Comparing U.S. Federal Spending with Revenue - This is why fiat will fall

[bitmover]

Look at how much USD was printed in the last years.

American Government can just spend 40% more than the incomes, and no problem with that. Debit all the way.


Source: https://www.visualcapitalist.com/cp/us-federal-spending-versus-revenue-2021/

This is why bitcoin was born. This is literally money creation.

ANd this is why we have so many inflation.

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[Hydrogen]

Obligatory US state spending has always grown at a faster rate than tax revenues. At a certain point liabilities are guaranteed to exceed income. It is only a question of when. And what happens when that point is reached. The term ticking debt time bomb might define the end game if we are unable to reconcile matters in a way that is favorable. The US economy has always existed on borrowed time from the inception of its foundation being laid. This is the reason behind many being confident enough to predict the demise of social security and other state managed programs. While most of us hoped that day wouldn't come during our lifetimes. A case might be made for the global pandemic and other unforeseen events accelerating the pace at which circumstances deteriorate.

This was making headlines in the fallout of the 2008 crisis. I remember being angry and depressed around that time due to issues like these. But over time, there becomes less to be angry and depressed about. As you realize there isn't much you can do about it. At least knowing gives you a chance to adapt and prepare. Not knowing is a worse place to be.

[Hispo]

The democrat party does not want to cut expenses and would prefer to increase the revenue by taxing the population (or those with a considerably big wealth)
The republican party does not want to tax anyone further and wants to cut the expenses in order to reduce the huge deficit.

Which solution is the best?
I assume it mostly depends whom one asks to. now I get why the United States needs to borrow so much money and increase their debt ceiling.

I have even read Republicans suggesting to privatize the social security to get some weight off the shoulders of the government. i am not sure of the possible consequences of it, though.

[Darker45]

It's really funny how the fiat system works. Since the system is basically controlled by the government, they seem to be above everything else. If the revenue is much smaller than the spending, then there is always the option to resort to debts. From whom? Well, it could be from themselves. So they create more money so that they could lend it to themselves, because they're borrowing from themselves. And they will also pay themselves for the money they borrowed from themselves.

But they're also setting a debt ceiling or a limit. They couldn't borrow beyond that. But what if there's no more money and the ceiling is already hit and they badly need the money? Well, since they're also the ones creating the ceiling for themselves, they could also increase it for themselves so that they could borrow more money from themselves to themselves.

[slapper]

Obligatory US state spending has always grown at a faster rate than tax revenues. At a certain point liabilities are guaranteed to exceed income. It is only a question of when. And what happens when that point is reached. The term ticking debt time bomb might define the end game if we are unable to reconcile matters in a way that is favorable. The US economy has always existed on borrowed time from the inception of its foundation being laid. This is the reason behind many being confident enough to predict the demise of social security and other state managed programs. While most of us hoped that day wouldn't come during our lifetimes. A case might be made for the global pandemic and other unforeseen events accelerating the pace at which circumstances deteriorate.

This was making headlines in the fallout of the 2008 crisis. I remember being angry and depressed around that time due to issues like these. But over time, there becomes less to be angry and depressed about. As you realize there isn't much you can do about it. At least knowing gives you a chance to adapt and prepare. Not knowing is a worse place to be.

I couldn't agree with you more. The crisis of 2008 seems to have served as a wake-up call for many. Then our rescuer came and he brought Bitcoin to us. More than a decade later, the advantages of Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies as savings have become clear. It's a protection against inflation, for one thing. We've seen what happens to conventional currencies over time, but Bitcoin's supply is capped, making it more resistant to inflation. It's a hedge against the instability that can occur in the global economy because it's not tied to any one nation's financial system.

And let's not overlook the reality that the United States as a whole is dealing with a lot of problems as of late, problems that span the cultural and human rights spectrum and may portend a future economic downturn. And the solution they propose is to keep printing more money? Damn. Therefore, the best approach to safeguard our children against economic ruin is to safeguard ourselves and our resources.

To sum up, I believe that anyone seeking insurance against the current crises in the United States and the rest of the world would be wise to keep Bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies. Our economy is quite vulnerable.

