The U.S. Debt Disease

Read any introductory college economics book you wish, most will tell you that there is no way the amount of public debt can outstrip the productive capacity of a wealthy, developed nation like the United States. Just five year ago this claim may have been plausible but at present the US has realized a public debt of over $15 trillion–an amount roughly 100 percent of GDP!

So those same books will go on to tell you how bankruptcy is a trifling concept to the Federal Government, subheadings: Refinancing and Taxation. Our entire system endlessly fuels the fire of debt with more debt as individuals finance everything from a college education, to homes, and automobiles.

Following the example set by Uncle Sam, people are virtually enslaving themselves with the amount of debt they possess, the difference being that we, as individuals, have no one to tax or no one to unload our debt burden on. The banking system, on the other hand, has nearly unlimited access to the Federal Reserve, where the sign out front reads “Dump debt here.”

Looking at the student loan market the average debt upon graduation is roughly $24,000, with median pay leveling out at about $26,250, assuming individuals are able to get jobs right out of college. Forget Brave New World, we’re in dystopia now.

In a system where everything runs on enormous levels of debt, the very idea of saving has become a sophistry. If you can’t possibly save enough for a car or an education, you get a loan instead. In the same way that toxic loans to the housing market corrupted the industry and drove prices sky high, similar parallels are occurring in the student loan and higher education market. The enormously wealthy few are becoming richer with the financialization of our country, and the more people who wake up to this reality the better equipped we will be as a nation of sovereign individuals to stop the cycle and start generating wealth for ourselves, not others.

Debt is a huge burden on our society and most of the world does not realize that it is crippling to their financial well-being. It will literally enslave you into a never ending cycle of poverty unless action is taken to solve the fundamental financial problems. It is time to take action with your financial situation and education on debt, money and your own financial situation. It’s more important than ever with the insurmountable financial issues facing our world today.