Karl Denninger: Debt Overhang and Collective Realization

11-30-2010 • Market-ticker.org

Notice what's been going on. As time has advanced the rate of debt addition has exceeded that of GDP - always - and since 2000 it has been accelerating. Note that this doesn't count any of the off-balance sheet stuff. That is, it doesn't count derivatives, it doesn't count Social Security and it doesn't count Medicare and Medicaid. Yet all are either debts or unbacked promises. If they're debts, they count. If they're unbacked promises then you're going to have financial firm collapses and/or riots. Pick one and be consistent. This has been an intentional scam run by our monetary authority. It is right under your nose. I have been talking about it since the 1990s when the acceleration became evident as did the ultimate outcome if it was not stopped. Well, it wasn't stopped, and it wasn't just The United States - it's everyone, and everywhere. This has been a very nice asset-stripping scheme - a fraud upon the public of massive proportion. It has manifested itself in subtly-different ways in different parts of the western world, but the bottom line - intentionally expanding debt beyond the coverage of economic growth and then compounding it with increasing leverage via off-balance sheet games such as derivatives and promises of social programs that cannot be met - has remained constant. It must stop and it will. Mathematically, it doesn't matter whether you like it or not, just as gravity could give a damn if you disagree with its existence should you choose to step off a 40-story tall building. Whether you agree or disagree with the postulate of gravity is immaterial to your impending "splat" just as whether nations and their politicians agree or disagree with the facts of debt coverage ratios and the above facts have no bearing on the mathematical outcome that lies ahead. The longer we continue to lie to people and play this game the longer we will remain under acceleration and the worse the impact and its damage will be.