Watching the United States economy is a lot like watching an extremely slow wildfire. It’s gradually worsening over time, and all most of us can do is watch. I’m not here to spout “shoulda” this and “shoulda” that. I’m no expert. But I can at least keep the modern man up to date about its current condition.
We may soon find interest being the nations number one expense. The U.S. government owes a great deal of money, which have interest. A combination of a growing budget deficit, tax cuts, and rising interest rates mean that over time, we will have less money to spend while owing more and more.
How fast, though? Current estimates by the Congressional Budget Office say that we will hit $390 billion for the cost of interest in 2019. That’s nearly a 50% increase in only two years.
So interest is rising faster than we can handle, fantastic. Want to know what makes it even better? We keep spending more. A budget bill approved in February will raise spending by $300 billion over the next two years. This means we’ll hit a $1 trillion deficit. The last time we did that was in 2012 when we were in recovery with nearly zero interest.
Economic collapse is the second most likely cause of a national SHTF scenario. Nuclear war is the current number one threat. With the way things have been going lately, it feels more like waiting to see which one will happen first, instead of if.