2024-05-20_Were_Doomed
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00:00:30.600 | Welcome to Radical Personal Finance.
00:00:31.800 | A show dedicated to providing you with the knowledge, skills, insight,
00:00:34.200 | and encouragement you need to live a rich and meaningful life now,
00:00:37.300 | while building a plan for financial freedom in 10 years or less.
00:00:40.700 | My name is Joshua Sheets.
00:00:41.600 | I'm your host. Today, we are going to discuss something fun.
00:00:47.200 | National debt. Five years ago,
00:00:49.700 | I released a couple of podcasts. Podcast episodes 628 called Federal Debt.
00:00:57.300 | The Ticking Bomb That No One Is Willing To Diffuse.
00:01:00.700 | And number 629, in-depth version, Federal Debt.
00:01:05.100 | The Ticking Bomb That No One Is Willing To Diffuse.
00:01:09.900 | And in those podcasts, I gave, especially in 629, the in-depth version,
00:01:15.700 | I gave an extensive, detailed discussion of all of the factors affecting the U.S.
00:01:23.100 | national fiscal situation, the growing debt, the never-ending deficit.
00:01:29.900 | We went through all the details and, sorry, all of the numbers in painful detail.
00:01:35.500 | We talked about how all of the things that people talk about this.
00:01:39.200 | Hey, there's some easy solution that will have strong economic growth is nonsense.
00:01:43.800 | That we could just inflate the debt away. Nonsense. Low interest rates.
00:01:47.700 | You know, we're going to keep the interest rates low. Nonsense. Immigration.
00:01:51.000 | Let's fix it. Nonsense. All the conservative fantasies.
00:01:54.100 | We talked about how, hey, let's have a pro-growth tax policy.
00:01:58.000 | And we said that federal programs are growing a 66 or 7% annually.
00:02:02.900 | So you have to exceed that in order to do some kind of deficit reduction.
00:02:07.400 | We talked about the conservative fantasy of,
00:02:09.200 | hey, let's eliminate welfare and lower priority spending.
00:02:11.800 | We talked about how deep the cuts would have to be. It's just laughably deep.
00:02:16.800 | It's a delusion to think that that could happen.
00:02:20.300 | Impossibly tight spending caps. Devolution to state governments.
00:02:25.700 | And we talked about the liberal fantasies. Let's just tax the rich.
00:02:28.900 | And we talked about what would happen if you had a 100% tax on all income over $500,000.
00:02:34.900 | We talked about the delusions of saying,
00:02:37.700 | hey, let's do deep defense cuts or single-payer health care.
00:02:40.500 | And just talked about how insane everything would be.
00:02:43.200 | Now, so I told you five years ago, I said, here's what you need to listen for.
00:02:48.400 | You need to listen for serious, serious discussion on these topics.
00:02:54.600 | And I don't think it will happen. I don't think it'll happen.
00:02:58.100 | Let me play for you just a few minutes.
00:03:00.200 | This is from episode 629, from the conclusion of episode 629,
00:03:05.100 | published on March 7, 2019.
00:03:08.400 | Liberal. Read those. Conclusion.
00:03:10.500 | For decades, economists and policy experts warned
00:03:13.500 | that a budgetary and economic tsunami would come
00:03:16.500 | when the 74 million baby boomers retire into Social Security and Medicare.
00:03:22.100 | Nevertheless, a parade of presidents
00:03:25.100 | and congresses did nothing to avert the crisis.
00:03:28.900 | To the contrary, both parties added a new Medicare drug entitlement in 2003,
00:03:35.900 | after which the Affordable Care Act further expanded federal health obligations
00:03:40.300 | for Medicaid and new subsidized health insurance exchanges.
00:03:44.700 | Today, one-third of the baby boomers have already retired,
00:03:48.900 | and another one-third will retire over the next six years.
00:03:53.400 | Annual budget deficits will soon pass $1 trillion on the way to $2 trillion,
00:03:58.500 | and possibly $3 trillion in 10 to 15 years.
00:04:02.100 | Overall, the Social Security and Medicare systems
00:04:05.300 | face an unfathomable $100 trillion cash deficit over 30 years.