[Poker Player]

Which solution is the best?
I assume it mostly depends whom one asks to. now I get why the United States needs to borrow so much money and increase their debt ceiling.

The solution that has never failed is a lowering of taxes but, and this is very important, coupled with a lowering of public spending. And let interest rates rise as much as they have to. Letting the private sector compete without putting a thousand obstacles or drowning it with taxes is what makes societies prosper, something that nobody seems to want to remember nowadays.

The problem is that today you have many right-wing politicians who only pay lip service to it and when they get into office they seem to forget what works.

[Hispo]

-snip-

The solution that has never failed is a lowering of taxes but, and this is very important, coupled with a lowering of public spending. And let interest rates rise as much as they have to. Letting the private sector compete without putting a thousand obstacles or drowning it with taxes is what makes societies prosper, something that nobody seems to want to remember nowadays.

The problem is that today you have many right-wing politicians who only pay lip service to it and when they get into office they seem to forget what works.

Implying they apply that solution, obviously to get rid (or at last close a bit) of the gap, the public spending would need to be substantially cut in comparison to the taxation. Many people depend on the public spending to attend their health, to study and to eat (food stamps programs), so obviously they would struggle even more.
Increasing the cost of credit as much as necessary to stop the inflation could relieve the situation of those people, but I am personally not sure it would be enough.
I imagine someone who does not longer receive their food stamps but manage to find cheaper prices at the grocery store. The only thing that is left out the equation is that person being able to get a job to buy their food, I assume there is when enters the private property/industry with a vacancy for them?

I am not an economist, though... I still believe that cutting stuff people may be living on could be problematic...

[pooya87]

It is not an accident that Bitcoin was created after the 2008 crash, someone saw the flaw in having an unlimited/uncapped currency and tried to create a new currency that could also become money some day by having a supply cap.

It is not just US either even though US exports its inflation abroad. It is every country out there that is printing money to cover their deficits and cause inflation over time. Check out the following website to see the horrible state global economy is at: https://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

[so98nn]

You mean, US is in 2000B above it's expenses? How does this calculation is done. Simply put they had more than 4000B income from taxes and deficits, while expenditure was around 6000B right? Those are crazy values for the least populated nation like america. I am not sure where most of the money flows here, but isnt that is too much money to live? lol

It is not an accident that Bitcoin was created after the 2008 crash, someone saw the flaw in having an unlimited/uncapped currency and tried to create a new currency that could also become money some day by having a supply cap.

It is not just US either even though US exports its inflation abroad. It is every country out there that is printing money to cover their deficits and cause inflation over time. Check out the following website to see the horrible state global economy is at: https://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

Kinda started to believe that it was sweet coincidence. I mean wow, with the time peeps gonna notice this and recollect from the history that they need to change the currency. 

I don't know how relevant this is, but with the time we are going more and more digital so it may happen that physical currency would be worthless. With only gestures and handshakes we will start sending and receiving money. Guess who is the eligible candidate for this one? Well well, BTC it is.

[davis196]

If the US dollar wasn't a global reserve currency, then USA would've gone bankrupt years ago.
There's a global demand for dollars, because USD is the global currency for transactions and currency reserves, so basically the Federal Reserve is "selling" newly printed dollars to the rest of the world. If the world stops "buying" new dollars, the US dominated fiat system will collapse.
Anyway, while Bitcoin is seen as an alternative to the fiat financial system, I can't figure out how Bitcoin adoption would help for changing anything. Bitcoin isn't performing well and it definitely isn't a safe heaven asset. BTC would never be accepted as mass payment method.
I'm not anti-Bitcoin, but let's be honest here. Bitcoin isn't the "magic pill", that will solve all financial problems in the world.

[Synchronice]

It's really funny how the fiat system works. Since the system is basically controlled by the government, they seem to be above everything else. If the revenue is much smaller than the spending, then there is always the option to resort to debts. From whom? Well, it could be from themselves. So they create more money so that they could lend it to themselves, because they're borrowing from themselves. And they will also pay themselves for the money they borrowed from themselves.

