On August 7, 2024 the national debt reached $35,094,756,345,920.31 ($35 trillion). As the graph shows, it is now on a level not seen since the end of World War II. However, in 1940, just before the U.S. entered the war, the debt stood at about 45% of GDP. In contrast, … Continue reading
Category Archives: Public Debt
Historical Record
Breton Woods Roots In 1944, with the approaching defeat of Germany all but certain, representatives of forty-four nations met in Bretton Woods, New Hampshire to create a new international monetary system. This Bretton Woods System, which became fully operational in 1958, was essentially a mechanism to settle international accounts in … Continue reading
Debt Graphs
Debt Graphs
Source of the U.S. dollar
The U.S. has had a debt-based banking system since 1864. As a result, it is currently impossible to extinguish government debt without simultaneously extinguishing our money supply. The Federal Reserve, established in 1913, is a for-profit corporation owned by private member banks. It has no reserves to back up the … Continue reading
Greek Debt
July 7, 2015 It is in no one’s interest, including the United States, to let Greece collapse. Greece’s creditors might lose most -if not all- of what they’re owed and the Greek people would suffer immensely for an indefinite period of time. The potential social, political, economic and even military … Continue reading
Debt, Taxes, Banks, And Paper
…It is a wise rule and should be fundamental in a government disposed to cherish its credit, and at the same time to restrain the use of it within the limits of its faculties, “never to borrow a dollar without laying a tax in the same instant for paying the … Continue reading
Public Debt
Currently the only way the government can maintain its liquidity is thanks to the Federal Reserve, which as of April 2013 holds 16% of total outstanding Treasuries -essentially Federal IOUs purchased by the Fed with money created out of thin air. How long this can continue is anyone’s guess.