Do you know how much we pay for JUST INTEREST, every year, on the National Debt?

[Little-Acorn]

This is without actually paying off any of the debt, which we have never done in living memory. But we can't avoid paying the interest on that debt, every year.

From the Statistical Abstract of the United States:

Year . . . . . . Interest paid on National Debt

2009 . . . . . . $383 billion
2010 . . . . . . . 414 billion
2011 . . . . . . . 430 billion

The government has stopped printing the Statistical Abstract (and these figures may hint at why). But if the trend continues as it has, we're probably paying up to $480 billon per year by now. And if interest rates rise, it could quickly become $500B, $600B or more. Every year.

That means we, the taxpayers, are paying $5,500 for every family of four in the country. Every year. (More if the National Debt increases, which it does every year).

And it's money that buys us nothing. It just the rental fee for the $17 Trillion dollars we've already borrowed. And which the liberals say we don't have to repay. As long as we keep paying that $5,500 every year. Every family of four. Forever.

Could you have used that $5,500 for something else last year?

How about the $5,500 (probably higher than that) that you'll also pay next year?

Ask yourself that, the next time the big-spending big-government pushers tell you that there's no reason to pay off the National Debt.

[hjmick]

And thus we now have a federally sponsored Ponzi scheme...


Ponzi: Treasury Issues $1T in New Debt in 8 Weeks—To Pay Old Debt (http://cnsnews.com/mrctv-blog/terence-p-jeffrey/ponzi-treasury-issues-1t-new-debt-8-weeks-pay-old-debt)



The Daily Treasury Statement that was released Wednesday afternoon as Americans were preparing to celebrate Thanksgiving revealed that the U.S. Treasury has been forced to issue $1,040,965,000,000 in new debt since fiscal 2015 started just eight weeks ago in order to raise the money to pay off Treasury securities that were maturing and to cover new deficit spending by the government.

During those eight weeks, Treasury took in $341,591,000,000 in revenues. That was a record for the period between Oct. 1 and Nov. 25. But that record $341,591,000,000 in revenues was not enough to finance ongoing government spending let alone pay off old debt that matured.

The Treasury also drew down its cash balance by $45.057 billion during the period, starting with $126,568,000,000 in cash and ending with $81,511,000,000.

The only way the Treasury could handle the $942,103,000,000 in old debt that matured during the period plus finance the new deficit spending the government engaged in was to roll over the old debt into new debt and issue enough additional new debt to cover the new deficit spending.

This mode of financing the federal government resembles what the Securities and Exchange Commission calls a Ponzi scheme. “A Ponzi scheme," says the Securities and Exchange Commission, “is an investment fraud that involves the payment of purported returns to existing investors from funds contributed by new investors,” says the Securities and Exchange Commission.

“With little or no legitimate earnings, the schemes require a consistent flow of money from new investors to continue,” explains the SEC. “Ponzi schemes tend to collapse when it becomes difficult to recruit new investors or when a large number of investors ask to cash out...”



Don't people go to jail for this kind of thing?

[Bilgerat]

Don't people go to jail for this kind of thing?

You'd like to think that, but ...............

[tailfins]

Remember: His voter base is people who are customers of payday loan and rent-to-own stores. They don't find this unusual.

[red states rule]

and what we pay is which a near zero interest rate

How will politicians in DC cope when they start to increase - and we all now they will eventually

Perhaps then when the taxpayers pockets are empty and they have no alternatives they will deal with the entitlements that have grown out of control