The Press is Lying About the Debt: Your Country Can Go Bankrupt, Too.

i would say relax
don't worry about the debt uh don't worry about the debt until the virus is gone and actually don't worry about the debt after the virus is gone that was nobel prize winning economist paul krugman telling you don't worry about the debt i'm going to show you i'm going to show you a chart on screen right now does that look like something you should worry about you know if you zoom in here if you just look at the part that's blue 2016 17 18 19. you know it used to be that people on the left the mainstream left as well as the far left it used to be the people on the left criticized donald trump for what you see there with the debt the united states america getting worse and worse and worse and then oh look at that 2020 it's not just a little bit worse is it why why do you think it is that the mainstream left the center left the moderate left is saying what paul krugman is saying that they're saying don't worry about the dead what a preposterous thing to say whether cynically or sincerely given that it is donald trump who's to blame for this debt wouldn't it be reasonable wouldn't it be reasonable to worry it's not asking a whole lot to worry about the debt quote the u.s is about to vastly increase its debt period that's a good thing period what a headline quote the scare stories about government debt are back period ignore them wow it sure seems like there's a chorus of expert opinion quoted in mainstream center-left publications like the new york times and the guardian they're all trying to convince you that what you see on this chart this big scary red line that that's nothing to be scared of at all what do you think possibly could motivate this oh well um countries never go bankrupt right no countries do go bankrupt all the time there are millions of people suffering terribly all around the world right now because their country their government went bankrupt because of sovereign debt defaults in this world there are no heroes and there are no villains there are people who care and there are people who don't the reality is the left wing doesn't have a monopoly on caring you and i right now we get to choose whether we care or we don't whether we're willing to learn truth from facts face up to empirical reality or we're going to insist on a fiction and disregard the facts for that reason you ever heard of argentina oh oh but argentina going bankrupt that was ancient history that was a real long time ago right 2002 2002 is ancient history to you you think that doesn't count you think what happened to argentina can't happen to canada it can have you checked the newspaper headlines lately about argentina maybe didn't make it into your news argentina is still dealing with its bankruptcy with its sovereign debt crisis it's still dealing with the consequences of what happens when you have the attitude of nobel prize winning economist paul krugman of just not worrying about your debt for just a little bit too long they're still dealing with that to this day argentina heads for ninth sovereign debt default these are headlines from 2020. this is news here and now these are the consequences people are dealing with you know what kind of consequences they include they include people starving to death they include people dying because hospitals don't have electricity they include diseases from the dark ages returning because the government can't employ sanitation workers to collect garbage anymore our civilization in the 21st century it's impressive but it's fragile if you take away just one of the things one of the services the government provides that we've all come to rely on day in and day out you take away garbage collection you take away electricity you take away running water or water purification cleaning services just one of those and very rapidly the gleaming towers of our most beautiful cities become uninhabitable hell holes plagues from 500 years ago can return and yes the convenience of going to grocery stores is amazing the convenience of buying food grown and manufactured all over the world is incredible that supply chain is also frighteningly fragile as is shown right now in lebanon have you seen these headlines i'm not asking have you been looking for these headlines i'm asking if you've seen them it's most likely they haven't been discussed on the news program you choose to watch or in the newspaper that you happen to have seen people in lebanon are starving to death today this is a sovereign debt crisis unfolding right now in the year 2020 and in case you think it was caused by coronavirus and you're wrong quote millions of people are watching their savings and salaries disappear as food inflation hits nearly 200 percent muhammad stood in the market trying to calculate how much food he could afford for himself his wife and two children in the end he decides on potatoes for dinner three potatoes sliced up with half a red pepper and some cucumbers on the side that would have to be dinner for four quote before the dollar crisis my monthly salary as a freelance accounting assistant would last 15 to 20 days now it's only enough for five days i think they will probably make all of us leave our jobs at the end of july my family already passed the minimum that we can survive on we borrow from the market to eat for the rest of the month now i'm just going to show you this this chart again and you see how the blue lines were going up up up under donald trump before we already had a debt crisis long before this coronavirus thing started happening many of you i'm sure are not watching the united states you say well maybe this is just a uniquely american problem no it's global okay you can take a look here the total debt on planet earth that's actually the calculus being shown in this chart debt was a problem globally worldwide but if we just look here at the united states you look at that gradual increase before coronavirus under donald trump now look look at this chart this is the gradual increase in lebanon before their economy collapsed before their government declared that they just had too much debt couldn't make the interest payments anymore you know that it's not that much difference between two years especially oh wow look at this see where the red arrow is that's exactly the same curve but now we're going back all the way to the year 2000 and that increase in debt looks even more humble even more reasonable right the societies we live in are fragile if you're on the left if you're on the right if you're in the sen no matter what ask yourself do you care do you care about reality do you care about what happened to the people of lebanon do you care about what happened to the people of argentina face up to the reality first and then theorize don't tell me that you've got some gleaming economic theory that just requires me to disregard this kind of reality to believe in it quote lebanon must now choose between honoring its debts and providing the most basic services to its citizens how can we pay the creditors while there were people in the streets without money to buy a loaf of bread you think this is a game you think this is something to score political points on in this little pantomime of democrat versus republican or in canada the liberal party versus the conservative party it's not a game this has unspeakably terrible consequences for the future of millions and millions of people when individuals run up too much credit card debt they can go bankrupt when lebanon the country the government goes bankrupt do you think the people of lebanon can run away as refugees to syria think about what happens next as one domino after another begins to fall now the finance minister went to great lengths to brag about the low interest rates that he's paying on the debt as though he somehow set those interest rates himself those interest rates are temporary and they're only made possible by the cornucopia of cash that is coming out of the bank of canada a bank which has print created through keystrokes on a computer about 400 billion dollars of new currency for government spending in less than 100 days this government has now smashed through the trillion dollar debt mark 1.06 trillion dollars is the size of canada's national debt a deficit of 343 billion dollars we expected the finance minister would arrive here today with a plan to bring our economy back to life instead what he did is brag that his plan is the most expensive plan in the g7 he said because it consumes 10 of gdp higher than any other g7 country and higher than the g20 average because it spends the most money because it is the most costly it must therefore be the best but of course it has simultaneously produced the worst results i've shown you this chart before but i now want to draw your attention to the headline i've got on the right hand side of the screen america is on track for a four trillion dollar deficit in 2020. should it matter you can already guess this article just like the other headlines i showed you it's somewhat more smarmy in stating it but it's telling you it doesn't matter don't worry about the debt oh on the contrary every uh well-intentioned high-minded liberal every left-of-center sophisticated urbanite person ought to go around reassuring others that it's just a misconception that government debt is just it's just a misconception that governments can go bankrupt and this can have terrible consequences for people right and who is this guy i looked into him who is the author of this article he describes himself as offering a center-left perspective he basically writes freelance propaganda for the progressive policy institute it's no surprise most of what the progressive policy institute enforces is massive levels of government deficit spending in order to achieve their particular left-of-center social and economic goals just like paul krogman stereotypically the right wing cares about austerity while the left does not and the mainstream left like paul krugman they actually deserve the harshest criticism on this it's people in the center it's the moderates in the middle that deserve the harshest criticism but in praxis conservatives care about tax cuts not balanced budgets keep that in mind austerity is meaningless if it's combined with tax cuts with lower taxes for the wealthy because the outcome of the government being deeper in debt is still the same i would say relax don't worry about the debt don't worry about the debt until the virus is gone and actually don't worry about the debt after the virus is gone paul krugman says don't worry about the dead i'm saying to you worry you also can end up like argentina you also can end up like lebanon