QUESTION: Mr. Armstrong; I was given your Solution DVD for Christmas by my son. I just began reading your blog for days. This has been an eye opening experience and it has even opened a dialog with my son. So you can teach old dogs new tricks. So my conclusion is that we can step ahead and that we may not overcome death, but taxes do seem to lead nowhere but more taxes. Do you think they will adopt your solution?
ANSWER: We have sold many SOLUTION DVDs on Amazon. It seems to be a great gift to get others to pay attention. Glad that worked with you. The more people who watch this, and at least enter the debate, the more likely we are to see this solution take hold. But keep in mind that this solution would ONLY emerge after we crash and burn and the current system becomes unsustainable.
We are spending per month, even at these low interest rates, over $20 billion in interest per month on average. What happens when rates rise? The system starts to exponentially collapse. Our problem will be that they are increasing taxes and becoming abusively aggressive in tax enforcement; they are destroying exactly what made the world economy flourish. But all they care about is holding on to power so they will continue to screw society in their own self-interest.
Looking at debt as a percentage of GDP, it does not really matter, for the GDP includes government expenditures and fails to realize that it is extracting a portion from society to fund itself which wastes productivity since government does not create anything. Therefore, if government is 100% of GDP as in communism, 33% to 50% in socialism, then the debt to GDP ratio becomes delusional. All countries are in trouble because they are operating on a system that is unsustainable.
