality is the answer is where the population fails. Did someone mention downtown Santa Barbara Streets, OldTown Hollister debacle, and the failed High Speed Rail?
It is an essential element of the delusion that affects all politicians that one can ignore reality indefinitely. But economics, like physics, has certain immutable laws and one such law is that you cannot borrow your way to prosperity. Until the voters demand that their elected officials operate in the real world and not the fantasy world that politicians crave, this debt cycle will continue. Time to confront reality.
DOS: Generally understood that Clinton reaped the benefits of Reagan's prior tax cuts led to good feelings about the "Clinton economy" in general. Plus Clinton also benefited from the Gingrich Contract For America blowback taking back the House after Clinton's first two years of give away craziness. Those Hilary Care days that irreparably spooked the health insurance industry into their still current take no prisoners premium hikes long outstripping any relationship to cost of living increases.
Clinton also oversaw the huge downsizing of the military foot print - the post Vietnam bonus-, that led ironically to the Silicon Valley private industry digital miracle. That is when all that newly out of work military contract talent started looking for new things to do, esp concentrated in California that got the biggest military shut downs of all as I recall.
Clinton with the GOP Contract with America prodding also saw significant changes in the US welfare state. All of the above were good fundamentals for bringing the federal budget into healthier territory. The government pension short-fall were not as unrelenting in those days either, nor the size and expansion of the federal payroll.
The animal spirits of the market place are responding to the ephemeral Trump effect right now, so does Biden take credit for this economic boost since he is still the nominal President?
To identify federal budgets precisely with any one President only, and not the Congress is difficult since they are products of prior legislation that produces fruit over time, or kick in higher costs into some one else's administration like Obama kicked in the highest new costs of Obama care on whomever would be his successor.
Time will tell if this will be a new era of US prosperity or not. And whether this Congress will cure over-spending since that seems to be an equal opportunity Beltway drug. And whether any of this can be due to Trump, post-Biden, or just the exhilaration of finally getting out from under 12 years of Democrat long-standing mismanagement. But off the top of my head, I would say right now go long.
MAWA - make America wealthy again. Tax cuts prove to be the best way to boost the economy, but Congressional spending discipline is the best way to earn those tax cuts. Any bonus, should go back into necessary federal infrastructure or returned to the taxpayers and NOT expanding the government. Watch closely to see what happens next .
Rep Salud Carbajal ominously threatened a local "$14 million dollar loss" if his Democrat CR porkulous version did not pass. About the price of one nice Montecito home. And one tenth the cost just passed on to local property owners to build the new SBCC gymnasium.
Just think if Salud Carbajal had spent his time investigating where $46 billion dollars of US "covid relief" funds got lost by his home state.
I’ll be watching to see what they get done seeing that those who have been in power for too long will lie, cheat and continue to destroy. They have the giant American taxpayers’ money at their disposal.
I hope they fire, destroy useless laws and open up exploration of a more efficient, smaller government can do. Fight, fight, fight Elon and Vivek!!
Why should they have "endless amounts of American taxpayer's money at their disposal?" Where do we start pulling the plug? Where is the Prop 13 tax revolt energy?
Thank you Mr. Buckley for reminding us of the economic catastrophe we are currently facing. You know you’re in trouble when merely servicing the national debt is greater than the entire DoD annual budget! I watched the post election Trump rally yesterday in Phoenix where he, among other things, vowed to rid the military of Transgenders. All fine and good, I suppose the courts will have something to say about that and no doubt will be tied up in law suits for years. I’m not so worried about kicking “Max Klinger” out of the Army as I am cutting the crushing DoD out of control spending. How about holding the DoD accountable for failing virtually every single audit? Let’s start seriously looking at the DoD budget and the legions of defense contractors for starters!
Also concerning is the amount of money the Biden is shoveling out the back door as an extra “FU” to the American taxpayer during his final days. That’s right, forgiving student loans, altering the ability for illegals to remain in the US and commuting death sentences for cop killers…Biden corruption and chicanery is on a roll, just in time for the holidays!
