However, our debt is about 100% of GDP; Japan has a national debt of over 200% of GDP. So we can probably go on for a few more decades yet. And actually, the amounts we are going to need in the future are astronomical. But on the bright side; we are the world's reserve currency. Besides, where they (bond investors) gonna go? Every other country is in the same boat or worse.
The difference is, Japan isn't setting about trying to unplug Grandma's heat and take away her Medicare so "the rich men can enjoy their money", or any of the other fanciful Ayn Randian delights that are almost unique to the American conservative.
And, in the end, most if not all of these issues arise almost exclusively from the Right's penchant for
(A) "creating wealth" by leveraging the national credit card
(B) putting WARS on the national credit card
(C) paying for the resulting debt by destroying social programs that help the less fortunate
(D) projecting their irresponsibility on NORMAL people who think it's a good idea to TAX people in order to pay for programs,
(E) continually dream up new and exciting ways to cripple WORKING programs by gradually chipping away at their funding, then screaming about how those programs don't work ("Break the plow then blame the farmer)
(F) projecting further on rational thinking people and blaming them, and finally,
(G) funding alternative studies using research paid for by groups that want to advance the above agendas further in order to create a revisionist view of reality.
We've gone from an economy where an average single wage earner could support a family, house them, educate them, get their health care and even save a little for the future by simply working an ordinary forty hour week to being a banana republic where TWO wage earners working 60 or even eighty hours a week can't make ends meet and are one paycheck from the street.
The decline curve is a 100% reflection of other curves, like Laffer Curves and other voodoo economics that represent trickle down, for nearly a half century.
Someday it's going to work, so we're told, if we just cut some more taxes, just cut some more social programs. SOME DAY, those rich people will finally have eaten so much that they will vomit out all that trickle down wealth to the average joe. Wealth trickles down, despite every evidence to the contrary, so we're told.
You'd think if the little guy were to get his hands on some small amount of money, he'd SPEND it GUARANTEED, and it would end up in the rich people's pockets almost overnight anyway, but at least for a moment the little guy would have something to show for it.
Nope nope, the little guy is supposed to stick around and wait for that big payoff...any day now...it's going to trickle down.
No amount of modern day Hoovervilles seem able to expose this royal scam anymore. The lies have been pumped up SO LARGE that they block out the sun, so they must be the truth. After all, no matter where you look or listen, it's all you can see or hear these days.
Even though almost forty years has passed and it still hasn't paid off yet.