American Suicide: Death by a Thousand Cuts (Vol. 211)

“Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There was never a democracy yet that did not commit suicide.” — John Adams, 2nd President of the United States

Our second president anticipated what we are seeing today. What did he see then that we are not seeing today?

Our Founders deliberated at length and learned from the intellectual giants that came before. They were wise and developed a government structure that has lasted for 250 years and blossomed into the most powerful country the world has ever known. It was based on purposely limited government, fiscal responsibility, individual freedom and protection of individual rights to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’.

Even today, as an outside observer of what is happening today, the country is prosperous by any standard. Jobs are plentiful, stock markets are at highs, and financial wealth is strong for many. It isn’t perfect, yes, there are issues today for many who struggle with high inflation and interest rates, but the economy seems sound. We are the strongman in the world economy.

Problem? What problem?

However, lurking in the shadows is a dangerous problem that many see, and talk about, but the massive block of voters, over 150 million, do not see — the problem is hidden in plain sight. The serious problem some see, but no one is dealing with, is the slow buildup of our national debt.

Year by year, it grows slowly at first, then faster and faster.

The wise men see it, the economists see it, the scholars see it, even our federal government sees it as they say in the annual report ‘the fiscal path is unsustainable’.

In 2010, well before the debt reached the heights of today, then Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen said, “The most significant threat to our national security is our debt”.

We are slowly committing suicide by 1000 cuts as year by year we pile up debt to alarming levels, now at the rate of $2-3 trillion per year on top of the almost $40 trillion we now have. If we do not address the issue, and we are not, this will not end well.

We have seen this movie before, in both history and modern day economies. No great nation has lived forever, and a major cause of failure was always finances.

Modern times have seen countries like Greece be warned, only to ignore the warning until they collapsed. But they were small enough to be saved by the European Union.

If the United States fails, who will bail us out? Nobody!!! We are not too big to fail; we are too big to save.

We are such a large part of the world economy, if we collapse, the rest of the world will go down with us. It will be worse than the Great Depression. We cannot let that happen.

But it is happening — right before our eyes, and many may see it, but do not realize how dangerous it truly is.

Year by year it gets worse and worse, the government projections tell the story – multi-trillion dollar deficits forever.

A key measure of the problem is the debt to GDP (Gross Domestic Product) ratio. It is currently about 125%, already at a high danger level. Year by year it gets worse and worse. We can only pay our maturing debts and cover our annual losses every year by borrowing – about $10 trillion in 2025. Someday the lending window will close, when we can no longer borrow at reasonable interest rates. And that is the beginning of the end for us — there will be no good solutions when that occurs, and a catastrophic collapse will occur.

Bottom Line

Can it be avoided? Of course, but it will take an educated public to realize the danger we face and demand that Congress fix the problem, or we will vote for someone who will. That will get results. And as an outside observer, the only thing I can do is be a part of that massive educational effort, and I along with several others are working on that now.

It is ultimately up to us, the American citizens, to Listen, Think, Learn, and ACT, if we are to avoid the dire warning by John Adams.