What a coincidence. We became a debt nation the same decade JFK allowed government employees to forum unions. Coincidence of course is not causation; except when it is.
Thank you for writing. I can't help but to relate the national debt that you describe to the state and local debt. A quick check on the salaries of our locals, for example is simply staggering.
Business has financial caps that govern profit and loss; government lacks this very important concept. Perhaps, while drawing fire away from Trump, the DOGE team will set an example on the cutting room floor of debt up and down government.
We now must fund two government employees for every local position - the current one, and the underfunded pension obligation for the second one who retired.
That is why the city, county, schools and SBCC constantly wail they always need more money. Term limits let every recent elected body kick this can down the road to the next round of "term limited" representative.
How will the new city council deal with this? So far their only interest is passing city wide rent control. Think about the "trickle down effects" of that.
Mr. Buckley, I will hold my comments on DOGE until I see the miracle musk and ramaswamy work in bringing down government expenditures. I know I’ll probably have to wait a few years, and I hope my comments will be good when the time comes.
I do have one question though, trump wants America to be the crypto capital of the world. trump and his billionaires boys club along with his wealthy supporters would probably do well, but what about the average American?
Two points. First almost one-fourth of the national debt was created during Trump's first four years. So making the point that "sanity will return with Trump" is pretty rich, no? Second, by any reputable study, the economy has consistently performed better during democratic administrations than under republican administrations. Why do you think this is so?
Blame for the covid debacle has far more fathers than Trump. Be sure to watch "Thank You Dr Fauci" to identify the exact moments in time in the summer of 2020 - election year2020, when Democrats went covid crazy.
JL - you give Trump a pass for Covid, Clinton for riding on coattails... No four years exists in its own. But you seem to bias outcomes to your liking.
TJ: The folly of blaming someone other than ourselves, in the bottom line. The world has moved past blame and is moving into action. Blame at this one minute to midnight hour is an intentional distraction.
We old people have some cleaning up to do. Give us a hand, or stay out of our way is the better course to take right now. Where do you think the Black Swan will emerge that will fix what we dumped on your table? We drank too much postWWII arrogance as the only nation left standing. But as you rightfully point out, that is ancient history and of decreasing relevance in today's lives.
I also admit, and you rightly pointed out, I am old enough to have been raised by Depression Age parents, before credit card and mass visual media. Debt in my world view is anathema.
My core does resonate differently so I am more narrow in what I see as solutions. Quite frankly, I don't mind being relieved of my self-inflicted duty being a town crier, when everyone is off instead brain dead on TikTok. I appreciate you calling me out.
I shall pass on my two major life messages when I was growing up in the last century: no one owes you a living; and always have something to fall back on.
Waiting for parents to die and inheriting their estates was not anyone's primary game plan, though that may well be sufficient enough today because we scrappy old people did demonstrate a remarkable degree of self-reliance and do sit on a certain degree of generational wealth that will need to be transferred somewhere. However, long -term care most likely will take it all. Play that one as you will.
This is an extremely important issue that becomes more visible when it is expressed as a percentage of GDP.
The current US government debt of $36.750trillion is 123.48% of GDP. In 1980, the GDP ratio was only 38.4%, by the year 2,000, the debt to GDP ratio had grown to 54.83%.
The Debt to GDP ratio indicates the ability of an economy to sustain the levels of debt.
The Penn Wharton of the University of Pennsylvania has contructed a budget model to assess the sustainablity of growth in US national debt.
This PWMB model estimates that even under myopic expectations, financial markets cannot sustain more than the next twenty years of deficits under current US fiscal policy.
Forward-looking financial markets are, therefore, effectively, betting that future future fiscal policies will provide substantial corrective measures ahead of time.
If financial markets start to believe otherwise, debt dynamics would unravel and become unsustainable much sooner.
