I used to be upset about the amount of money the United States Government (USG) is borrowing, and promising to pay in the future. National Debt is about $20 Trillion. Add unfunded liabilities, like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, and the total may be $126 trillion.
Since the entire output of our nation, all business, everything is about $18 trillion per year, we seem to be in deep dodo. Many commentators say that default or massive inflation to inflate away the debt is inevitable.
Its like an individual having debt 7 times his annual income. If you income was $ 200,000 pa, you debt would be $ 1.4 million dollars! Holey Mackerel.
Yet I know lots of people who have under $500 thousand pa income and a $2 million house (with a $2 million mortgage).
The issue is, they have very large debt, but they have very large assets. Most homeowners with massive debt only get in trouble if the value of their real estate assets takes a dive, then in essence they then have massive debt and little assets.
Lots of countries with lots of debt have very little in value of assets. The government of Greece has some really nice islands that they would be loath to sell. Otherwise the purchasing and debt service power of Greece is mainly its ability to tax its citizens. You can’t get blood from a stone. They are in the situation the USG would be with $126 trillion obligations and a $18 trillion economy to skim money off of. You ain’t going to get anywhere for decades.
The USG, however, has lots of assets. It has the largest gold reserves of any nation by far. Unfortunately all the gold in Ft. Knox is worth less than a half of one trillion dollars. A drop.
The USG is a big landowner: The Federal Government owns nearly 650 million acres of land – almost 30 percent of the land area of the United States. What so you think 30% of the land in the USA is worth if sold at auction?
The USG ownes about $128 trillion in energy resources.