I’m reading about all the university closures (as in endings), massive layoffs, and other calamities.

I’m convinced that the 2000 and 2008 recessions were contained and led in specific industries, and as a society we largely papered over them with debt.

Debt that we took on in an effort to keep things as normal; services were cut, but it was minor. Businesses closed, but it wasn’t a huge amount, and focused in specific corners.

This time though, we have an existing huge debt load from the last recessions built up. There is little room to take on more. Everyone is living paycheck to paycheck because of the asset bubble created due to the 0% interest needed to keep the debt from blowing up.

No savings to fall back on, at the personal, business, or government levels. So instead of papering over with more debt, shite is going to fall harder than we’ve ever seen. We probably haven’t hit the peak of unemployment.

In 2008, the recession caused a mini boom in education. People went back for more schooling. That isn’t happening now; the cost is too high, and so colleges are folding instead of profiting.

The “inflation rate” that cherry picks out items to follow hasn’t crested 3% in 20 years, yet housing, healthcare, education, have all skyrocketed. They comprise 50% or more of many people’s expenses, yet we ignore them. Why?

Because someone at the Fed or treasury realized decades ago that if the American people and the world’s governments that hold dollars as reserve ever figured out that the real inflation rate was 5-6% every year, with T bill yields at .5%, they’d shite a collective dairy farm.

The real story is that our collective societal debt has been unserviceable at historic interest rates for 15-20 years, and the fed is desperately trying to stealth-inflate it away. But the asset bubble they created grew too big too fast, and they have a runaway train on their hands. The death spiral of ever larger debt is being chased by an ever larger specter of inflation.

If the world cottons on to our inflation, the dollar would get dropped and flood the market causing Zimbabwe levels of hyperinflation. So the fed has to keep the ruse going. But they can’t increase interest rates, because the debt weight everyone is carrying would cave in on us and destroy the entire banking system for 2 generations.

Anyway, thanks to everyone who served!