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The recent global financial crisis has been extremely painful for many. At the risk of sounding overly pessimistic, the facts presented on this page show that the recent crisis is just scratching the surface of a much larger problem. America is under a mountain of debt and the risk of massive inflation appears unavoidable. The nation's financial situation is extremely ominous given the fact that America has shifted from being a nation of producers to being a nation of consumers.  Additionally, Americans' wealth is being expropriated at an increasing rate to fund the special interest of the growing Welfare/Warfare State. The current incentives inherent to our system suggest these trends will continue. If the current path is not changed, it is not unreasonable to expect the result to be either a collapse of the monetary system or a power play to vastly increase in the scope of government - or a combination of both. The first step to saving America is to identify the situation as it current is.  The action taken to 'stimulate economic recovery' is a sedative, not a solution.

    Historic Charts of the US Debt and Personal Savings Rates

National Debt

• Today, the United States of America is in debt $16 trillion as of time of writing, and climbing! That is a debt burden of over $42,000 for every man, woman, and child in the nation.
• According to US Debt Clock.org, the current Debt to GDP Ratio is 105%.

Unfunded Liabilities

• The current national debt is dwarfed by the obligations of America's unfunded liabilities, currently running about $37 trillion. The current deficit coupled with the unfunded liabilities of massively unfunded entitlement programs leaves America in the hole over $50 trillion ($50,000,000,000,000)!
  
• These numbers are astronomical. Still, the true picture of total government obligations might be distorted thanks to rosy accounting.  The GAAP-based deficit from the U.S. Treasury show that the total federal obligations as of September 30, 2009 (current debt, unfunded liabilities, Fannie and Freddie debt), stood at a mind-numbing $70.7 trillion.
  

 
No Personal Savings

• America, as a nation, is in debt.  Not only is our government obligating future generations to trillions of dollars of debt, the personal savings rate of American households has become almost nonexistent.  Inflationary monetary policy and government 'stimulus' programs offer incentives for increased spending and decreased savings.  This is the exact opposite formula sound economics recommends during periods of recession.  What is the best way to get out of credit card debt? Hint: It's not going out and buying a new big screen tv.

                                       Read More About the Debt Crisis

Inflation

• The recent financial crisis has brought pain to America as real estate and stock prices plummeted. According to Washington and the mainstream media, the prospect of inflation is near the bottom of the list of worries facing America today. In the near future however, extreme levels of inflation will be the primary concern.
• The damage of hyperinflation to an economy makes the financial crisis of 2008/2009 look mild. There is strong indication that continuing on the current path will unavoidably result in massive price inflation.  The current levels of unsustainable debt, vast expansions of the money supply / extended periods of artificially suppressed interest rates of 0%, and rapidly declining inventories may already make a monetary crisis unavoidable.
• Warning of the prospect of a complete collapse of our monetary system may seem to many like unwarranted fear-mongering. However, sound economic principles explain that continuing a policy of artificial credit expansion to avoid an inevitable depression (the precise scenario we are in today) will result in the collapse of the monetary system. According to Ludwig von Mises in Human Action, it is not a question of if, but rather when: “One day the crack-up boom will annihilate its monetary system.”

Please see Legalized Theft – The Expropriation of Americans' Wealth to learn more about inflation.

Taxation

• Until 1913, revenue for the government was collected primarily by means of import tariffs. “Many people do not realize that the income tax in this country is less than 100 years old. That's right. The 16th Amendment was ratified in 1913, meaning that we had survived as a Nation for 137 years without an income tax.”   AmericanlyYours.com 
  
• But, in 1913, the ratification of the 16th Amendment permitted the government to impose a new income tax on the very wealthy. Income tax rates were 1% - 7% for taxpayers with income in excess of $500,000. Less than 1 percent of the population paid income tax at the time.
• Like any other government program, once the government got its foot in the door, it only grew from there. According to the Tax Foundation, the average tax burden on Americans has increased from about 5% in 1910 to nearly 30% today. What started as a populist movement to take some of the tax burden off the folks importing goods and tax the incomes of the extremely wealthy has turned into a way for the government to expropriate wealth from all Americans, including the poor and middle-class.
• Besides the fact that taxation is an explicit violation of human rights, it is also extremely detrimental to an economy. “Every act of taxation necessarily exerts a push away from more highly capitalized, more productive production processes in the direction of a hand-to-mouth existence.” - Hans-Hermann Hoppe, The Economics and Ethics of Private Property p42
  
  

Please see Legalized Theft – The Expropriation of Americans' Wealth to learn more about taxation.