Right now, America’s national debt is rapidly approaching $20 trillion with no end in sight. We have hundreds of trillions of dollars in unfunded liabilities, and yet a large portion of Americans still advocate more borrowing and more spending. It doesn’t exactly take a degree in economics to know that this is unsustainable, and should this pattern of mindless spending continue, our society will crumble. Already, the American people are being forced to deal with some of the consequences. U.S. consumer bankruptcies just did something that they haven’t done in almost seven years.
According to a column written by Wolf Richter, U.S. bankruptcy filings by consumers rose 5.4% in January compared to January of last year. In December, they’d risen 4.5% from a year earlier, thus marking the “first time that consumer bankruptcies increased back to back since 2010.” Although consumer bankruptcies are still significantly lower than they were during the previous financial crash, it is still not a good sign. (RELATED: Are we witnessing the beginning of the global debt collapse?).
Another sign that our economic stability is on thin ice has to do with the number of auto sales, which were down this past January compared to 2016. GM saw a decrease of 21.1%, Ford saw a decrease of 17.5%, Fiat Chrysler sales dropped by a whopping 35.8%, Toyota sales dropped by nearly 20%, Honda sales went down by 10.7%, and Nissan, 9%. These figures stand in stark contrast to the left’s claim that they saved the auto industry. Clearly, they did not.
There are even more red flags than that. Currently, about two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck. Collectively, U.S. households are over 12 trillion dollars in debt. Young people are finding it more and more difficult to find jobs straight out of college, and the youth unemployment rate currently stands at 10.1%. Businesses both large and small are being crushed under the weight of enormous taxes and burdensome regulations. We aren’t exactly living in paradise, folks. (RELATED: What would happen in the event of a debt collapse in America?)
There is one common denominator for all of these things – big, bloated, centralized government. Ronald Reagan was exactly right when he said that as government expands, liberty contracts; it’s also true, though, that as government expands, the economy contracts. Free market capitalism is based on the idea that when individuals and businesses are free to pursue their own economic interests, the economy as a whole benefits. With more money in their pockets and a more friendly business environment, people are compelled to reinvest, hire, and expand.
Until our government realizes that they are actually the problem to our economic woes as opposed to the solution, we will continue going down this path, condemning our children and our grandchildren to a bleak, dismal future.
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