Another conclusion is that debt to gdp ratio of 200% cannot be exceeded.
Therefore, in addition to reducing debt it is imperative to grow gross domestic product.
Trump's policies of reducing debt and growing the economy faster are a just-in-time policy combination that will need more that four years to accomplish. But he will need a lot of help from the public, applauding will not be enough to steer the ship of state.
Jim references the Feds spent in 2022 about 2 trillion dollars more than came into the government. Did the "people" give permission for the government to spend more money than they have? If the Feds can spend more money than they receive, then why can't the people do the same thing ... simply print your own money like the government does. It's just paper with numbers printed on it and pictures of past Presidents. What harm is fake money, anyway? What makes the Feds so special. Answer: Nothing. The Feds aren't special, unless you want to refer to them as "special" crooks. What's good for the goose good for the gander. You'd think the Feds would set a good example for the public. If the Feds are a bad example, then don't expect the public to be a better example. Feds are stealing, then expect the public to steal. Oh, isn't that what the public seems to be doing a lot of anyway? As Gilda Radner playing the character Emily Litella would say on Saturday Night Live, "Never mind."
Democrats constantly bewail the generational transfer of unearned wealth, but have zero problems with their own generational transfer of unrepresented public debt to future generations.
Wake up Gens XYZ. Decades of Democrat prolifgacy lands on your laps. How did this happen? The book "While America Aged" (Roger Lowenstein) is a good place to start understanding the massive government employee pension debt you will be forced to pay off.
Roger Lowenstein is 70 years old. Not that they shouldn't - but the chances of a Gen XYZ reading that book is close to getting hit by
an asteroid in percentages.
TJ What are Gens XYZ reading about the public pension tsunami getting dropped on their laps? No skin off my nose if Gens XYZ ignore these warnings because one author who wrote about the future debt pattern in 2008 sounding early warnings is "too old" to listen to today. I myself will be long gone by the time it hits.
But we can all do something about this today, since it was created on our watch - if the question ever gets asked what did you do during the War, Daddy? I can at least say did my best, son. I hope at least a few prepared for what is coming. That is all I can do. Cassandra is no stranger.
JL. I agree with you. But, guessing your age, it is so out of touch that it's just not going to happen. Things for better - or mostly worse - are happening on tick tok. As most of this group hates the MSM - anyone under 40 won't touch a book etc. So you can lay it out about the war or whatever, you'll get zero traction. Not to age bias - but that is one of the biggest issues with the SB current - most of the posters are 60-70- and from stories of wwII older. It's just not relevant with the gens we're speaking of.
Is anyone posting here younger than 50? We had the Catholic Tom for a while but he left. We have the angry Real estate agent Brain who got blown out of the elections despite is his mother-in-laws trying to help, what is he in his 50s? The rest seem to quote movies from the 1980s and talk about where they were when Kenndy got shot. I enjoy the thoughts presented an argued here - but they are mostly aged out.
Okay, Zoomer. Have a Plan B.
Agree with that. Just don't know what it is. I'm no social media guru by any metric. I just know trying to get 30's somethings to read is a dead end.
TJ, I don't care if they choose not to listen. I care that I at least tried to send out a warning. It is out of my hands after that. You do what you can do. But everyone is responsible for their own lives in the long run. Everyone.
The sheer number of this US public debt is unprecedented. We oldsters who facilitated it and now can only warn against it, have but one role to play - stop it as best we can and warn those who will be most impacted
Sweeping back the sea is another name for this activity. But I won't lose sleep if no one listens. Only if I don't speak up.
Did you see that last Hail Mary DemocratHarris ad showing young people sitting around a campfire in bombed out NYC, bemoaning they used to go to the best parties and did not care about politics.
But now that their lives are in total ruin at this indeterminate time in the future, they finally regret they did not vote Democrat in 2024. What is the real message Democrats wanted young people to hear? Vote for us and the gravy train will be endless.
