''Yeah, but you have to compare it to the GDP'' they always said

In Reply to: National debt $39.95 trillion....... posted by bluebellknoll on August 19, 2026 at 08:39:02

and so ... ooops! The GDP of the US is $32 billion and change.

Yeah, it all spiked under Bush Jr and Trump, but the Democratic Party also contributed to all this under Clinton and Obama. If you zoom back quite a bit, this is kinda like the perfect storm between post-industrial capitalism reaching its logical endpoint and empires reaching their end of life, the way I see it. So it is inevitable, unstoppable, and can only get worse, very likely completely collapsing under the next president or two, who will end up being blamed for the collapse.

(Was it Kevin Phillips' "American Theocracy" where he established parallels between the state of the US and how the sun finally set on a bunch of empires? It was an insightful book 20 years ago. I shouldn't have gotten rid of it.)

Follow Ups:

• Clinton actually ran a surplus last few years in office Dr.J 09:14:42 08/19/26 (9)
  • On a very narrow scope, sure, the known cycle is Republicans blindness 09:27:58 08/19/26 (8)
    • Here's the problem with that perspective Dr.J 10:23:22 08/19/26 (6)
      • I'm aware of the process, but isn't there a point at which blindness 11:51:23 08/19/26 (5)
        • Re: I'm aware of the process, but isn't there a point at which Dr.J 12:51:03 08/19/26 (2)
          • Those are good palliative actions ... as a starting point* blindness 13:25:04 08/19/26 (1)
            • The problem lies in fact that improving lives and policies Dr.J 14:31:29 08/19/26 (0)
        • Tax wealth, not work blindness 11:55:14 08/19/26 (1)
          • Until we effectively reform campaign finance the "wealth" will azbruin 12:41:23 08/19/26 (0)
    • NAFTA didn't make the budget deficit worse. mh 09:44:36 08/19/26 (0)

Post a Followup