Apologies to Santayana for repurposing his "Only the dead have seen the end to war."
From The Congressional Budget Office, December 8, 2023:
Monthly Budget Review: November 2023
The federal budget deficit totaled $383 billion in October and November 2023, the first two months of fiscal year 2024, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. That amount is $47 billion more than the deficit recorded during the same period last fiscal year: Although revenues this year were $108 billion (or 19 percent) higher, outlays rose more—by $155 billion (or 17 percent).
Outlays in October of 2022 and 2023 were reduced by shifts in the timing of certain federal payments that otherwise would have been due on October 1, which fell on a weekend in both years. (Those payments were made in September 2022 and September 2023, respectively.) If not for those shifts, outlays would have been $164 billion higher this fiscal year than in the same period last year, and the deficit thus far in fiscal year 2024 would have been $456 billion, $56 billion more than the shortfall at this time last year.
....MUCH MORE (7 page PDF)
The problem that will arise is when the interest payments on the public debt become unmanageable.
This will happen. Possibly within as little as ten years.
Long before that point the Federal Reserve will be forced to step in and resume net buying the ever-increasing amount of debt required just to repay earlier investors.
That is the definition of a Ponzi scheme. But a scheme so far beyond Chas. Ponzi's dreams as to be an entirely different species, because this Ponzi is guaranteed to take on a life of its own.
When the Fed is buying enough Treasury issuance to monetize the debt there is no turning back, that's the road to hyperinflation, a word we shy away from because its definition, 50% inflation per month, has thus far not even been imaginable in the U.S..
And the 'tell' will be the return of QE, under some guise or another.
Stay tuned.
