Check out this video from Frontline on our runaway deficits. This is great stuff, and a must see that examines psychotic federal spending habits.
Sadly, in referencing our debt, “It’s going up every day,” according to the Frontline site.
“Here’s the fundamental problem: How much money can a society borrow before it begins to have negative effects on our ability to borrow any more? … When you get to the point that people won’t loan you any more money as a government, you’ve got a horrendous problem. And it’s happened to governments — in Argentina, most famously, in recent times. Mexico was kind of in that situation until we gave them a very big loan.”
“… Now, what happens before that is governments raise the interest rates so that people will loan them money. … Unfortunately, when interest rates get that high, economic activity slows down, and eventually it will stop. We’re not at that level yet with our $11 trillion worth of acknowledged debt, but there’s a bigger problem out there, which is $53 trillion worth of unfunded liabilities that we, the American people, have signed up for. Most of the American people don’t know that we have these so-called unfunded liabilities. An important part of that is Social Security and Medicare. …”
“… This financial crisis in retrospect will look like a child’s game compared to what we’re headed into when we have to begin raising enormous amounts of money through floating debt, or reneging on the obligations we made to people that they thought were good and clear from Social Security benefits and Medicare benefits…”
Bottom line, we’re screwed.
Unfortunately, it won’t get much better according to reports. We’re spending billions to bail out banks, the auto industry, homeowners in over their heads, while spending another $800 billion to jump-start a downward spiraling economy.
And you and I will be left holding the bag.
Other Frontline videos can be found here.