But they're also setting a debt ceiling or a limit. They couldn't borrow beyond that. But what if there's no more money and the ceiling is already hit and they badly need the money? Well, since they're also the ones creating the ceiling for themselves, they could also increase it for themselves so that they could borrow more money from themselves to themselves.

The USA government is printing money, creating a debt, then the population faces increased prices and instead of $10 they are paying $15 for the same product and for exactly the same work. Why do we pay the extra $5? Because the government printed $5 for themselves and we have to pay it, forever.
It's funny how high are the salaries of prime ministers and politicians and how high the debt is becoming and how high the inflation is rising.

To my mind the only solution is to make law strict for politicians. Ministry of economics is responsible for the country's economics. Is economy failing? Then the Ministry should face jail. Is the city's infrastructure, transport, metro, etc not working well? Then the mayor should go in jail. Today, doesn't matter whether good or bad thing happens, no one is punished for her mistakes and wrong, harmful decisions.

[philipma1957]

Which solution is the best?
I assume it mostly depends whom one asks to. now I get why the United States needs to borrow so much money and increase their debt ceiling.

The solution that has never failed is a lowering of taxes but, and this is very important, coupled with a lowering of public spending. And let interest rates rise as much as they have to. Letting the private sector compete without putting a thousand obstacles or drowning it with taxes is what makes societies prosper, something that nobody seems to want to remember nowadays.

The problem is that today you have many right-wing politicians who only pay lip service to it and when they get into office they seem to forget what works.

Wow do you really believe this?

The USA was in fine shape til the 60s.

It taxed the shit out of the wealthy and ran a surplus.

Then Kennedy got shot in the head.
Johnson came in ran the war on poverty.
Ran the war in vietnam
And the arms race
and the race to the moon.
then nixon came in
dropped taxes
took USA off gold standard.

Setting off the first true inflation.
And the beginning of deficit spending
been down hill ever since
does not matter what side is in they all steal and bull shit like motherfuckers.

[Hispo]

-snip-

-snip-

-snip-
Setting off the first true inflation.
And the beginning of deficit spending
been down hill ever since
does not matter what side is in they all steal and bull shit like motherfuckers.

So you believe it is mostly because the gold standard and the lack of higher taxation to the wealthy Americans?
There is still a chance the United States government could manage to increase taxes to the rich, however going back to the gold standard sounds incredibly difficult at this point, where the Federal Reserve is used to printing money when they most need it.

[pooya87]

It taxed the shit out of the wealthy and ran a surplus.

The day US was infected with capitalism and the rules kept changing for the wealthy minority was the day the downfall of the "empire" began.
One thing you missed was the gold standard was replaced by another standard using oil (ie. petrodollar) and they abused it by manipulating the oil price to pump and dump dollar. But we all know that you can only manipulate a market so many times before it stops working... specially since majority of oil sales are in the control of others.

[Darker45]

Incidentally, it seems the farce that is the debt ceiling could be abolished. It may seem horrible considering how all hell could break loose once the public debt goes unlimited but it comes not as a surprise considering that only a few countries in the world have it. And it's of little use anyway because it could also easily be raised whenever they deem necessary.

~snip~

To my mind the only solution is to make law strict for politicians. Ministry of economics is responsible for the country's economics. Is economy failing? Then the Ministry should face jail. Is the city's infrastructure, transport, metro, etc not working well? Then the mayor should go in jail. Today, doesn't matter whether good or bad thing happens, no one is punished for her mistakes and wrong, harmful decisions.

I can only speak for my country, and this is impossible to happen. Politicians are the rulers. They're above the law. If their sons and daughters and relatives and friends are untouchables because of them despite being criminals, how much more themselves?

[Hispo]

It taxed the shit out of the wealthy and ran a surplus.

... specially since majority of oil sales are in the control of others.

Since we are talking a little bit about energy and deficit, what would be the role of the push towards renewable energy in that scenario?
There will be a new standard after the fall of the gold and oil? I personally doubt it.

It seems that the current plan is just to increase the debt towards the infinite, leaving it to be a problem to the next generation and the next one and the next one. It is like a match of "hot potato", I think that the generation that ends up with the problem in their hands to explode will find themselves in huge problems, because of people who will be by then just dust in a coffin.