00:04:11.400 | Without reform, runaway deficits will all but guarantee a debt crisis
00:04:18.200 | that will profoundly damage the country's economic and social order.
00:04:23.000 | There is still time to avoid that crisis,
00:04:26.000 | but it will require the nation's fractious political leaders
00:04:29.500 | to leave their respective comfort zones and compromise.
00:04:35.200 | Now, before we continue, let's go to the U.S. House of Representatives just this week,
00:04:44.100 | and let me play you a three-minute audio clip.
00:04:49.800 | It's necessary that I give you the context.
00:04:51.500 | So here's the context from a USA Today article on what I'm about to play for you.
00:04:56.200 | Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, Republican from Georgia,
00:04:59.200 | and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat from New York,
00:05:03.500 | butted heads at a House Oversight Committee markup session Thursday night
00:05:07.300 | after Greene attacked Representative Jasmine Crockett, Democrat from Texas,
00:05:12.200 | saying she was wearing "fake eyelashes."
00:05:15.400 | The meltdown began as lawmakers were discussing the issue
00:05:18.100 | of holding Attorney General Merrick Garland in contempt
00:05:21.200 | for refusing to release audio recordings of President Joe Biden's interview
00:05:25.000 | with Special Counsel Robert Herr.
00:05:27.200 | Herr released a scathing report earlier this year that described Biden as a
00:05:31.600 | "well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory."
00:05:35.200 | Now, let's listen to the audio.
00:05:37.200 | As far as I can tell, this is a three-minute and ten-second audio clip
00:05:41.700 | that I believe is unedited.
00:05:43.800 | - I'd like to know if any of the Democrats on this committee
00:05:46.300 | are employing Judge Mershawn's daughter.
00:05:51.100 | - This is Greene speaking, Representative Greene.
00:05:53.300 | - Please tell me what that has to do with Merrick Garland.
00:05:56.000 | - Is she a porn star?
00:05:57.600 | - Oh, Goldman. That's right. He's advising.
00:06:00.800 | - Okay.
00:06:02.300 | - He's advising who?
00:06:07.000 | - Do you know what we're here for? You know we're here about AG?
00:06:10.600 | - I don't think you know what you're here for.
00:06:12.800 | - Well, you're the one talking about—
00:06:14.300 | - I think your fake eyelashes are messing up—
00:06:16.500 | - No, ain't nothing— - Hold on, hold on.
00:06:19.600 | - Order, Mr. Chairman. Would you order the regaining order of your committee?
00:06:24.800 | - I do have a point of order, and I would like to move to take down Ms. Greene's words.
00:06:30.100 | That is absolutely unacceptable. How dare you attack the physical appearance of another person?
00:06:36.100 | - Are your feelings hurt? - Move her words down.
00:06:38.400 | - Aw. - Oh, oh, girl. Baby girl.
00:06:41.000 | - Oh, really? - Don't even play with me.
00:06:44.300 | - Baby girl? I don't think so. - We are going to move, and we're going to take your words down.
00:06:47.100 | - I second that motion.
00:06:49.000 | - So, so, who will have to pay?
00:06:51.500 | - Ms. Greene agrees to strike her words.
00:06:53.700 | - I believe she's apologizing. - No, no, no, Mr. Perry—
00:06:56.100 | - Okay, hold on. Then, after Mr. Perry's going to be recognized, then Ms. Greene—
00:06:59.300 | - I'm not apologizing. - Well, then, you're not striking your words.
00:07:02.900 | - I am not apologizing. - Now, let's go. Come on, guys.
00:07:07.200 | - Why don't you debate me? - Mr. Chairman, um, the, the minority—
00:07:11.800 | - I think it's pretty self-evident. - You're not—
00:07:13.900 | - Yeah, you're not—you don't have enough intelligence. - You're out of order.
00:07:16.200 | - You're out of order. Chair recognizes Mr. Perry.
00:07:18.200 | - Okay, move to strike the— - I'd like to strike those words as well.
00:07:20.900 | - I'd move to strike the lady's words. - I would like to strike those words as well.