Under pressure from the GOP Congress at the time, President Clinton had the first and last actual budget surplus.
When Bush II came in, the GOP spent the surplus............ and more "like drunken sailors".
The last federal government office to be shut down was the CAB under Reagan.
If we do not get control now, we may become a post WWII Germany where it took a wheelbarrow load of "Marks" to by a loaf of Bread.
It was a Republican Nixon who took us off the Gold Standard.
Both parties have destroyed the "good as golds" US Dollar Bills.
Sad. Dave
DB: Corrections, those were RINOS, the neo-cons, who spent like drunken sailors under GW Bush. The very nemesis the new populist Republican party is trying to shed.
The global economy took us off the gold standard, not Nixon. Being forced to sell US gold backed currency for $32 an ounce, when the global prices for gold was many times that demanded going off the former and then out-dated US gold standard.
What would you have done differently? That was the symbolic turning point when post WWII Europe was flexing its road to recover, Measure that time period with the almost required annual title changes to the travel classic "Europe on Five Dollars a Day". I was there, yes you could do Europe on Five Dollars a Day back then. (Convents and soup kitchens.)
Does anyone besides me wonder if they will address the waste at the Pentagon or will it be business as usual? What organization gets seemingly unlimited funding but can't account for where the money goes and still gets seemingly unlimited funding? To me, this is the actual deep state, not some sleight of hand with Soros designed to keep the populous dumb and mad. https://americanmilitarynews.com/2024/11/pentagon-fails-7th-audit-cant-fully-account-for-824-billion/
I don't see DOGE playing any favorites. I also see savings from more efficient delivery of government services. Should be an interesting report, but far too early for any conclusions. Then new OMB Director who will have the full data, and even the President who created DOGE have not even been sworn in.
Buckley writes - the crux of the entire issue we face today
"....Oh, and you should know that total U.S. expenditures for fiscal year 2019 – before Covid-19 appeared – amounted to $4.407 trillion.
If we had simply returned to fiscal year 2019’s spending pattern, we’d have posted a five-hundred-billion-dollar budget surplus in fiscal year 2023!..."
You go, Jim. Well stated and not scary at all. We're sure leaving the younger generation a massive clean up on aisle three.
More like a massive clean-up on Aisles #43, #44, and #46.
May #47 clean up crew work as well as the best early efforts of #45.
When the opposition realizes that giving others money away is a failure then we get a chance.
It is the refusal to admit reality is the answer is where the population fails. Did someone mention downtown Santa Barbara Streets, OldTown Hollister debacle, and the failed High Speed Rail?
It is an essential element of the delusion that affects all politicians that one can ignore reality indefinitely. But economics, like physics, has certain immutable laws and one such law is that you cannot borrow your way to prosperity. Until the voters demand that their elected officials operate in the real world and not the fantasy world that politicians crave, this debt cycle will continue. Time to confront reality.
Ask a Democrat where is the money to support their continual giveaways. Their standard response is ........... they'll find the money.
Didn't Bill Clinton have a few years of balanced budgets and left office with a surplus? I'm pretty sure he's a Democrat.
DOS: Generally understood that Clinton reaped the benefits of Reagan's prior tax cuts led to good feelings about the "Clinton economy" in general. Plus Clinton also benefited from the Gingrich Contract For America blowback taking back the House after Clinton's first two years of give away craziness. Those Hilary Care days that irreparably spooked the health insurance industry into their still current take no prisoners premium hikes long outstripping any relationship to cost of living increases.
Clinton also oversaw the huge downsizing of the military foot print - the post Vietnam bonus-, that led ironically to the Silicon Valley private industry digital miracle. That is when all that newly out of work military contract talent started looking for new things to do, esp concentrated in California that got the biggest military shut downs of all as I recall.
Clinton with the GOP Contract with America prodding also saw significant changes in the US welfare state. All of the above were good fundamentals for bringing the federal budget into healthier territory. The government pension short-fall were not as unrelenting in those days either, nor the size and expansion of the federal payroll.
