The US Treasury has a morbid habit of revealing big, round numbers of debt around major calendar milestones, and the new 2024 year was no different because according to the latest Treasury Daily Statement published after the close today and reflecting the US Treasury’s financial statements as of Dec 29, 2023, total US debt as of the end of the year was – drumroll – just over $34 trillion for the first time ever, or $34,001,493,655,565.48 to be precise.
Since this is a topic we have covered more or less daily for our 15 year existence, we don’t need to say much suffice to show a chart of total US debt since zerohedge launched in Jan 2009, when total US debt was only $10.6 trillion. We sure have gone a long way since then.
Some context: US debt increased by…
- $1 trillion in the past 3 months
- $2 trillion in the past 6 months
- $4 trillion in the past 2 years
- $11 trillion in the past 4 years
… and so on. You get the exponential picture. At this point everyone knows how this ends – certainly the CBO does…
… but since there is no way to reverse the catastrophic outcome, there is no point in even talking about it. At best, one may only prepare for the inevitable hyperinflationary outcome, which would be good news to what is now over $1 trillion in interest expense: after all, someone has to devalue the currency all that interest is payable in.
And since there is no longer a way out, we may as well joke about it so consider this: in the third quarter when US GDP supposedly grew at a 4.9% annualized rate – hardly the stuff of recessions – rising $547 billion in nominal (not real) dollars, the US budget deficit increased by a whopping $622 billion.
This not only explains where US “growth” has come from, but begs the question just how much debt will be needed when the US falls into an official recession.
Or actually not, because at this point the best anyone can do is polish the brass on the titanic while waiting for the inevitable, captures so vividly by the following endgame chart.
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Yeah, the Treasury hosed me. I had set my self the goal of actually watching the Debt Clock roll over to 34T. Yesterday it was 33.967T and I thought I had a few days to wait. Then the sneaky bastards changed to 34T last night sometime. There is no justice in this world.
So, when will the national debt matter? When it hits $40 trillion? $50 trillion? $100 trillion? As long as there is demand for U.S. Dollars around the world and as long as the Federal Reserve can create Dollars without limit, does the debt really matter?
I’m not defending this insanity. I used to be very outspoken about this issue, but it just doesn’t seem to matter.
Faith is all that keeps this shit-show together. People have faith that the worthless, but pretty pieces of paper and the magic electrons in their bank account have value. A cyber thief steals your bank account. What thing of value did he steal? Electrons? An image of a bank ledger on a computer screen? Electrons get shifted about and it has meaning because we accept and equate meaning to it. We have a misplaced faith that the gold is still in Fort Knox that is supposed to back our money, but is it there? When was the last time it was officially audited? Hint…a long fucking time ago.
Sometimes faith fails. Weimar Germany and the US in 1929 had crippling losses of faith and that was back when money actually had some value.
During Johnson’s great society and the Viet Nam war, our European allies lost faith in the US dollar and began pulling gold out at the “Gold Window.” Nixon was elected and rather that end the Great Society and the War, he closed the Gold Window instead. International exchanges had a hard time from there until the petro-dollar was instigated to back the dollar with something to appease the markets.
I do not know what the next trick will be that they pull out of the hat. Who knows, but when the faith is finally gone the show will stop.
This past year SA and UAE began taking payment for oil in currencies other than dollars. The dollar-oil link has kept the USD afloat since the mid-1970s.
Just a detail or two, but Saddam Hussein started selling oil in Euro’s instead of dollars and then was invaded for “9/11” and WMD’s even though he was not involved in 9/11 and had no WMD’s. Libyan leader was ousted right after proposing selling oil in a gold backed dinar. The rebels while still fighting the initial part of the war declared a “Central Bank” would be created after victory.
Both were killed as well. Hmmmmmmm
The inflation and devaluation of our money it causes, matters.
As always once the bottom drops out it’ll be the little people that suffer, while those who caused the mess will be just fine.
IF you find yourself farting more these days, this is why. The FED is squeezing the shit out of you.
Scru- I thought it was from the egg salad on wheat, you could be right. 🙂
Little column A, little column B!
I see the Peterson Foundation put that out. Did you know David Walker worked with Pete Peterson for a while after Walker left GAO? I saw a recent interview with David Walker, and he’s still sounding the alarm about our fiscal situation. I worked at GAO when Walker was the Comptroller General. I really admired him. Still do. He’s an awesome public speaker! I remember when he spoke at the JFMIP Conference in the early 2000s. It was phenomenal.