00:07:24.100 | - That's two requests to strike. That's two requests to strike.
00:07:27.000 | - Oh, they cannot take the words. - If there's another motion to strike your words again,
00:07:30.100 | please get your members under control. - All right, okay, here's the correct apology.
00:07:33.400 | Ms. Greene, do you ask unanimous—do you agree to unanimous consent to strike your words?
00:07:39.300 | - I repeat again for the second time, yes, I'll strike my words, but I'm not apologizing.
00:07:43.900 | - Without objection. - Not apologizing.
00:07:46.300 | - Mr. Chair, point of order.
00:07:50.500 | - Who's—who's— - It's me. - Ms. Crockett.
00:07:52.800 | - I'm just curious, just to better understand your ruling,
00:07:55.500 | if someone on this committee then starts talking about somebody's bleach-blind,
00:08:00.900 | bad-built, butch body, that would not be engaging in personalities, correct?
00:08:05.200 | - A what now?
00:08:08.100 | - Chairman, I make a motion to strike those words.
00:08:11.400 | - I don't think that's a part of it. - I'm trying to find clarification on what—
00:08:15.400 | - Chairman, motion to strike those words. - I had no idea what you just said.
00:08:18.600 | - We're not gonna—we're not gonna do this. Look, you guys earlier literally just said—
00:08:22.200 | - You just—you just voted to do it. You just voted to do it.
00:08:27.000 | - Order, order. - I'm trying to get clarification.
00:08:29.300 | - Look it, calm down, calm down. - No, no, no, no, because this is what y'all do.
00:08:33.600 | - So I'm trying to get clarification. - Hey, Ms. Crockett, you're not recognized.
00:08:36.200 | - Ms. Crockett. - And you don't want me to be— - I can't hear you with your yelling.
00:08:38.400 | - Calm down. Can you please calm down? - No, don't tell me to calm down,
00:08:41.400 | because y'all talk noise, and then you can't take it. - You're out of control.
00:08:44.600 | - 'Cause if I come and talk shit about her, y'all gonna have a problem.
00:08:48.100 | - Mr. Chairman, Mr. Chairman. - Order. - All right, Chair—OK.
00:08:51.900 | - Order, Chair now— - So that's from a couple days ago, a few days ago.
00:08:57.400 | And I made a mistake there. I did see—find a cut in the middle there.
00:09:00.400 | So that wasn't the unedited audio. That was clipped together audio.
00:09:04.300 | So I apologize for stating that wrongly.
00:09:07.300 | I now want to go back to episode 629. After I finish that conclusion,
00:09:12.200 | I want you to listen carefully to the next segment from episode 629 from 2019.
00:09:17.400 | Remembering, by the way, that at the time, we said six years would pass.
00:09:23.100 | Another third of the baby boomers would retire.
00:09:25.600 | We're now at about 60% of baby boomers have retired. Here we are five years later.
00:09:30.200 | Let's now listen to the comments that I made at the end of this podcast.
00:09:34.300 | "And thus endeth the paper."
00:09:40.300 | I hope that you made it through, and apologies for burying you with the data,
00:09:45.500 | with all the numbers. I know it's hard in an audio format,
00:09:48.500 | but it's important, and I want you to pay attention to it.
00:09:53.700 | And I decided to go ahead and bury you with two hours of data and policy wonk discussion
00:09:59.800 | because I thought it was well done. I thought it was fairly balanced,
00:10:02.600 | but I thought it did a good job of showing the basic problem.
00:10:09.200 | I don't see a solution for the macro economy.
00:10:14.200 | I don't see a solution for the macro budget, et cetera.
00:10:18.600 | To think that — and here's just one more comment.
00:10:21.800 | I've inserted, of course, a lot of commentary. I didn't intend to,
00:10:24.300 | but I'm a talk show host. I can't help it.
00:10:28.600 | Just even the closing point. There is still time to avoid that crisis,
00:10:31.900 | but it will require the nation's fractious political leaders
00:10:35.200 | to leave their respective comfort zones and compromise.