The animal spirits of the market place are responding to the ephemeral Trump effect right now, so does Biden take credit for this economic boost since he is still the nominal President?
To identify federal budgets precisely with any one President only, and not the Congress is difficult since they are products of prior legislation that produces fruit over time, or kick in higher costs into some one else's administration like Obama kicked in the highest new costs of Obama care on whomever would be his successor.
Time will tell if this will be a new era of US prosperity or not. And whether this Congress will cure over-spending since that seems to be an equal opportunity Beltway drug. And whether any of this can be due to Trump, post-Biden, or just the exhilaration of finally getting out from under 12 years of Democrat long-standing mismanagement. But off the top of my head, I would say right now go long.
MAWA - make America wealthy again. Tax cuts prove to be the best way to boost the economy, but Congressional spending discipline is the best way to earn those tax cuts. Any bonus, should go back into necessary federal infrastructure or returned to the taxpayers and NOT expanding the government. Watch closely to see what happens next .
Rep Salud Carbajal ominously threatened a local "$14 million dollar loss" if his Democrat CR porkulous version did not pass. About the price of one nice Montecito home. And one tenth the cost just passed on to local property owners to build the new SBCC gymnasium.
Just think if Salud Carbajal had spent his time investigating where $46 billion dollars of US "covid relief" funds got lost by his home state.
I’ll be watching to see what they get done seeing that those who have been in power for too long will lie, cheat and continue to destroy. They have the giant American taxpayers’ money at their disposal.
I hope they fire, destroy useless laws and open up exploration of a more efficient, smaller government can do. Fight, fight, fight Elon and Vivek!!
Why should they have "endless amounts of American taxpayer's money at their disposal?" Where do we start pulling the plug? Where is the Prop 13 tax revolt energy?
Thank you Mr. Buckley for reminding us of the economic catastrophe we are currently facing. You know you’re in trouble when merely servicing the national debt is greater than the entire DoD annual budget! I watched the post election Trump rally yesterday in Phoenix where he, among other things, vowed to rid the military of Transgenders. All fine and good, I suppose the courts will have something to say about that and no doubt will be tied up in law suits for years. I’m not so worried about kicking “Max Klinger” out of the Army as I am cutting the crushing DoD out of control spending. How about holding the DoD accountable for failing virtually every single audit? Let’s start seriously looking at the DoD budget and the legions of defense contractors for starters!
Also concerning is the amount of money the Biden is shoveling out the back door as an extra “FU” to the American taxpayer during his final days. That’s right, forgiving student loans, altering the ability for illegals to remain in the US and commuting death sentences for cop killers…Biden corruption and chicanery is on a roll, just in time for the holidays!
What a coincidence. We became a debt nation the same decade JFK allowed government employees to forum unions. Coincidence of course is not causation; except when it is.
Thank you for writing. I can't help but to relate the national debt that you describe to the state and local debt. A quick check on the salaries of our locals, for example is simply staggering.
Business has financial caps that govern profit and loss; government lacks this very important concept. Perhaps, while drawing fire away from Trump, the DOGE team will set an example on the cutting room floor of debt up and down government.
We now must fund two government employees for every local position - the current one, and the underfunded pension obligation for the second one who retired.
That is why the city, county, schools and SBCC constantly wail they always need more money. Term limits let every recent elected body kick this can down the road to the next round of "term limited" representative.
How will the new city council deal with this? So far their only interest is passing city wide rent control. Think about the "trickle down effects" of that.
Mr. Buckley, I will hold my comments on DOGE until I see the miracle musk and ramaswamy work in bringing down government expenditures. I know I’ll probably have to wait a few years, and I hope my comments will be good when the time comes.
I do have one question though, trump wants America to be the crypto capital of the world. trump and his billionaires boys club along with his wealthy supporters would probably do well, but what about the average American?
