US Debt? $6 Trillion to Fill a $274 Billion Hole
"In inflation-adjusted Dollars, the US spent about $4.1 trillion waging World War II. It also spent more than $300 billion each on World War I and the Korean War, and $738 billion on the Vietnam War. The bill for the wars the US has waged in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere since the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, is $2.3 trillion and counting. All told, the US has spent about $7.9 trillion on warfare since World War I."
"The Washington politicians are [throwing] nigh onto $6 trillion at a $274 billion hole in the nation's wage bucket. That's a solution 22X bigger than the putative problem!"
"Even if you want to count everything, including losses from the $2.5 trillion of imputed activity in the GDP, the pending $6 trillion of Everything Bailouts is 7.7X the size of the problem!"
"Why does Washington have the right to burden future taxpayers with permanent debt service payments in order to make whole a $276 billion loss of income and 3.4% inconvenience among taxpayers today?"
"A radical change in the social fabric of the United States has become a reality – and with it, an opportunity for the Democratic Party no one could have imagined 50 days ago."
"When debt is used productively, the interest and principal are covered with higher profits and sustained economic activity. Even better, income beyond the cost of the debt makes the nation more prosperous."Conversely, unproductive debt may provide a one-time spark of economic activity, but it yields little to no residual income to service it going forward. Ultimately it creates an economic headwind as servicing the debt in the future replaces productive investment and or consumption..."The US economy is overly dependent on unproductive debt. Not surprisingly, secular growth rates have been trending lower for three decades. The massive amount of unproductive debt added in the last year will only further reduce future growth rates."
"The Fed is keenly aware of this weakness but refuses to acknowledge the problem or incentivize productive debt. Instead, they tout the temporary economic benefits of more debt with exceedingly low interest rates. In doing so, they egg on speculation and consumption, not productive debt."