[justdimin]

American Government can just spend 40% more than the incomes, and no problem with that. Debit all the way.

I just wonder that even when the world's top economy's government cannot find enough revenue resources to match the expenses what other developing or under developing economy based governments are doing. So, printing paper money out of nothing could be the only solution here? It is really shocking to me.

Government must take over the insurance kind of high networth businesses to handle the situation better.

This is why bitcoin was born. This is literally money creation.

Yeah, no government concerns about inflation and the devaluation of their own money. In short, no government work with long term goals; they just need to solve that year's deficits and need to get ready for the upcoming election; because all governments are run by politicians and not my visionary economists.

[Ozero]

If the US dollar wasn't a global reserve currency, then USA would've gone bankrupt years ago.
There's a global demand for dollars, because USD is the global currency for transactions and currency reserves, so basically the Federal Reserve is "selling" newly printed dollars to the rest of the world. If the world stops "buying" new dollars, the US dominated fiat system will collapse.
Anyway, while Bitcoin is seen as an alternative to the fiat financial system, I can't figure out how Bitcoin adoption would help for changing anything. Bitcoin isn't performing well and it definitely isn't a safe heaven asset. BTC would never be accepted as mass payment method.
I'm not anti-Bitcoin, but let's be honest here. Bitcoin isn't the "magic pill", that will solve all financial problems in the world.

Precisely because the dollar is the world's reserve currency, the US economy and financial system is fundamentally different from the economy and financial system of other states. The US can print astronomical amounts of dollars and transfer them to other states and the US economy practically does not suffer from this, as long as these printed dollars do not return back to the US, since in this case inflation will be inevitable. But for some reason, as an example, they are always sent to the printing press in the USA.
Other states are forced to more closely and responsibly monitor the issue of their paper money, because an increase in the money supply directly affects the level of inflation in the country. But in any state, certain financial difficulties have periodically arisen and will arise, which are covered by various financial mechanisms. This should be taken into account by citizens and not accumulate the national currency. Therefore, real estate, gold, antiques and other similar material assets will always be in value.

[stompix]

American Government can just spend 40% more than the incomes, and no problem with that.

Perfectly right till this point!
You see, everything is working with no problem, the US hasn't defaulted even once, it keeps on going while every country that laughed at them found itself unable to pay its debt or ended as a shithole, and while the $ has died one hundred million times more than BTC everyone is rushing to buy $, not rubles, not rials not yuan!

And this is actually even funnier and getting funnier the more you dig down, BTC is growing and getting adopted because people trust BTC right? So, what's happening when Argentinian pesos, Turkish liras, Iranian rials, zimbabwe dollars, and all the others are exchanged for $, it means, what a surprise, people trust the $ more than any other currency in this world!

The day US was infected with capitalism and the rules kept changing for the wealthy minority was the day the downfall of the "empire" began.

Meanwhile in the real world:



Does that seem like the "petro dollar" is dying?

[kryptqnick]

I do agree about inflation and overprinting in general, but I'd say that the USA can still largely get away with it, and that's why I think fiat will unfortunately stay for a long time to come. The inflation of the USD came well above the target rate and well above where it's been for decades. However, it's still 6.5% over 2022, with a peak of 9% in July. For the top economy of the world, this rate can seem like a lot, but it's not nearly enough what could be considered a serious enough problem to abandon fiat. In my country, when the inflation is at 7-9%, it's considered a good year, a pretty stable year. In 2022, we had 26.6% inflation, and this isn't even in the top-5 of currencies most hit by inflation because there are the classics like Zimbabwe and Venezuela, but also Turkey and Argentina with more than 80% each, Sri Lanka at 66%, Iran at 52%, and many others. What I'm leading to is that the USD is still stable enough to be considered alright both in the USA and in other countries. I'm not even sure what kind of inflation rate of top currencies like the USD (and let's not forget Chinese yuan which had only 2.1% inflation rate this year) we'd need for humanity to start abandoning fiat, but I'd say it must be over 30% because let's not forget that there are more than a dozen countries living with worse.