House of cards

In previous posts, I have brought up a few concepts of the destruction of civilization, such as space phenomena or epidemics.

Now it's time to get serious.

I happen to subscribe to the view that the greatest existential threat to civilized life as we know it in these United States is fiscal.  That is to say, our national debt in excess of $16 trillion is analogous to a person being morbidly obese.  It is simply a catastrophe waiting to happen.  Perhaps December is when the government defaults, and EOTW gets underway...

But can't you and I help this situation?

So far this year donors have gifted 7.7 million dollars toward payment of the national debt, and today I gave a dollar through Pay.gov.

But let's get serious again.  The U.S. National Debt is accruing about $10,000 per second at the pace of the this debt clock.  That's $1 million dollars in 100 seconds, or $7.7 million dollars in 13 minutes.

In case you don't get what I am trying to say, let me be blunt.  Your money gifted to the Treasury for debt reduction is wasted money.  Don't throw your money on a debt that has an upward trajectory of $10,000 per second.  Clearly, something much bigger needs to happen to slow and eventually reverse that trajectory.

The hard truth is that our federal taxes have no where to go but up, probably significantly up.  And "our" taxes means all of us, not just the richest, and not just the dummies who voluntarily give gifts to the Treasury though the internet.  Tax increases are how the government is going to eventually collect your payment toward the debt.  It won't be very long now; my guess is within 2 decades.

My advice to anyone out there who cares:  here is what you should do while you are waiting for your tax burden to increase.

• Watch films such as I.O.U.S.A.
• Read books such as Endgame
• Become a voice for federal fiscal responsibility
• Most importantly:  pay off your own personal debts

On that last point, I am quite pleased to announce that I have accomplished the elimination of my credit card balance, per the terms of my original debt mission.  I promised that when this mission was complete I would reveal the numbers behind the mission, so here they are.

$19,800 debt / 11 months = $1,800 per month.

$1,800 is more than my monthly mortgage payment.  That I paid more than double my mortgage each month should say something about the tight finances I dealt with this year.  It is good to be finished with this.