• 288 days Will The ECB Continue To Hike Rates?
  • 288 days Forbes: Aramco Remains Largest Company In The Middle East
  • 290 days Caltech Scientists Succesfully Beam Back Solar Power From Space
  • 690 days Could Crypto Overtake Traditional Investment?
  • 695 days Americans Still Quitting Jobs At Record Pace
  • 697 days FinTech Startups Tapping VC Money for ‘Immigrant Banking’
  • 700 days Is The Dollar Too Strong?
  • 700 days Big Tech Disappoints Investors on Earnings Calls
  • 701 days Fear And Celebration On Twitter as Musk Takes The Reins
  • 703 days China Is Quietly Trying To Distance Itself From Russia
  • 703 days Tech and Internet Giants’ Earnings In Focus After Netflix’s Stinker
  • 707 days Crypto Investors Won Big In 2021
  • 707 days The ‘Metaverse’ Economy Could be Worth $13 Trillion By 2030
  • 708 days Food Prices Are Skyrocketing As Putin’s War Persists
  • 710 days Pentagon Resignations Illustrate Our ‘Commercial’ Defense Dilemma
  • 711 days US Banks Shrug off Nearly $15 Billion In Russian Write-Offs
  • 714 days Cannabis Stocks in Holding Pattern Despite Positive Momentum
  • 715 days Is Musk A Bastion Of Free Speech Or Will His Absolutist Stance Backfire?
  • 715 days Two ETFs That Could Hedge Against Extreme Market Volatility
  • 717 days Are NFTs About To Take Over Gaming?
How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

How The Ultra-Wealthy Are Using Art To Dodge Taxes

More freeports open around the…

Market Sentiment At Its Lowest In 10 Months

Market Sentiment At Its Lowest In 10 Months

Stocks sold off last week…

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

Zombie Foreclosures On The Rise In The U.S.

During the quarter there were…

  1. Home
  2. Markets
  3. Other

The National Debt Cannot Be Paid Off

Government spending is out of control and, while most say they want spending cuts, people oppose cuts that impact them. Among those who get government money, there's practically an unspoken, unbreakable pact to keep the money coming. But when I say that the national debt cannot be paid off, it's not a political forecast; it's a statement on the flawed nature of the dollar.

Astute observers call the dollar a fiat currency. Fiat means force. It's true that we're forced to use the dollar (e.g. by taxes on gold) but the dollar is also irredeemable. There's no way to cash it in. The dollar is credit that is never repaid. Today's dollar is a dishonored promise.

This was not always true. Before 1933, the dollar represented an obligation to pay 1/20 ounce of gold. People could deposit gold and get paper notes in receipt. Those notes circulated, and any bearer could redeem them for gold. Back then, $20 was not the gold price. It was the legal rate at which gold was deposited and redeemed.

In 1971, President Nixon changed the monetary system with the stroke of his pen, making the Fed no longer obligated to redeem dollars for gold. The consequences of using debt as if it were money were soon clear. Rising debt became a more serious problem than rising prices.

To understand debt, credit and the importance of redemption, consider Joe borrowing sugar from neighbor Sue. To pay Sue back, Joe goes to the store, buys sugar and hands it to Sue. Not only is Sue repaid; the debt goes out of existence -- it is extinguished. Borrowing money used to be like borrowing sugar. The repayment of debt in gold-backed dollars settled the loan and wiped the debt clean.

Not anymore, since Nixon detached the dollar from gold. By making people pay with paper-only dollars, each debt is transferred, not cleared.

Suppose Sue owed Joe $1,000, then hands Joe ten $100 bills. Sue gets out of the debt loop. But now the Fed owes Joe the $1,000. What does Joe do? He deposits his cash in a bank. Now the bank owes Joe money, while the Fed owes the bank. What does the bank do? It buys a Treasury bond. Now the Treasury owes the bank. And so on.

By Nixon's design, the system omits a crucial feature. The extinguisher of debt, gold, is not allowed to do its job. Debt can only be transferred from one party to another. It's like a lump being pushed around under a rug. With no means of final payment, that lump is never put in the trash. Debt is never extinguished.

In fact, the debt must increase, because the interest is constantly accruing. Interest is added to the debt, as it can't be paid off either. Total debt must grow by at least the interest. Debt actually increases faster than that, because the government craves what now passes for growth.

The rate of debt increase is proportional to the debt itself. It is not a fixed dollar amount, such as $100 billion a year. It is instead a percent of total debt. Mathematics has a term for this type of growth: an exponential function.

Exponential growth is not sustainable, according to credible scientists. Mainstream economists ignore this fact in the hope that that somehow growth can outpace debt, one year a time.

But exponentially rising debt is not sustainable because the capacity to service the debt is finite. Without a means of extinguishing debt, servicing is merely borrowing new money to pay off old debts. This is the equivalent of taking out a home equity loan to get money to pay the mortgage.

The U.S. debt is putting us in danger of economic catastrophe. Like Greece, which found no more buyers for their bonds, the U.S. relies on selling new bonds to pay interest and principal when due. The difference is that the whole world bids on U.S. Treasury bonds, for now. But eventually, market participants will realize that the American debt cannot be paid off.

 

Back to homepage

Leave a comment

Leave a comment