Up Against The Wall

Ask not for whom the bell tolls

I admit, one of the periods of English history I admire created poets like John Donne. https://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/display/document/obo-9780195399301/obo-9780195399301-0088.xml#:~:text=Donne%20(b.,include%20all%20of%20the%20above.

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/is-it-even-possible-to-fix-the-national-debt-yes-but-at-great-cost-151361/

So that’s really the question: is it possible to stop the increase in debt-to-GDP?

Yes. But it will come at a significant cost… with plenty of challenges and uncertainties.

So let’s do some basic arithmetic. In order for the debt-to-GDP ratio to remain the same, it means that both the national debt and US economy must grow at the same rate.

In other words, if the US economy grows by 5%, then the national debt can also grow by 5%, and the ratio will stay the same.

It’s not unusual for the US economy to grow by 5% in a single year.

Bear in mind that this “nominal” GDP growth includes the impact of inflation.  So if inflation is 4% in a single year, and real economic productivity growth is just 1%, then overall GDP growth will be 5% for that year, i.e. 4% + 1%.

On average in the three decades from 1989 through 2019 (i.e. pre-Covid), average GDP growth in the US was right around 5%— which, again, includes the effects of inflation. So this is a reasonable assumption.

Simultaneously, a 5% increase in the national debt (which is roughly equivalent to that year’s annual budget deficit) is a substantial number. Again, the national debt is $35+ trillion. 5% of that is a whopping $1.75 trillion.

In other words, as long as the size of the US economy grows by 5% (whether through inflation, or actual productivity growth), then the annual budget deficit could be $1.75 trillion… and the debt-to-GDP ratio would not increase.

Obviously this is an absurd sum of money. A $1.75 trillion deficit is ridiculously large. So you’d think that the federal government would be able to run its operations with a $1.75 trillion deficit.

Unfortunately that’s not the case; this year they expect to be over-budget by nearly $2 trillion.

So right off the top, they’re going to have to shave around $250 billion from the budget this year in order to achieve a deficit of “only” $1.75 trillion.

Where will they cut that money? Well remember, there are three main categories of government spending:

1. Interest on the debt: This cannot be cut without a US government default, which would undoubtedly spark an immense global financial crisis.

2. Mandatory spending such as Social Security and Medicare: No politician has the courage to touch mandatory spending.

3. Discretionary spending: This is the only realistic place where spending cuts can be made.

However, cutting discretionary spending is no small task.

https://allthatsinteresting.com/gordian-knot

So walking vested interests back by policy and funding over to 2024 —-why the knot must now be cut

Yes the bell rings for thee American. Enjoy the ride.

Spies : The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America 🔍

Yale University Press, 2009

John Earl Haynes & Harvey Klehr & Alexander Vassiliev 🔍

DESCRIPTION

This stunning book, based on KGB archives that have never come to light before, provides the most complete account of Soviet espionage in America ever written. In 1993, former KGB officer Alexander Vassiliev was permitted unique access to Stalin-era records of Soviet intelligence operations against the United States. Years later, living in Britain, Vassiliev retrieved his extensive notebooks of transcribed documents from Moscow. With these notebooks John Earl Haynes and Harvey Klehr have meticulously constructed a new, sometimes shocking, historical account. Along with general insights into espionage tactics and the motives of Americans who spied for Stalin, Spies resolves specific, long-seething controversies. The book confirms, among many other things, that Alger Hiss cooperated with Soviet intelligence over a long period of years, that journalist I. F. Stone worked on behalf of the KGB in the 1930s, and that Robert Oppenheimer was never recruited by Soviet intelligence. Spies also uncovers numerous American spies who were never even under suspicion and satisfyingly identifies the last unaccounted for American nuclear spies. Vassiliev tells the story of the notebooks and his own extraordinary life in a gripping introduction to the volume. (Free at Annas Archive.)