Addiction to debt-financing put all developed nations in serious trouble, all of them, as far as I can tell, at least the OECD nations, countries that are members of the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development. Here are two examples:
First the largest of them all, the
United States National Debt
Visit USADebtClock.com to learn more!The U.S. National Public Debt Outstanding represents the face amount or principal amount of marketable and non-marketable securities currently outstanding.
– Source: U.S. Treasury[Update 2017 07 01, Note: On this day, at 7:00 a.m., the figure for the U.S. national debt was only $19.852 Trillion.]
More must be added to that to get the total of the money owed by the U.S. Government, namely the U.S. Unfunded Liability.
The total US Unfunded Liability includes Social Security, (Medicare Parts A,B and D), Federal Debt Held by the Public, plus Federal Employee & Veteran Benefits. (Generally Accepted Accounting Principles). That is a very substantial amount of money, $106.6 Trillion, and counting, for a total of about $126 Trillion, and counting.
FAQ 7: What are “unfunded liabilities”? Suppose you have no assets (no house, savings etc.), and you promise to pay me $1000 per month for a year. Your “unfunded liability” is $12,000 (12 months times $1000). The Federal Government has made similar promises for Medicare, Social Security, Medicare Part D (the Prescription Drug Plan) while not setting aside any money for these programs. Eventually the bill will come due and the government will have to pay those promises by law – or change the law. More
The only conceivable payers of the unfunded liabilities will be the children, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, and so on, ad infinitum, because it is not likely that those unfunded liabilities (and don’t forget the amount of the national debt that must be paid) can ever be paid by anyone, as the government debt per household is about $1.1 Million right now and keeps growing.
Then consider, in comparison (but keep in mind that the country’s population and economy are roughly one-tenth the size of those of the U.S.),
Canada’s National Debt
US$824,516 Million
(US$825 Billion or
C$1.089 Trillion, but that is not all.)See National Debt Clocks for current figures (links to figures for 52 countries that all are labouring to get out of the holes they dug for themselves, or are they?)
[Update 2017 07 01, Note: On this day, at 7:40 a.m., the figure for Canada’s national debt was US$824.668 Billion or C$1.068 Trillion, indicating that, although Canada’s national debt had fallen somewhat during the intervening three days, but that the value of the U.S. Dollar had fallen even faster.]
The figure of C$1.1 trillion only covers marketable IOUs or debentures. It excludes the very real portion of Canada’s debts that are very real but non-secured, unfunded financial liabilities that are backed up by nothing more than the Canadian governments’ promises that they will be paid, but can they be paid?
Much searching by me did not provide me with a debt-ticker or -clock for Canada that shows the amount of unfunded liabilities that Canada has racked up, nor have I been able to find a source of information anywhere that shows Canada’s amount of federal unfunded liabilities, but for a rough estimate, let’s use a comparable proportion of that very real debt that no one wishes to mention. For Canada, that would be about 5 times the amount of the federal national debt, which is about US$4.4 Trillion or C$5.8 Trillion, but things do not come to an end with that. There is more.
Addiction to debt-financing causes massive inter-generational transfer of debt.
From an exercise I did about 20 years ago, I found that Canada’s federal debt was just one half of the total national debt (including unfunded liabilities). An equal amount must be added over and above the federal figure to account for debts racked up by provinces and municipalities.
That means that all Canadians will have to pay C$11.6 Trillion at some point in the future, just taking into account what is owed now. If that would have to be paid off right now (or if the money would have to be put away right now to secure or fund that debt), that would be about C$352,000 for every man, woman and child in Canada. People who think that that can be done, now or at any time in the future, better have their heads examined.
Never mind the accuracy of the result of those calculations, a couple of trillions here or there – it doesn’t matter. It is far too much, and the racking-up of debt should have never been done to begin with. It is much the same with all countries in the world, but the “wealth” of the developed nations, once-upon-a-time solid and reliable, is now nothing more than a financial house of cards that will fall down at any moment.
The CEOs, of any corporation, who operate on the principle of real but undisclosed debt will go to prison for doing so, but not our bureaucrats and politicians who drive and endorse such a scam. They are immune from prosecution.
Obviously none of the politicians, bureaucrats and economists responsible for replacing a fairly solid world economy with a financial house of cards never read this piece of cowboy logic they should have taken to heart right from the start (they probably knew it all along but intentionally never paid attention to it):
If you find yourself in a hole, the first thing is to stop digging.
All of the individuals who raked in fat salaries while promoting that debt scam – a pyramid scheme, an inter-generational transfer of debt – did and still do well on it. We, the people and our descendants, are paying and will be paying for it, unless someone will find a way to do away with the meaning of money and the value of work.