Two points. First almost one-fourth of the national debt was created during Trump's first four years. So making the point that "sanity will return with Trump" is pretty rich, no? Second, by any reputable study, the economy has consistently performed better during democratic administrations than under republican administrations. Why do you think this is so?
https://www.epi.org/press/new-report-finds-that-the-economy-performs-better-under-democratic-presidential-administrations/
Blame for the covid debacle has far more fathers than Trump. Be sure to watch "Thank You Dr Fauci" to identify the exact moments in time in the summer of 2020 - election year2020, when Democrats went covid crazy.
JL - you give Trump a pass for Covid, Clinton for riding on coattails... No four years exists in its own. But you seem to bias outcomes to your liking.
TJ: The folly of blaming someone other than ourselves, in the bottom line. The world has moved past blame and is moving into action. Blame at this one minute to midnight hour is an intentional distraction.
We old people have some cleaning up to do. Give us a hand, or stay out of our way is the better course to take right now. Where do you think the Black Swan will emerge that will fix what we dumped on your table? We drank too much postWWII arrogance as the only nation left standing. But as you rightfully point out, that is ancient history and of decreasing relevance in today's lives.
I also admit, and you rightly pointed out, I am old enough to have been raised by Depression Age parents, before credit card and mass visual media. Debt in my world view is anathema.
My core does resonate differently so I am more narrow in what I see as solutions. Quite frankly, I don't mind being relieved of my self-inflicted duty being a town crier, when everyone is off instead brain dead on TikTok. I appreciate you calling me out.
I shall pass on my two major life messages when I was growing up in the last century: no one owes you a living; and always have something to fall back on.
Waiting for parents to die and inheriting their estates was not anyone's primary game plan, though that may well be sufficient enough today because we scrappy old people did demonstrate a remarkable degree of self-reliance and do sit on a certain degree of generational wealth that will need to be transferred somewhere. However, long -term care most likely will take it all. Play that one as you will.
This is an extremely important issue that becomes more visible when it is expressed as a percentage of GDP.
The current US government debt of $36.750trillion is 123.48% of GDP. In 1980, the GDP ratio was only 38.4%, by the year 2,000, the debt to GDP ratio had grown to 54.83%.
The Debt to GDP ratio indicates the ability of an economy to sustain the levels of debt.
The Penn Wharton of the University of Pennsylvania has contructed a budget model to assess the sustainablity of growth in US national debt.
This PWMB model estimates that even under myopic expectations, financial markets cannot sustain more than the next twenty years of deficits under current US fiscal policy.
Forward-looking financial markets are, therefore, effectively, betting that future future fiscal policies will provide substantial corrective measures ahead of time.
If financial markets start to believe otherwise, debt dynamics would unravel and become unsustainable much sooner.
Another conclusion is that debt to gdp ratio of 200% cannot be exceeded.
Therefore, in addition to reducing debt it is imperative to grow gross domestic product.
Trump's policies of reducing debt and growing the economy faster are a just-in-time policy combination that will need more that four years to accomplish. But he will need a lot of help from the public, applauding will not be enough to steer the ship of state.
Well put, Derek.
Jim references the Feds spent in 2022 about 2 trillion dollars more than came into the government. Did the "people" give permission for the government to spend more money than they have? If the Feds can spend more money than they receive, then why can't the people do the same thing ... simply print your own money like the government does. It's just paper with numbers printed on it and pictures of past Presidents. What harm is fake money, anyway? What makes the Feds so special. Answer: Nothing. The Feds aren't special, unless you want to refer to them as "special" crooks. What's good for the goose good for the gander. You'd think the Feds would set a good example for the public. If the Feds are a bad example, then don't expect the public to be a better example. Feds are stealing, then expect the public to steal. Oh, isn't that what the public seems to be doing a lot of anyway? As Gilda Radner playing the character Emily Litella would say on Saturday Night Live, "Never mind."