Monopoly is a fun (or not) board game that remains inflation-proof. Almost all of the Monopoly dollars are in ones, fives, tens and twenties... which today will buy you a small bag of groceries in some cases and not enough lottery tickets in every case. A fancy Monopoly hotel on Park Place is an outstanding value at a mere mere $200!
I seem to be king of Orient and Baltic Avenues... the Monopoly slums, thanks to my special dice throwing talent, honed by hours of practice and playing Bunco.
I'm also good at Go Directly to Jail, much to the delight of grandchildren. But I'm best at Income Tax and Luxury Tax. I usually end up owing everyone else. But hey, it's only Monopoly money, right?
Lucky I'm not the United States. (Oh, I am... and so are you.) By 2030, says the Congressional Budget Office, "the projected federal debt held by the public (us) will exceed $31 trillion, or about 98 percent of the forecast size of our economy." This fiscal year our debt will exceed $1 trillion--26% more than budgeted--and continue to do so for the foreseeable future.
Why, you may ask. Say the non political government overseers, "When the government cuts taxes and keeps spending money, it builds up debt. And the United States has become a textbook example. Blame low interest rates, as well as Mr. Trump's 2017 tax cuts, and increased government spending."
Do you have any idea of how much $1 trillion is? It is $999 billion, 999 million, 999 thousand, 999 hundred, 99 dollars and 99 cents...plus a penny. Written it is $1,000,000,000,000... or, as I like to say, chump change.
It's chump change to us because we are the chumps allowing this to happen. It is us that pays the interest--estimated at $600 billion this fiscal year--which doesn't pay down a penny of the debt--and eventually, the whole banana is ours too. The interest due this year is comparable to our military budget which is larger than the military budgets of the next seven largest countries, dwarfing China, the second largest.
Amazing, isn't it?
The interest alone should be paying for a dramatically needed infrastructure repair and upgrade of our roads, bridges, the grid and all those needs we take for granted. It should be allowing us to get a serious jump on the life or death global warming catastrophe that is on us. It should go to every phase of education and preparation for a very current need and different future. It should allow for all, almost any health system that works across the board. It could (insert your own pet project here).
As the richest and most blessed country in the world, we should do better for everyone... much more than just the very wealthy. So trickle down, you guys if that's how it's supposed to work. Good luck with that.
The biggest reason for the jump in deficit spending this year and continuing are the 2017 tax cuts that were promised "to pay for themselves." In this very first full year, tax payments have fallen $400 billion short of projections. More than that, federal government spending is growing twice as fast as its revenues.
Almost every serious economist agrees that the growing deficit is unsustainable.
Regarding the highly touted tax cuts, the average American benefit is estimated at a very modest $1,000/year, which may help keep abreast with inflation but hardly anything else. But for the billionaires, it works DRAMATICALLY better. The gap between US and THEM is wider than it has
ever been and broadening every year. One of the richest men in the world, Warren Buffet, noted a few years back that he pays less taxes as a percentage of his income than does his secretary.
Is that how this whole thing should be going down? If so, then, like the Titanic, we all go down--the rich and poor--with the few scragglers left in a 'survival of the fittest' mode.
Er, excuse me now, it's my turn in Monopoly and my kids, who I love dearly, are beating the pants off me. Thankfully, this is not real life... or is it?
Ed. note: In our 2016 elections, CNN's recap showed only 57 % of us that believed voting was important.
- Clinton received 65,853,516 votes.
- Trump received 62,984.825.
- Nobody:120,000,000 +/- did not vote.
With
our lives, our children's lives, our health, our economy, our world on
the line, surely we can...we must do better in 2020. We don't have much
time left... and I don't mean time before elections, I mean time before
we start falling off the non recoverable edge, if we are not already
there. Anyone who chooses not to vote for any reason, casts a ballot for their least desirable/most disliked candidate. That's like staying on board the Titanic because your side is not sinking.
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