{"id":52166,"date":"2016-10-13T17:59:34","date_gmt":"2016-10-13T21:59:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=52166"},"modified":"2016-10-13T18:03:06","modified_gmt":"2016-10-13T22:03:06","slug":"while-media-obsesses-over-pussy-gate-us-debt-soars-to-19-7-trillion","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/?p=52166","title":{"rendered":"US Debt Soars To $19.7 Trillion While The Media Distracts With The Donald<\/i> RUMORS<\/b>"},"content":{"rendered":"

While Media Obsesses Over Pussygate, US Debt Soars To $19.7 Trillion<\/h2>\n

ZeroHedge.com<\/p>\n

Submitted by Simon Black via SovereignMan.com,<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

One of the things that caught my attention this morning was that the US government\u2019s debt level has soared to just a hair under $19.7 trillion.<\/p>\n

To give it some context, that\u2019s up over $170 billion in just eight business days.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s almost as if Barack Obama is intentionally and desperately trying to breach the $20 trillion mark before he leaves office in January.<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Of course, this hasn\u2019t been reported anywhere because the media is too busy pretending to be shocked that Donald Trump is a womanizer.<\/p>\n

And yet the debt is a much, much bigger story\u2026 though admittedly one that is far less entertaining.<\/p>\n

The election is merely a fight over who gets to be the band conductor while the Titanic sinks. And the debt is precisely the reason for this.<\/p>\n

Total US public debt has skyrocketed over the last eight years by $9 trillion, from $10.6 trillion to $19.7 trillion.<\/strong><\/p>\n

And in the 2016 fiscal year that just closed two weeks ago, the government added a whopping $1.4 trillion to the debt, the third highest amount on record.<\/p>\n

Plus, they managed to accumulate that much debt at a time when they weren\u2019t even really doing anything.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s not like the government spent the last year vanquishing ISIS or rebuilding US infrastructure. They just\u2026 squandered it.<\/p>\n

Stiglitz claims that we wouldn\u2019t judge a private company like Apple based solely on its debt.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d look at other factors like assets, income, and growth before making an assessment of the company\u2019s financial health.<\/p>\n

And he\u2019s right.<\/p>\n

Singapore, for example, is a country with an extremely high level of debt. At first glance, it looks dangerous.<\/p>\n

But if you dive deeper into the government\u2019s balance sheet, you see an enormous abundance of cash reserves.<\/p>\n

So taking into account just its cash assets, Singapore has absolutely ZERO net debt.<\/p>\n

The US, on the other hand, is not in this position.<\/p>\n

The Treasury Department publishes regular financial statements detailing its income, expenses, assets, and liabilities.<\/p>\n

You already know the income numbers\u2013 the government loses billions of dollars per year, and the trend is negative.<\/p>\n

As for its balance sheet, the government reports just $3.2 trillion in assets against $21.4 trillion in liabilities, for a NET position of NEGATIVE $18.2 trillion.<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

Now, when we\u2019re dealing with trillions, it\u2019s clearly not an exact science.<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many economists who argue that the federal highway system, military, and federal tax authority should count as \u201cassets\u201d that are worth trillions of dollars.<\/p>\n

Maybe so. But to be fair, one should also count the trillions of dollars of repairs needed on the highway system as liabilities.<\/p>\n

Or the trillions more in cost of wars. Or the $40+ trillion in unfunded liabilities from Medicare, Social Security, etc.<\/strong><\/p>\n

It\u2019s also important to note that America\u2019s debt is growing at a far quicker rate than its economy.<\/p>\n

When President Obama took office, US public debt was about 73% of GDP. Today it\u2019s 105%. So even as the economy has grown, the debt has grown much faster.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\"chart\"<\/p>\n

Any way you look at it, the US government is already insolvent, and its situation is becoming worse.<\/p>\n

This leaves essentially two options.<\/strong><\/u><\/p>\n

We can choose to willfully ignore this obvious trend and delude ourselves into thinking that the continued expansion of US debt will forever be consequence-free;<\/p>\n

Or, we can acknowledge the tiny possibility that maybe, just maybe, there may be some adverse consequence, and plan accordingly.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s the great thing about risks\u2013 we can take out insurance to protect against their consequences.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s why we have fire insurance to protect our homes, life insurance to protect our families.<\/p>\n

Of course, there is no policy from Met Life or GEICO which will protect you from capital controls, a default on Social Security, or Global Financial Crisis 2.0.<\/p>\n

Yet there are countless options to protect against these consequences.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The premise is simple: if your country is broke, don\u2019t keep 100% of your assets there.<\/p>\n

If your banking system is precariously illiquid and questionably solvent, don\u2019t keep 100% of your savings there.<\/p>\n

Most of all, it never, ever hurts to have a Plan B and give yourself additional options.<\/strong><\/p>\n

For example, you may be able to take some steps to legally reduce your tax bill; move some funds to a safer, better capitalized bank abroad that pays a higher rate of interest; or obtain a second passport based on your grandparents\u2019 Irish or Polish nationality.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s hard to imagine that you\u2019ll be worse off for having taken any of these steps.<\/p>\n

And like any great insurance policy, these steps not only protect you against risk, but also give you the chance to make more money and prosper.<\/p>\n

(That\u2019s why the ultra-wealthy often invest in insurance policies as an asset class.)<\/em><\/p>\n

Having a Plan B doesn\u2019t mean hiding in a bunker with a tin-foil hat. Anyone expecting the end of the world is going to be waiting a very long time.<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n

But taking some risk off the table is something that smart, rational people do, especially in light of such overwhelming data.<\/p>\n

___
\nhttp:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2016-10-13\/while-media-obsesses-over-pussy-gate-us-debt-soars-187-trillion#comment-8264609<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

While Media Obsesses Over Pussygate, US Debt Soars To $19.7 Trillion<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-52166","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52166","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=52166"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52166\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=52166"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=52166"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateofthenation2012.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=52166"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}