Steven Hansen

The Really Scary Thing is the Debt Itself

thank you for your comments so far.

i did analyze the debt with inflation (cpi). it did not change the graphs in any significant way, and added a level of confusion. it is always difficult to decide the level of complexity and detail you should introduce into a topic.

Actually, the point of this post was not to look at debt over time. i believe the only debt that counts is the public financed debt (now $6.4 trillion). it has had explosive growth over the last eight years. inflation is a small factor in this. and now think of the stimulus packages the government wants to implement. in recessions, government spending increases while revenue (taxes, ss payments, fica) decreases. this financed debt will be much larger than i estimated. there is no way to pay this back, it strangles any economic recovery, and it reduces available funds for government in the future.

the government will not be able to inflate their way out of this - because the have too much financed debt. as the sword of inflation has two edges. but this is the subject for another post.

today there are several other posts which i believe complement what i was trying to convey. they are worth reading:

seekingalpha.com/artic...

seekingalpha.com/artic...

seekingalpha.com/artic...

steven hansen