{"id":133518,"date":"2018-09-10T17:28:30","date_gmt":"2018-09-10T21:28:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.countingpips.com\/?p=133518"},"modified":"2018-09-10T17:28:30","modified_gmt":"2018-09-10T21:28:30","slug":"u-s-government-balance-sheet-one-step-closer-to-blowing-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/2018\/09\/u-s-government-balance-sheet-one-step-closer-to-blowing-up\/","title":{"rendered":"U.S. Government Balance Sheet One Step Closer To Blowing Up"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"inves-641636869\" class=\"inves-below-title-posts inves-entity-placement\"><div id =\"posts_date_custom\"><div align=\"left\">September 10, 2018<\/div><hr style=\"border: none; border-bottom: 3px solid black;\">\r\n<\/div><\/div><p><b>By Money Metals News Service<\/b><\/p>\n<p>The U.S. Government&rsquo;s balance sheet is one step closer to blowing up as its debt, and interest expense hit new record highs. And when I say &ldquo;new record highs,&rdquo; I am not exaggerating. It&rsquo;s been a while since I checked the data on the TreasuryDirect.gov website, but when I researched the figures for this article, I was quite surprised by just how quickly the numbers are rising.<\/p>\n<p>Thus, it&rsquo;s also no wonder the stock markets continue to grind higher and higher because, without the U.S. Government&rsquo;s unlimited check-writing ability, the markets would have collapsed years ago. So, to all the Keynesian wanna-be&rsquo;s who believe the Central Banks can print our way to prosperity forever, please tap your shoes together three times and say, &ldquo;Everything will be okay because I have my 401k.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Let&rsquo;s get started with the tremendous surge in the U.S. Government interest expense. <b>Well, it seems as if things are really starting to get crazy at the U.S. Treasury when its interest expense in July jumped by a whopping 41% year-over-year.<\/b> That&rsquo;s correct. The U.S. Government paid $40.5 billion in interest expense this July versus $28.7 billion for the same month last year. That is one heck of an increase.<\/p>\n<p>If we look at the following two tables, we can see that the percentage increase of the interest expense in July is much higher than the previous months:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneymetals.com\/uploads\/content\/full-interest-expense-fiscal-year-2017.jpg\" alt=\"Interest Expense Fiscal Year 2017\" \/><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneymetals.com\/uploads\/content\/interest-expense-fiscal-year-2018.jpg\" alt=\"Interest Expense Fiscal Year 2018\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The interest expense the U.S. Government paid in Apil, May, and June was up 22%, 28%, and 6% respectively versus the same months in 2017. However, July was up 41% compared to July last year. Furthermore, total U.S. interest expense in 2017 was $458 billion while the amount paid this year is $455 billion and we still have two months remaining.<\/p><div id=\"inves-10468521\" class=\"inves-in-content inves-entity-placement\"><hr style=\"border: 1px solid #ddd;\">\r\n<div id=\"inpost_ads_header\">\r\n<p style=\"font-size:10px; float:left; color:#666;\">Free Reports:<\/p><\/div>\r\n<div id=\"inpost_ads\"> \r\n<p style=\"font-size:15px; float:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/1ApBOV\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/investmacro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/graph_techs_PD.png\" align=\"left\" width=\"80\"  height=\"55\"\/><\/a>\r\n\t     <a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/1ApBOV\"><b><u>Get Our Free Metatrader 4 Indicators<\/u><\/b><\/a> - Put Our Free MetaTrader 4 Custom Indicators on your charts when you join our Weekly Newsletter<\/p><br><br>\r\n<br>\r\n<br>\r\n<p style=\"font-size:15px; float:left;\"><a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/f3RrHX\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/investmacro.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/cot_pie_80.png\" align=\"left\" width=\"80\"  height=\"55\"\/><\/a>\r\n\t    <a href=\"https:\/\/goo.gl\/f3RrHX\"><b><u>Get our Weekly Commitment of Traders Reports<\/u><\/b><\/a> - See where the biggest traders (Hedge Funds and Commercial Hedgers) are positioned in the futures markets on a weekly basis.<\/p><br><br>\r\n<\/div>\r\n<hr style=\"border: 1px solid #ddd;\">\r\n<br><\/div>\n<p>The U.S. Government paid $54 billion to service its debt in the last two months of the fiscal year last year. <b>So, if we assume a 20% increase of that figure, the U.S. Treasury will have to fork out another $65 billion for August and September for a total of $520 billion in 2018.<\/b><\/p>\n<p>And, the reasons for the rapidly rising interest expense are the ballooning debt and higher interest rate. We can see this quite clearly in the following chart:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneymetals.com\/uploads\/content\/us-public-debt-and-interest-expense.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Public Debt &amp; Interest Expense\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Total U.S. public debt shot up to $21.3 trillion in July versus $19.8 trillion during the same period last year. While the public debt increased 8% during this period, as I mentioned above, the interest expense surged by 41%. So, the rapidly rising cost to service the U.S. debt will become an ever-increasing burden for the accountants at the U.S. Treasury and Federal Reserve.<\/p>\n<p>Now, the chart above only shows the U.S. public debt as of July 31st. Here is a table from the TreasuryDirect.gov website showing the increase in debt for August and a few days in September:<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" class=\"img-responsive center\" src=\"https:\/\/www.moneymetals.com\/uploads\/content\/us-public-debt-sept-5-2018.jpg\" alt=\"U.S. Public Debt (Sept 5, 2018)\" \/><\/p>\n<p><b>In just a little more than a month, Uncle Sam added another $200 billion to the public coffers.<\/b> At that pace, it would be over $2 trillion a year&hellip; LOL. Unfortunately, we Americans have become numb to this sort of financial insanity. Thus, trying to be frugal or smart about spending money in a land of Spend-Thrifts and Credit-Card Junkies, makes one seem like a real oddball. I know, I am one of them.<\/p>\n<p>While I can go out and buy a new car, I rather drive my old beat-up Ford pickup truck. When I drive down the highway during the weekend and see a family in a large $60,000 four-wheel drive pickup truck, pulling a $40,000 RV with a trailer behind it holding two ATV&rsquo;s at $10,000 a pop, I wonder how many paid cash for that??? Of course, it&rsquo;s likely a fraction. Everyone is up to their eyeballs with payment plans and debt.<\/p>\n<p>After all&hellip; this is the American way.<\/p>\n<p>So&hellip; the fun everyone is enjoying on borrowed money will likely go on a bit longer. Yes, it&rsquo;s hard to predict when the music stops. But, when it does, there may only be 1 chair for every 50 Americans. <b>As comedian George Carlin would say&hellip; &ldquo;THIS IS WHEN THE REAL FUN BEGINS.&rdquo;<\/b><\/p>\n<hr>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/countingpips.com\/articles-analysis\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/money-metals.png\" align=\"left\" height=\"79\" width=\"80\"> The Money Metals News Service provides market news and crisp commentary for investors following the precious metals markets.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Money Metals News Service The U.S. Government&rsquo;s balance sheet is one step closer to blowing up as its debt, and interest expense hit new record highs. And when I say &ldquo;new record highs,&rdquo; I am not exaggerating. It&rsquo;s been a while since I checked the data on the TreasuryDirect.gov website, but when I researched [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-133518","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","no-post-thumbnail"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133518","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=133518"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133518\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":133519,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/133518\/revisions\/133519"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=133518"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=133518"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.investmacro.com\/forex\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=133518"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}