… and fake money, at that. Right?

This chart from nationaldebtclock.com sends shudders of fear through our bodies.

The website has recently added the DOGE clock; tracking the money that DOGE has proposed striking from the FedGov budget. Most of this seems to be of the “not really justified” category rather than the outright fraud, corruption, and worse types of money.

But the other numbers are equally scary. Not just the $36 trillion “national debt” – who can really comprehend that? The debt per capita, though, and the debt per taxpayer? Wow. How many American taxpayers (assuming we are talking income taxpayers) actually make $323K a year – even before taxes? Not many: USA Today claims that the average American’s income is just over $59,000 per year. Which means that each taxpayer’s share of the federal government’s debt is more than five years’ income on average!

But hey! It’s only money! When all the creditors foreclose on the FedGov, we can all do without any income for a mere five years – of course, we will all be able to live on welfare provided by… oh, wait! If they foreclose, we strongly fear that the “real property” and “personal property” owned by the Federal government won’t pay off very much of $36 trillion.

What can happen if this debt is not paid? Well, the simple (and simplistic) answer is this. The global financial system would collapse. We could expect a global depression. (Not a recession, not a “panic”). There would be political consequences. But no one has the foggiest idea what those would be. But the general understanding is that those consequences would be bad. Very, very bad. For the people of the world, and for Americans. Some people claim that credit markets would be frozen worldwide: those pieces of plastic we almost all use would be worthless (except for opening old door locks, maybe). The stock markets would plunge, destroying people’s retirement and impoverishing many retirees and those near retirement. Which would also dry up investments. There would be worldwide mass layoffs: pink tickets blanketing the planet.

And if the FedGov can’t even pay the interest on the debt (which may be a cool TRILLION bucks in 2025 or 2026), the guvmints would not be able to borrow more more. And therefore no welfare for all those newly-poor people.

Now that is scary.

Know what is even scarier? Some “experts” think the debt could grow to $50 Trillion within 10 years. We’ll leave the math for our readers. And ask how long we can kick the can down the road.

Which is probably why all the “experts” spend a lot of time and ink and electrons trying to convince us $36T is no big deal. That the FedGov doesn’t have to pay it all off. After all, they claim that the UK still hasn’t paid off the debts from fighting against Napoleon Bonaparte. Over 200 years ago!

(By the way, who are the “experts” anyway? Business Insider, the Wall Street Journal, 24/7 Wall St. Insights, and a whole bunch of people with initials after their name and who are buddy-buddy (or the boss of) the powers-that-be: names like Powell, Krugman, Greenspan, and Laffer.)

In the old days when a government didn’t pay its debt, other countries sent in the Marines. They would often loot the country.

But more to the point for us is this question: what happens if the FedGov not only doesn’t pay off (or even reduce) the federal debt and still continues to spend more than it gathers (steals)? After all, in the first four-and-a-half months of the current fiscal year, the FedGov has already spent over $2 trillion more than it collected. (That number is in that chart as “budget deficit.” The “official” means that it is probably much higher, but that government people lie about it.)

So what happens? First, as we’ve seen for four years under Uncle Joe (or with him as figurehead), inflation. More and more money printed chasing about the same amount of goods and services drives prices up. It isn’t greedy corporations – its greedy and spendthrift government. And as the FedGov continues to borrow more and more money from around the world, it becomes hard to find capital for companies to do business and expand – or even replace equipment and materials that are used up. Which means that economic decline (in GDP, etc.) would happen anyway, just (maybe) slower.

And inflation means that money grows more and more worthless. Especially those accursed FRNs: Federal Reserve Notes. One major reason gold now bounces around $3,000 an ounce: the FRNs to trade for it are more and more debased. We’ve seen that happen: in the Confederacy, in Weimar Germany, in Argentina, in Zimbabwe. People live in misery and government becomes more and more despotic.

And we get unrest: as in more than just Occupy and Black Lives Matter. We get real grassroots revolutionary groups. And few if any will be libertarian in belief, much less practice.

So what is the solution? After all, it is just money? We don’t know. Maybe our readers have some ideas. Or even experience to share. We probably can’t prevent something bad happening, but we can prepare for those bad times. And need to. Now.