Fallstaff speaks the truth! And here is more truth to consider:

Q: Is our so-called “national debt” a real debt, an interest-bearing burden that we must repay?
A: No, It lacks the two essential qualities of a real debt. It’s a “Debt In Name Only”, a “DINO” -

1. A real debt is a serious burden. Our DINO is not now and never will be a serious burden for taxpayers.

Our DINO is the total value of all issued and still maturing treasuries. Who pays for the redemption of mature bonds? It’s not the taxpayers! It’s the buyers of newly-issued treasuries who pay for the redemption of mature treasuries. It’s equivalent to a simple bond rollover done every day by bond-owners. In every auction, more treasuries are demanded than are available from the supply of new issues. Auction winners get the safest, most liquid US dollar instruments; the losers are stuck with bank risk. If it were ever necessary, the Fed could even create an artificial demand for treasuries by buying them in the open market with a few keystrokes. Where’s the awful burden?

Our Treasury does not borrow money like a home-buyer getting a mortgage. It is rather a custodian of funds, like a bank accepting money offered for certificates of deposit. While a bank with too many bad loans can certainly have too many maturing CDs, our non-lending, fiat Treasury cannot have too many maturing bonds unless its deficit spending is causing harmful inflation. And that happens ONLY in a war or emergency requiring rationing. It NEVER happens during a recession. During prosperity, banks are ALWAYS the sole cause of inflation, creating over $6 of credit for every $1 of deficit spending. To curb inflation, don’t restrict infrastructure spending for the future! Regulate the banks!

The Treasury auctions bonds only because Congress requires that the proceeds finance the annual budget deficit. This requirement, now a relic of the former gold standard regime, was suspended during World War II, followed by 35 years of strong economic growth without harmful inflation. Now, under our fiat currency regime, Congress can again, without auctions, finance deficits out of thin air, the same way your corner bank financed your home mortgage.

Crying that our DINO is unsustainable, Wall Street scammers have panicked the public and many ignorant journalists and politicians, in Congress and in the White House. It’s a hoax meant to yield a fortune in commissions by privatizing Social Security and Medicare. And, bribing Congress into austerity, the Wall Street con artists are nursing a huge army of unemployed labor that prevents the middle class from bargaining for better wages. As our rotting infrastructure renders our industry incompetent, it is that growing army of the idle that will become unsustainable.

2. A real debt must be repaid. Our DINO will never be repaid and should never be repaid.

Only a federal budget surplus can reduce our DINO. Since dropping the gold standard in1971, we have rarely had even a modest budget surplus. None is now in sight. To supply enough treasuries, the ONLY risk-free instrument used for trade collateral, insurance, pensions, bank reserves, etc., our Dino must continue to grow along with our economy. In fact, deflation and then depression will hit us hard unless big budget deficits replace the cash now flowing into China.

NAFTA was the biggest mistake this countries politicians ever made. It was the beginning of the end of the U.S. manufacturing empire. What was touted as a plan to bring in more affordable products at lower cost to the citizens was in fact a plan to move all industry to foreign soil to lower pay, and dodge taxation. The only ones that prospered was big corporations whose profit margin went through the roof due to cheap labor, (usually forced), and bloated pricing. Millions of jobs went with the industries that relocated and now, they want to make even a bigger mess. Historically, products labeled "Made in China" where cheap, and weren't expected to last a month. Now, these same products are expensive, and still not expected to last a month. In the process, corporations have made third world countries rich, and devalued our dollar.