The U.S. government is insolvent. That’s not hyperbole — it’s the conclusion drawn directly from the Treasury Department’s own consolidated financial statements for fiscal year 2025, released last week to near-total media silence. The numbers: $6.06 trillion in total assets against $47.78 trillion in total liabilities as of September 30, 2025
Jesus Shitsmuggling Christ. America is fucked.
We’re only truly fucked if the dollar is no longer the global reserve currency.
No matter what Trump does, that cannot happen overnight. But everything Trump is doing has pushed that possibility closer to reality.
I genuinely worry that this will happen towards the end of my lifetime and that my last years will be fucking miserable because the American system will finally implode.
Invest early in personal firearms and strong rope.
All we can do is teach young people about the importance of the means of production being owned by the laborers, because I think if and when that finally happens that the people who “own” everything are going to fuck off to more habitable environs and a lot will leave America entirely, or spend very little time there. That will be a good opportunity for workers to take back the means of production, and so we should plant trees we will never sit in the shade of and teach the youth why this is important so those seeds of knowledge can grow into workers organizing and taking over workplaces of long-absent ownership/leadership.
There is nothing in the article that indicates this being anything new. This just sounds like someone calling for austerity.
Honestly now that I read the entire thing…its more of a commentary than anything else. AKA there are real numbers there, but I would like to see an expert give their opinion. Might be another case of “we need to balloon the debt” and issue more bonds. Or it could very well be an issue and our AA rating go down. Which would be VERY bad.
AKA there are real numbers there, but I would like to see an expert give their opinion.
Buddy, did you check the byline? The first author is a professor of applied economics at Johns Hopkins, and the second is former Comptroller General of the United States. The problem isn’t a lack of expert oversight; the problem is posting opinion pieces 1) where they don’t even belong (Rule 6) and 2) without even reading them are you kidding me.
Yeah, this kind of thing has been popping up… well, since I started paying attention in the 1970s.
A friend of mine at that time had a great solution: “When they can’t pay my social security or anything else I’ve paid into, I’ll just take it in trade. I’ll take a fair-value amount of government land - maybe in Yellowstone, someplace nice - and at that point it’s mine. Good luck getting it back.”
I have no idea why anyone here is buying the pseudo-accounting from this ridiculous opinion piece except that they haven’t read it:
First, Congress should pass the bipartisan H.R. 3289 — Fiscal Commission Act, sponsored by Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-MI), Rep. Scott Peters (D-CA), and 41 co-sponsors. Such a commission would force a public reckoning with the facts, the trade-offs, and the hard choices that restoring fiscal health requires.
Second, Congress should call an Article V Convention limited to proposing a fiscal responsibility amendment to the U.S. Constitution. H.Con.Res. 15, sponsored by Rep. Jodey Arrington (R-TX), would do exactly that.
Y’all are upvoting an opinion piece calling for writing a Texas Republican’s definition of “fiscal responsibility” into the US Constitution. I fucking cannot.
“Lemmy champions austerity because they can’t read past the headline” is so on-brand.
He bankrupted A FUCKING CASINO AND THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
CAN WE PLEASE LIGHT OUR TORCHES AND GRAB OUR PITCHFORKS NOW!?!?!
Nobody has torches and pitchforks anymore. Best we can do is phone flashlights and plastic forks.
Plastic? You missed a memo buddy
Okay, flimsy wooden forks
Maybe we could light the forks on fire?
No, it’s ok, we have those biodegradable forks that break super easily.
I’ve got paper straws!
At this point what’s the difference
Literally anyone who reduces the USA federal budget down to household size should be derisively ignored unless they also replace “dollars” with “chore coupons” and place said household in a post apoctalyptic wasteland where there’s no government.
If a household cannot pay its bills their only choices are to earn more, spend less, or declare bankruptcy. The fed, in contrast, is constitutionally forbidden from declaring bankruptcy and instead can (and does) just create money from nothing on demand.
(Not to mention that most households can’t unilaterally say “pay me 10% of the coupon value when you bring lunch home.”.)
