Breaking News – The Disaster of Oct. 24, 2029

Acme Media Group, NYC, October 24, 2029

The Treasury Department held a regular sale today of debt instruments to raise funds for activities of the federal government.  However, very few buyers showed up, and those demanded 12% to loan money to the U.S. government!  This is the disaster many have predicted – the trigger to coming woes. 

The President has declared an emergency and called for a Joint Session of Congress tomorrow.  First on the agenda is the collapsed market for federal debt and what can be done about it.  The U.S. is not alone in having fiscal problems, but the problem here is huge and personal.

Collateral damage includes the very steep decline in the value of the dollar.  Also, the stock markets on Wall Street are expected to close today at their lowest levels in decades, damaging citizens’ retirement savings and other investments.  Worst, funding is a big unknown for all federal spending – including Social Security, Medicare, and Defense.

Congress has misused its powers to tax, spend, and borrow, and therefore to control the levels of debt.

The Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve have been using the tools available to them to forestall this extremely painful situation.  However, it was inevitable that they could not cope with the escalating federal debt forever.  The horse is now out of the barn; experts are already saying the pity is that it was obvious just a few years ago that broad corrective actions were imperative then. 

The Federal Debt is now at an all-time high of $36 trillion, up from $30 trillion in 2025.  The common measure of Federal Debt Owed to the Public as a percentage of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in now at 117%, well above the level of 100% in 2025, the level often considered the red flag level.

This date one hundred years ago was Black Thursday, the beginning of the Great Depression!