Are You Vulnerable to Physical Violence?

The U.S. government’s 2021 fiscal year came and went like Dow 36,000.

With respect to the latter, authors James Glassman and Kevin Hassett were only off by 17 years in their 1999 forecast of Dow 36,000 by 2005.  At this point, the attainment of their prediction is a giant letdown.

With respect to the former, we have a question: Does President Biden have any idea that the government he pretends to oversee is skirting the edge of insolvency?

Most Americans, like Biden, could care less about how the fiscal year’s final ledger tallied.  Three generations of budget deficits without pain have spread complacency about the ability of Americans to consume without paying.  Deficits don’t matter to voters.

Presently, only conspiracy theorists and wackos still place any importance on the archaic practice of government accounting.  Why bother, when you can buy shares of Tesla and hold on for the end of the world?

In case you missed it – and actually care – here are a couple of the high points and low points…

Receipts for the full 2021 fiscal year, which ran from October 1 through September 30, totaled $4.046 trillion.  This marked an 18.3 percent increase of $626 billion from fiscal year 2020.

However, 2021 fiscal year spending jumped by 4.1 percent, or by $266 billion, from fiscal year 2020 to $6.818 trillion.  So, while receipts went up, spending went up too.  The difference between the two, known as the budget deficit, totaled $2.772 trillion.

Quite frankly, a $2.772 trillion budget deficit is a disgrace.  It represents an extreme failure of government.  But it is a slight improvement over the $3.132 trillion budget deficit that was racked up in fiscal year 2020.  Regardless, the U.S. government is spending like a banana republic.

Let’s take a closer look…

An Invitation to Total Ruin

In total, the U.S. government borrowed and spent $5.9 trillion over the 24 months ending September 30, 2021.  Should it be a surprise that annual price inflation is climbing at the fastest pace in 30 years?

During fiscal years 2020 and 2021 the federal government spent $8.08 billion dollars a day out of an empty pocket.  What’s more, much of this debt was financed by Federal Reserve purchases of U.S. Treasuries using credit created out of thin air.

The prevailing view in Democrat led Washington is that there should be no limits to government spending.  This is especially so when spending is for social infrastructure and to control the climate.

So, too, it is implied in Congress that in a time of crisis the big banks are too big to fail.  In practice, the government finds it more expedient to forestall bankruptcies by extending credit or enlarging debt than letting the exacting justice of nature do her work.

The trouble with this philosophy of finance, however, is that it is an invitation to total ruin.  Debt cannot go on compounding faster than output forever.  Everyone cannot be bailed out by everyone else, indefinitely.

The bills always come due.  There’s no escaping it.  And if the bills cannot be honestly paid, they must be reckoned through default or inflation.

This should be fundamental and obvious.  Yet running huge deficits to postpone an economic decline has been considered a policy success by government economists.  In truth, policies of mega deficits are dangerously shortsighted.

Are You Vulnerable to Physical Violence?

Most recently, the government blew its wad fighting coronavirus hobgoblins.  Having already consumed its seed corn, Washington has little capacity to act when the next phase of depression takes hold.

Moreover, the recent spending binge has accelerated a debt trajectory that was previously unsustainable…

Prior to 2020, outstanding promises and obligation were already vast.  But trillions more were triggered by destructive government mandated lockdowns.  These self-inflicted catastrophes are proving too great to overcome.

Price inflation.  Supply chain disruptions.  Mass dependency.  Dollar debasement.  Government sanctioned Bidenvilles.  Twin stock market and housing bubbles.  Afghanistan.  Non-fungible token digital fart art.

But that’s not all…

Gavin Newsom.  Jay Powell.  Janet Yellen.  Kamala Harris.  The IRS.  Woke propaganda.  Vaccine mandates.  LAUSD.  Anthony Fauci.  Jamie Dimon.  Diesel powered EV charging stations.  Greta Thunburg.  You name it…

Budget deficits, spending bills, and make work employment will continue to offer short-term gains to politicians.  But these measures will greatly exacerbate the broad economic collapse when the requisite deflation or inflation – pick your poison – plays itself out.

Perhaps the experts in Washington can postpone the collapse a little longer.  But it cannot be avoided.

This disagreeable reality and its implications were somehow overlooked by the major news media outlets as the 2021 fiscal year came to a close.  If someone reported on it, we missed it.

So here we’ll give it to you straight…

More than you may now imagine, you are vulnerable to financial, economic, and political collapse.  In fact, it’s happening right now…at this precise moment.

Thus, and especially if you live in one of America’s many liberal run cities, you’re also increasingly vulnerable to physical violence.

America’s final descent into chaos has arrived.  The window for getting out of Dodge is closing.

Sincerely,

MN Gordon
for Economic Prism

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