00:10:38.900 | The biggest reason why I think that is impossible is, from my observation,
00:10:44.400 | it seems to me that political leaders have stopped trusting one another,
00:10:52.000 | and I think they have good reason to stop trusting one another.
00:10:55.900 | If I were in politics, I would have a very hard time believing
00:11:00.100 | that I'm negotiating in good faith with another politician.
00:11:07.300 | I think there are political leaders who would be willing to negotiate these things
00:11:12.700 | if they believed that the opposition was in good faith.
00:11:17.500 | I think most adults, especially adults who have a little bit of experience,
00:11:21.400 | recognize that in life you don't always get what you want.
00:11:24.900 | Sometimes you get what you need. You don't always get what you want.
00:11:28.900 | And so, although I would argue for a hardline position,
00:11:33.900 | all of us, even when we argue for a hardline position,
00:11:36.800 | we would concede that I can't get there overnight,
00:11:39.300 | and in fact it's not good for me to get there overnight.
00:11:43.100 | Almost any person in almost any issue that you look at
00:11:46.700 | who would make a hardline argument would concede that you need time for things to adjust.
00:11:53.800 | But how much trust would you have, if you were a political leader,
00:11:57.400 | that your opposition is in good faith?
00:12:00.900 | I don't think anybody on any side of the political issue thinks
00:12:04.700 | that their opponents are acting in good faith.
00:12:07.700 | I've tried to read activists on all sides of the political debate,
00:12:11.700 | and what I observe in my reading is nobody thinks the other side is genuine.
00:12:16.900 | Nobody thinks they're acting in good faith.
00:12:20.000 | And I think everybody has substantial evidence that would say that they're right.
00:12:28.400 | I don't know about you, but those maniacs yelling at each other,
00:12:33.100 | I think should be considered as pretty decent evidence.
00:12:36.700 | One hardcore lefty, other hardcore righty, absolute maniacs.
00:12:41.100 | Let's continue. Being of the more conservative political bent,
00:12:46.200 | the more freedom-oriented political bent,
00:12:48.200 | I would like to believe that my side is better,
00:12:51.700 | but I would have to concede that that could just be my own desire to see that confirmed.
00:12:56.600 | I think it might be true, but I see enough that I can understand how people
00:13:00.300 | who would be a night and day different from me would say you're not acting in good faith.
00:13:06.700 | I can see that. So what do I have to defend?
00:13:11.100 | So if you can't even trust on the simplest of issues that your opponents are going to act
00:13:16.200 | in good faith, they're going to speak in good faith,
00:13:18.500 | and they're going to debate in good faith on the simple issues.
00:13:22.500 | How on earth do you solve something as complex as this budget nightmare?
00:13:27.600 | I don't know about you, but kind of a simple issue to deal with a current thing in a subcommittee.
00:13:37.700 | How do you then deal with a budget nightmare that requires everyone to compromise?
00:13:42.300 | Back to the tape. How do you get there?
00:13:48.900 | Now, I hope I'm wrong. I desperately hope I'm wrong.
00:13:52.200 | Because friends, we don't want to go through a budget, an economic crisis.
00:13:57.600 | It is a nightmare. It is a nightmare. We don't want to do it.
00:14:01.400 | It is not. If it's your fantasy that you think,
00:14:04.500 | "Well, there's going to be no rule of law. Without rule of law,
00:14:06.700 | I'm going to be able to do what I want." Nonsense. It is a nightmare.
00:14:10.100 | It is an absolute nightmare. We don't want to go through it.
00:14:15.300 | It will be pain, depression, dissolution, suicide on all hands, death on all sides,
00:14:22.500 | massive decline in lifestyle, massive decline in safety,
00:14:27.800 | massive increase in violence and the risk of violence.
00:14:32.200 | You don't want to go through it. I don't want to go through it.
00:14:35.200 | So I desperately hope I'm wrong. And if I can find evidence that says that I'm wrong,
00:14:41.400 | I will share that with you. But at this point, the data seems pretty clear.
00:14:49.200 | And when I add all the little bits that I've inserted here into what I've already shared with you,
00:14:53.500 | I don't see how a political solution is possible.
