Dictionary of U.S. Debt

In the interest of public service announcements and truth in advertising, meant to protect and inform the average consumer, we issue this exceptionally helpful guide to understanding the financial sewer we find ourselves in as a country.

Deficit: Yes. Yes, we do.

Fiscal: Unsurprisingly Roman. Mad emperors had yea olde “fiscus”, their own personal treasury. So, same as today’s politicians. Extra Roman bonus: it was kept in baskets, which has some savvy money sleuths wondering if the basket case fiscal situation the United States finds itself in is simply an iterative homage to empire ruination via installing generations of insanity in top positions of power. Then keeping them there.

Also, something to do with so-called “public” money, which is also known as “government money”, which means taxation, public revenues, and public debt management practices. We have yet to locate any actual management practices to do with taxation, public revenues, and public debt, hence the eye-watering stench of the nation-wrecking deficit heap issuing zeppelin-sized methane farts from its rotting Congressional arse.

Dismal: Economics for the average American, economics as a science, and also the absence of any understanding of either one on the part of anyone earning more than Federal minimum wage. Then wonder thoughtfully if there’s a link.

GDP: Shorthand abbreviation for “god damn politicians” and also “gross domestic product”. Note the connections between the two. It involves algebra, or possibly its deranged cousin; see equation C + I + G + (X – M) = GDP.

Here, C = consumption, also known as “people buying things”. I = investment, like businesses spending on more biz stuff and, evidently, this fictional fairytale of “people buying homes”. G = government spending, but somehow also consumption, like national defense and public education. X – M = total exports (things we send other places) minus imports (things we get from other places).

Then, ever so subtly, put your right foot in, put your right foot out, have another tariff war and shake yourself around, that’s what it’s all about. Solve for America. Or, apparently, don’t.

Debt: Brutal screaming plague-rotted sinkhole of both personal and national destruction, grosser by far than the gross domestic product.

Problematically for our deficit, fiscal situation, and economics, the U.S. mainlines debt and avoids taxation, particularly at the top of the food chain. Spoiler alert: this makes debt worse.

Meanwhile, you’re supposed to be thrilled both personally and nationally to be embedded in debt’s concrete shoes and cheer patriotically while you’re shoved off a pier by the legalized mobsters running the money syndicates in this has-been feudal fiefdom.

Debt-to-GDP Ratio: The current death sentence imposed on future generations by their fiscally irresponsible fisci, who grow terminal money cancer colonies fueled by campaign promises.

An incredibly crap debt-to-GDP ratio results in a terminal case. This occurs when debt vastly exceeds the GDP, such that, just like your car, home, or student loan, all you are paying down is interest and you haven’t yet started paying the principal, yet somehow keep paying the piper.

It would take a massive infusion of money to overcome the crap ratio, but that would mean a huge pay rise, incredible productivity gains, or ever, ever, ever, ever taxing the wealthy. Like, ever.

Deficit: The three ghosts of past, present, and future that haunt Ebenezer Scrooge on Christmas Eve, except in this version, Marley comes in at the end and gives the old codger an attaboy, then wallops Tiny Tim with his own crutch after trying to strangle him in clanking ghost counting-house chains. Then eats the goose.

Fiscal cliff: You bet. In fact, these days, there’s an app for that. Guess when the US sends itself off that cliff, and if you get the timing right, you’ll be the only insider trader who won’t be paid a handsome sum for being a total douche because literally nothing will be left of the economy anyway.

This fun betting platform concept happens when pay, taxes, and spending collide at odd angles, failing geometry class, and not even Congressional algebra can save it. Imagine my surprise.

Debt ceiling: The home renovation the entire family can’t agree on, yet hired hundreds of contractors to complete. Technojargonically, it stands for a legal limit on the amount of Federal debt the US government is allowed to have. Suspiciously, it seems like an arbitrary concept constantly reset by the same people who can’t ever fund it, so they cut things like pensions instead of having the balls to learn math.

Budget: Ha ha ha.

Highway to Hell: When government spending outpaces the collection of tax revenue, a deficit is created. Each time this happens, that gap is filled by the government issuing a bunch of debt. Each time this happens, normal people wonder why we give a free pass to the C-Suite and the super-rich, all of whom have never really worked for a living yet have more than everyone who ever has worked for a living, including at this point in our plutocracy, even God himself. Ask your local vicar.

The U.S. government mainly issues debt to itself, its own insignificant programs like Social Security, and also a lot of other people like insurance companies, your aunt Gladys, commercial banks, private banks, Japan, the UK, mainland China, the Cayman Islands, Belgium, Canada, Luxembourg, France, Ireland, Taiwan, and apparently also Fredonia, so there is just a smidge of a whopping global yarn-linked murderboard to deal with if things go horribly wrong.

When the government runs a deficit year-over-year, that total debt amount keeps increasing. All of that borrowing eventually smacks right into the debt ceiling, which is supposed to be the limit on putting an entire nation’s fate on a series of high-interest credit cards used to purchase luxury handbags, Congresspeople, and the entire nation’s housing stock so some OG can rent a trophy wife and feel like his dick still works. Then beg the rest of the known universe to still trust anyone has a brain cell inside the Beltway.

Unfortunately, raising or lowering or keeping the debt ceiling the same or fighting about it forever while you refuse to pay TSA workers doesn’t do diddly about all that accumulated past debt and doesn’t do anything about new spending, either; it merely serves to gamify whether any current obligations will deigned to be met by the people who still get a salary even as they instigate this disaster. Trust me, your aunt Gladys is but pissed about this, in all verbal meanings on each side of “the pond”.

Bollocks: This entire system. Just ask Gladys.

Money: A cudgel used to bludgeon the poor, strain the middle class to breaking point, and allow the super-rich to determine a planet’s fate. Also, the only thing the U.S. government cares about personally, while nationally exhibiting zero skill or understanding of its fundamentals.

IOU: Yeah, motherfuckers, you do.

Deficit: What happens when you don’t tax the rich, don’t close corporate loopholes, don’t means-test Social Security, yet do allow lobbyists to run healthcare, while forgetting to give two shits about all of Gen X, the Millenials, and Gen Z, who will be far past retirement age by the time they are finally able to get a seat in Congress.

Hope: Absolutely not. Go sell that nonsense someplace else. Act now, or forever shut your face. Also your bank account.

Addendum for readers:

We hope you haven’t enjoyed any of this handy reference guide, since that would mean you might be normal, and therefore there could be hope for you as a human. And while this extensively fabulous manual is by no means comprehensive, we pray it elucidates the comprehensively revolting decades of inexcusable lunacy of filthy lucre greasing the skids (and skid marks) of unaccountable national accounting practices.

Thank you for your 50-year streak of 100% inattention to this matter.