We are living in the greatest debt bubble in the history of the world. In 1980, total government and personal debt in the United States was just over the 3 trillion dollar mark, but today it has surpassed 41 trillion dollars. That means that it has increased by almost 14 times since Ronald Reagan was first elected president. I am searching for words to describe how completely and utterly insane this is, but I am coming up empty. We are slowly but surely committing national suicide, and yet most Americans don’t even understand what is happening.
According to 720 Global, total government debt plus total personal debt in the United States was just over 3 trillion dollars in 1980. That broke down to $38,552 per household, and that figure represented 79 percent of median household income at the time.
Today, total government debt plus total personal debt in the United States has blown past the 41 trillion dollar mark. When you break that down, it comes to $329,961.34 per household, and that figure represents 584 percent of median household income.
If anyone can make a good argument that we are not in very serious debt trouble, I would love to hear it.
And remember, the figures above don’t even include corporate debt. They only include government debt on the federal, state and local levels, and all forms of personal debt.
So do you have $329,961.34 ready to pay your share of the debt that we have accumulated?
Nobody that I know could write that kind of a check. The truth is that as a nation we are flat broke. The only way that the game can keep going is for all of us to borrow increasingly larger sums of money, but of course that is not sustainable by any definition.
Eventually we are going to slam into a wall and the game will be over.
One of my pet peeves is the national debt. Our politicians spend money in some of the most ridiculous ways imaginable, and yet no matter how much we complain about it nothing ever seems to change.
For example, the U.S. military actually spends 42 million dollars a year on Viagra.
Yes, you read that correctly.
42 million of your tax dollars are being spent on Viagra every year.
And overall spending on “erectile dysfunction medicines” each year comes to a grand total of 84 million dollars…
According to data from the Defense Health Agency, DoD actually spent $41.6 million on Viagra — and $84.24 million total on erectile dysfunction prescriptions — last year.
And since 2011, the tab for drugs like Viagra, Cialis and Levitra totals $294 million — the equivalent of nearly four U.S. Air Force F-35 Joint Strike Fighters.
Is this really where our spending on “national defense” should be going? We are nearly 20 trillion dollars in debt, and yet we continue to spend money like there is no tomorrow. For much more on the exploding size of our national debt and the very serious implications that this has for our future, please see my previous article entitled “Would You Like To Steal 128 Million Dollars?”
I didn’t think that our debt bubble could ever possibly get this big, but I didn’t think that our stock market bubble could ever possibly get quite get this large either. For a few moments, I would like for you to consider a list of facts about this stock market bubble that was recently published by Zero Hedge…
- The S&P 500 Cyclically Adjusted Price to Earnings (CAPE) valuation has only been greater on one occasion, the late 1990s. It is currently on par with levels preceding the Great Depression.
- CAPE valuation, when adjusted for the prevailing economic growth trend, is more overvalued than during the late 1920’s and the late 1990’s. (LINK)
- S&P 500 Price to Sales Ratio is at an all-time high
- Total domestic corporate profits (w/o IVA/CCAdj) have grown at an annualized rate of .097% over the last five years. Prior to this period and since 2000, five year annualized profit growth was 7.95%. (note- period included two recessions) (LINK)
- Over the last ten years, S&P 500 corporations have returned more money to shareholders via share buybacks and dividends than they have earned.
- The top 200 S&P 500 companies have pension shortfalls totaling $382 billion and corporations like GE spent more on share buybacks ($45b) than the size of their entire pension shortfall ($31b) which ranks as the largest in the S&P 500. (LINK)
- Using data back to 1987, the yield to maturity on high-yield (non-investment grade) debt is in the 3rd percentile. Per Prudential as cited in the Wall Street Journal, yields on high-yield debt, adjusted for defaults, are now lower than those of investment grade bonds. Currently, the yield on the Barclays High Yield Index is below the expected default rate.
- Implied equity and U.S. Treasury volatility has been trading at the lowest levels in over 30 years, highlighting historic investor complacency. (LINK)
Our financial markets are far more primed for a crash than they were in 2008.
The only times in our entire history that are even comparable are the late 1920s just before the infamous crash of 1929 and the late 1990s just before the dotcom bubble burst.
