This chart (below) of U.S. Federal Government debt says it all.
It took 229 years, from the founding of the country to 2005, for U.S. Federal debt to reach the $7.75 trillion mark (which by coincidence is roughly half of GDP). In just the 7 years since that date, the debt has doubled again to $15.5 trillion (as of this writing):
And as you can see above, the red extrapolation into the future shows that the debt will be triple the 2005 level within just 4 more years. So the debt accumulation ratio is 229:7:4 [single:double: triple] i.e. the debt accumulation rate is still accelerating and yet the economists tell us that the economy is recovering ! Politicians at the behest of their rent seeking special interest groups are borrowing the country into oblivion.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The chart below shows long-term debt history (extrapolated to 2016), which as you can see is going parabolic:
The chart below shows long-term debt history (extrapolated to 2016), which as you can see is going parabolic:
Postscript:
I realize that some Economists use "net" debt figures v.s. the "gross" debt figures that I used. Because they assume that money a country owes itself doesn't count. This is why (to date), no one has gone Minsky over the fact that Japanese debt exceeds 200% of GDP, by far the highest in the world - because economists rationalize that most of the debt is held by the Japanese. Imagine what it will feel like to be a Japanese pensioner and find out that you just lost your life savings because the global bond market decided one day enough is enough. At that point, bullshit rationalizations about "just owing oneself" will seem pretty stupid. And the economists will all say, "oh, I guess we were wrong"...