00:14:57.500 | I do not see it. I hope I'm wrong again. I don't see it.
00:15:02.500 | Now, let's talk about, well, I'll share one more thing.
00:15:11.300 | How's this one? So we've got a bunch of maniacs in Congress.
00:15:20.700 | We've got a couple of senile guys running for president who are both whacked out,
00:15:27.000 | haven't made any progress over the last five years really at all on any of these financial issues.
00:15:33.500 | Things are much more dire than they ever were. And since five years have been wasted,
00:15:37.300 | this isn't even a part of the public debate. We're not even talking about it.
00:15:40.600 | There's no serious good faith debate. When Donald Trump and President Biden debate each other,
00:15:46.900 | if they do in the coming months in the run up to the elections,
00:15:50.500 | I'm not expecting a deep discussion on national debt and fiscal deficit and everything like that.
00:15:56.700 | But let's flip to another one. I thought this was pretty good.
00:15:59.000 | This is from Reddit, from the teachers subreddit. The headline of the post.
00:16:04.700 | Ninth graders protested against taking the Algebra 1 state exam. Admin has no clue what to do.
00:16:11.800 | Students are required to take and pass this exam as a graduation requirement.
00:16:15.900 | There is also a push to have as much of the school testing as possible in order to receive a school grade.
00:16:21.300 | I believe it is about 95 percent attendance required. Otherwise, they are unable to give one.
00:16:26.300 | The ninth graders have vocally announced that they are refusing to take part in state testing anymore.
00:16:31.300 | Many students decided to feign sickness, skip or stay home.
00:16:34.900 | But the ones in school decided to hold a sit-in outside the media center and refused to go in,
00:16:40.000 | waiting out until the test is over. Admin has tried every approach to get them to go and take the test.
00:16:45.600 | They tried yelling, begging, bribing with pizza, warnings that they will not graduate,
00:16:49.900 | threats to call parents and have them suspended, and more to get these kids to go and nothing worked.
00:16:55.600 | They were only met with "I don't care" and many expletives.
00:16:59.800 | While I do not teach Algebra 1 this year, I found it hilarious watching from the window,
00:17:04.100 | as the administrators were completely at their wits' end dealing with the complete apathy,
00:17:08.400 | disrespect and outright malicious nature of the students we have been reporting and writing up all year.
00:17:14.000 | We have kids we haven't seen in our classrooms since January,
00:17:16.900 | out in the halls and causing problems for other teachers, with nothing being done about it.
00:17:21.300 | Students that curse us out on the daily return to the classroom with treats and a smirk on their face,
00:17:26.200 | knowing they got away with it. It has only emboldened them to take things further.
00:17:30.800 | We received the report at the end of the day that we had only 60% of our students take the Algebra 1 exam,
00:17:36.900 | out of hundreds of freshmen. We only have a week left in school, counting down the days.
00:17:44.100 | So I don't know what to say.
00:17:46.900 | I just thought this whole set of affairs was funny in a sad and horrific kind of sense.
00:17:53.500 | Here's your black pill for the day.
00:17:58.200 | What I would encourage you is simply, if you're interested, go back to Episode 628 or 629.
00:18:05.000 | I would suggest 629, the in-depth version, where I go through all the numbers of the fiscal deficit.
00:18:11.400 | And at this point in time, I don't see, I continue to not see that there's any even proposal,
00:18:19.500 | any proposal whatsoever, point out to me any proposal for stabilizing and improving the U.S. fiscal situation.
00:18:30.200 | It's absolutely horrific. Now, none of us knows what that actually will mean.
00:18:35.800 | It's completely uncharted territory for a government like the United States to be on the track that it's on.
00:18:41.900 | We can see what has happened in some other countries that have done similar things.
00:18:45.100 | None of them are at the scale of the United States, and none of us have any idea.
00:18:50.300 | So who knows? Maybe it could be an absolute catastrophe.
00:18:53.500 | Maybe not. After all, the United States is not Zimbabwe.
00:18:57.200 | The United States is not Venezuela. But pay attention. Pay attention.
00:19:03.300 | Politics ain't going so well right now, and I think you should pay attention to that.