A whole lot of people out there seem to be entirely convinced that things will somehow be different this time. They seem to believe that the laws of economics no longer apply and that we will never pay a significant price for decades of exceedingly foolish decisions.
Overall, the world is now 217 trillion dollars in debt. Earlier this year, Bill Gross raised eyebrows when he said that “our highly levered financial system is like a truckload of nitro glycerin on a bumpy road”, and I very much agree with him.
There is no way that this is going to end well. Yes, central bank manipulation may be enough to keep the party going for a little while longer, but eventually the whole thing is going to come crashing down in a disaster of unprecedented magnitude.
Michael Snyder is a Republican candidate for Congress in Idaho’s First Congressional District, and you can learn how you can get involved in the campaign on his official website. His new book entitled “Living A Life That Really Matters” is available in paperback and for the Kindle on Amazon.com. This article first appeared at The Economic Collapse Blog.
That is for 125 million of the 325 million statespeople? So 200 million people owe nothing yet. That is more positive than expected.
Thank God it’s 41 trillion in fake counterfeit paper and not real money
what does real money look like?
You like how these articles about debt invariably divide it up among every American household, as though we were somehow ALL to blame for it? The only blame we deserve is for not hanging every politician, bankster, robber baron, and oligarch decades ago; like right after the JFK assassination, for instance.
This debt was all created out of thin air, and the spending power of our labor has been CUT IN HALF since the 60’s. People seem to forget that our labor provides the largest increase of value for all goods and services. It SHOULD be the biggest expense! And moral business practices SHOULD exclude the constant search for ways to steal bread out of the mouths of workers. Meanwhile, corporate bonuses and salaries have never been bigger, even when adjusted for inflation.
They are using us, herding us like cattle, and now want to replace us with robots. It’s clear now that they simply want us to die. They’ve taken nearly all they can, built up this phony debt to un-payable, unsustainable levels, and the whole thing is going to implode, and we’re going to bear the whole burden of death and destruction, as usual.
Only if people will allow this to happen….. as usual.
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Exactly.
It would be like me making rules for a basketball game where all my guys are at least 8 feet tall and the opposing team is not allowed to jump.
The crazy thing is that the opposing team agrees.
Sure win for me !!!
Chuck you are leaving out an important morsel of fact: It (debt) was created out of thin air and interest payments were assigned (given) to the international banking families. Our constitution says that the treasury alone can do this but a select few brought in the banks in 1913. Read the book “The Creature From Jekyll Island” for an in depth analysis. This always seems to be ignored.
There is a HUGE mistake in this entire article and how it presents itself to any citizen. WHO made the decision to give mln’s for helping military to get ‘functional’ again? Who makes the decision to subsidize agriculture growing POISONOUS and TOXIC GMO food, sickening the entire nation with every day??? WHO MAKES THE DECISION TO MOVE EVERY SINGLE STOLEN PENNY OF ‘taxing everyone’ into certain ‘direction’??? Every single aspect of ‘such decisions’ has NOTHING TO DO WITH an AVERAGE CITIZEN, WHO IS NOT INVOLVED, AND THUS NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE DEBT!!!!!
All such debt is technically invalid, given the Federal Reserve is unconstitutional and an outright ponzi scheme against the American people. Such fraud negates consent of the people.
The American people show on signs of doing anything against the criminality that is perpetrated against them everyday. Why would grand theft be any different whether we consent of not. In fact, our inaction IS consent. The Ponzi scheme WILL collapse from the weight of its own corruption all by itself but I’m sure they have a contingency well in advance.
Don’t get me wrong, I hate the criminality, but we have to behave like sane and intelligent people with an ounce of courage first.
Using bad language against the criminals would only provoke laughter.
And remember…left winger Barack “What Legacy” Obama is responsible for HALF of this which is about $20 trillion. More than ALL the prior US presidents combined.
This is why the PTB hate it when you’re self-sufficient, as you incur no personal debts!
and baby boomers claim millennials want free shit when the faggots left us 350k in debt
They have been marketing debt as an investment for a long time. Nothing new. Delusional at it may sound.