U.S. Economy Is Dying Under Obama's Crushing Debt

by JASmius



Remember this Calvin & Hobbes exchange between Calvin and his dad?:

CALVIN: How do they know the load limit on bridges, Dad?

DAD: They drive bigger and bigger trucks over the bridge until it breaks. Then they weigh the last truck and rebuild the bridge.

Calvin's dad may not be a civil engineer, but he'd make a good economist right about now:

[The U.S. economy is cratering] and there’s not much the Federal Reserve can do about it as Americans cope with massive debt loads, said investment strategist Michael E. Lewitt.

“After trillions of dollars of stimulus, U.S. GDP growth is [non-existent in real terms],” Lewitt said in the March 1st edition of his Credit Strategist newsletter. “People can point to the weather, lower oil prices and the strong dollar for why the economy cannot achieve escape velocity, but the primary reason is the suffocating weight of public and private sector debt.”

The economy has to have a pulse in order to even be in a position to "achieve escape velocity".  The bracketed edits are a reality correction, since Mr. Lewitt is using Obama Regime economic statistics that are phonier than the proverbial three-dollar bill, for reasons we discuss here regularly: The "trillions of dollars of stimulus" are just a smokescreen to artificially prop up Wall Street and create the illusion of economic activity that does not, in fact, exist, and never will as long as Obamanomics remains entrenched.

But even swallowing the White House's economic lies whole, Mr. Lewitt still sees the handwriting on the wall:

Federal debt has risen 52% to $18.1 trillion from $11.9 trillion in 2009....while household income has declined, making it harder for consumers to cope with total debt of $11.7 trillion as of September 30th.

To [create the illusion of] growth, the Federal Reserve lowered interest rates to record lows, then embarked on a trillion-dollar bond-buying program to make saving money even less attractive.

i.e. The pool of investment capital with which business start-ups used to be financed.

“Even with low (or non-existent) interest rates, an enormous amount of financial and intellectual capital is devoted to debt service rather than more productive uses,” Lewitt said. “The result is [zero] growth.”

Kinda hard to breathe when you're being strangled.

Lewitt said last year’s GDP numbers shouldn't be trusted because they were skewed by required ObamaCare spending.

“The other figure that is cited to support the bullish case is GDP growth, but last year’s GDP numbers were distorted by higher healthcare spending mandated by the [Una]ffordable Care[-Less] Act,” he said.

That's part of it; the bottom line reason last year's GDP numbers shouldn't be trusted is that they came from the Obama Regime.

He also said the labor market is much weaker than the 5.5% unemployment rate indicates. A broader measure of unemployment, the so-called U6 that includes discouraged workers and people who are working part-time because they can’t find full-time work, was 11% as of February.

It's more like 20%, actually, but 11% is a lot closer to reality, at least.

And so on and so on and so on.  Again, you get the picture.

Investors' Business Daily sums it up:

Put in simple terms, President Obama has presided over an unprecedented regulatory siege that has strangled the economy and discouraged entrepreneurship....

At some point, we hope average Americans will stop believing the mistruths pushed by liberal politicians and their media allies and demand pro-growth policies based on low taxes, few regulations, stable money and free trade — the one policy mix that always works.

A fond hope, but a forlorn one.  If that scenario had any realistic chance of recurring, Mitt Romney would be president today, the on-books national debt would be 20%-25% lower, and The One would be plotting his coup de tat in Chicago instead of the Oval Office.

In the mean time, that national debt figure will top TWENTY trillion by the time Barack Obama leaves office, assuming he ever does, with everything cemented in place to keep it right on its uncontrollable upward Cloward-Piven spiral.  Meaning that a Final Collapse is inevitable.

After all, even Atlas couldn't carry the planet indefinitely....



....and instead of Atlas, we're stuck with Pajama Androgyne....



Any questions?

Exit question: How deep can mattresses be safely and recoverably buried?  The mantle is only fifty miles or so down, after all.