The total debt owed by the United States federal government has reached incrediblelevels. Today, the total is $34,541,727,970,599.17 – but by the time you read this article, it’ll probably be higher.
I say “probably” because the debt is growing exponentially that by the time you read this, it’s quite possible that another few hundred billion have taken the total over $35 trillion.
Look at the official chart and attention to how fast total debt has risen since the turn of the century:
In the year 2000, total government debt was $5.7 trillion.
Ah, the good old days…
The nation’s debt has grown more than $5.7 trillion since President Biden took office!
Let me put it another way:
- It took the federal government 224 years, the Louisiana Purchase, the Civil War and two World Wars to rack up the first $5.7 trillion in red ink
- And then it took the Biden administration just three years to rack up the last $5.7 trillion!
I apologize for going on and on about this but I honestly cannot believe it.
It’s hard to call this an apples-to-apples comparison, though, because for the majority of those first two centuries, the dollar’s value was based on a defined quantity of gold or silver.
Well, obviously that cannot be the case any more! Based on my back-of-the-envelope estimate, there’s only $16.1 trillion in gold in the world (based on current prices). The ONLY way to create such an astonishing mountain of debt was to divorce the currency from any intrinsic value.
It’s almost a magic trick.
Think about it…
Once, a dollar was 3/4 oz of silver, or 1/2 oz for a $10 coin. People had to go and dig that precious metal out of the ground, refine it and stamp it. That’s a lot of work.
Then, the dollar became a paper certificate exchangeable for the equivalent weight of gold or silver. That’s just more convenient.
Finally, the dollar became just the paper itself.
It’s like money from nothing!
And to be clear, this “money from nothing” magic trick has been working since Nixon ended the last vestiges of the gold standard just over 50 years ago.
But you know how sleight-of-hand works, right?
It depends on deception.
And every time you do the same trick, the audience is one step closer to figuring out that it’s not really magic after all…
This exact same magic trick that’s been supporting both the federal government and the U.S. dollar for five decades just isn’t working as well as it used to.
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