The Naughty List and Grizzly Bears
The official US national debt in 1913 was $2.91 billion. In 1971, when President Nixon lied about temporarily disconnecting gold from the dollar, the official national debt was $398 billion.
By 2019 the official national debt has grown to $23,000 trillion.
Politicians borrow and spend to reward cronies and buy votes. They also increase their personal wealth. Human nature changes slowly.
From 1913 to 2019 the national debt increased at a compounded rate of 8.8% per year. From 1971 to 2019 the debt also increased at 8.8% per year. This 106-year trend appears stable and likely to continue.
Can you name three congressmen or one lobbyist who advocate spending fewer currency units next year? Nope!
Debt will grow exponentially.
SO WHAT?
The problem with an 8.8% increase in debt every year is that eventually the debt becomes overwhelming. Don’t write to your congressman—he doesn’t care.
Suppose you owed one dollar to the hypothetical Christopher Columbus Bank in 1492. The bank charged 8.8% interest per year. By 2019 the debt would be thousands of dollars—right?
Guess again! By 2019 that $1.00 debt would have grown to $20,110,000,000,000,000,000, or about $21 million trillion, nearly 1 million times the current national debt.
Compounding debt kills.
Suppose our $23 trillion in debt continues to grow, no faster, no slower, even though a nasty recession (lower government revenues and higher expenditures) is coming.
By the election in 2048 the debt will be over $260 trillion. By the year 2100 the debt will exceed $21 thousand trillion.
GRIM! A reset will occur.