In the great flick “The Departed,” the head of the Massachusetts state troopers’ undercover division explains to a prospective recruit an important distinction:
“We deal with deception here. What we do not deal with is self-deception.”
The moment I saw that line delivered? I thought of just about everyone in DC. Sure, they’re all lying to US. But they know it. It’s the world’s biggest joke on US - and DC is all-in on it.
DC knows they’ve screwed the country beyond any hope of recovery. They pin their hopes on US continuing to make their deceptions - our self-deceptions.
For the last century-plus? We have.
DC is now a $7+ trillion per annum Titanic. And you have a panoply of icebergs from which to choose. About all of which DC is lying to US.
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DC is $37+ trillion in debt. And adding $2+ trillion per annum via budget deficit spending.
The Republican Party - the party allegedly concerned about the deficits and debt? Just passed a Big Broke Bill with annual deficits HIGHER than those of the Joe Biden-era.
Oh: And the many decades of (undeclared) war funding in which we’ve been engaged? Including Ukraine right now? Is all “emergency spending” - and thus off-budget.
Which means it’s ALL printed and/or borrowed money. Which means it is additional debt (and inflation) - on top of the annual on-budget deficits.
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Social Security and Medicare are a combined $175 trillion short over the next 30 years. But NO ONE in DC is seriously talking about it. Let alone marshaling serious efforts to deal with it.
The only recent thing DC has done that touched upon the SSI-Medicare shortfall? The Big Broke Bill includes a (partial, temporary) No Tax on Tips provision. Which includes eliminating the payroll (SSI, Medicare) taxes.
No matter your thoughts on the merits of No Tax on Tips (I think EVERYONE should have skin in the game)? It certainly doesn’t help with the SSI-Medicare problem.
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DC continues to mass over-print valueless money. The US dollar went off gold in 1971. Since, it has lost 87% of its value.
And DC is FAR more concerned about who runs the Federal Reserve - than in the trillions in fake dollars it continues to print.
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Those three DC problems alone? Are game over for the US.
There is absolutely no way DC is going to pay back that debt. Or address in any meaningful way the SSI and Medicare deficits.
DC’s one guaranteed response to those two problems? Will be to exacerbate the third. DC will print even more money.
Which will, amongst other awful things, cause the world to stop using the dollar as the default currency. At which point things get REALLY ugly.
Those three monster bombs will go off. It’s not an If - it’s a When. And that will end the US as currently constituted.
Why isn’t the US yet dead? The old saw is true: Chickens’ bodies run around for a while after they’re beheaded.
DC has decapitated the US. But the US’s HUGE economy is still animating the headless corpse. For a little while longer, anyway.
But the signs are all around US that the body too will fall. I’ll let economic uber-success Peter Schiff sum it up:
“Democrats are wrong to claim the U.S. economy was strong under Biden. Republicans are wrong to claim it’s strong under Trump. The economy was weak under Biden, and it’s even weaker under Trump. The underlying problems are getting worse. A long-overdue day of reckoning is near.”
If I may: Schiff is (also) saying the chicken’s head is long gone. And the body is about to drop.
To what “underlying problems” does Schiff refer? I’ll take a stab….
$18.39 trillion in US household debt.
In no small part because most Americans’ real wages have flatlined since 1971.
A problem DC has exacerbated with its 87% devaluation of the dollar over that time.
The US economy is anemic. DC’s bipartisan claims to the contrary notwithstanding:
“Since 2005, we have had only one year of 3+% GDP growth. And that was 2021. When government had just spent trillions of dollars on the China Virus - and had begun letting people out of their government-imposed economic prisons. The next year US GDP dropped to a paltry 2.2% - exactly what it was in pre-China Virus 2019."
Those four US problems alone? Are game over for the US.
Americans are completely buried in debt. Most haven’t seen a real wage increase in more than half a century. And during that time inflation has eaten an additional 87% of their flatlined incomes.
And all that debt means there are HUGE tax increases a-coming. Because duh.
The subsequent US economy - which hasn’t even had a real year of actually-anemic 3% growth in twenty years?
Is absolutely not going to generate enough money to pay back $37+ trillion in debt. Or get anywhere close to even on the $175 trillion in SSI and Medicare shortfalls.
Oh: And don’t forget about Artificial Intelligence….
AI Expert Roman Yampolskiy Warns of 99% Job Loss by 2030 - No ‘Plan B’ in Sight
That’ll help.
For the last century-plus, Americans have been more than happy to make DC’s deceptions their self-deceptions.
But their problems are now piling up so inconceivably high? That worm might finally be starting to turn….
58% of Americans Worried About Money
Despite Recent Good News, The Public Remains Sour On The Economy
Worry About U.S. Economy, Healthcare, Social Security Surges
Behold: The ultimate problem Americans have to confront - vis a vis DC.
If you know someone is lying to you? You basically have two options:
1) Lie to yourself to perpetuate the relationship.
2) End the relationship.
Americans have been engaged in the former for a LOOOOOONG time.
Is there any conceivable way to actually try the latter…?