Causes of Uncontrollable US Public Spending and Debt

Annual US public spending has been in deficit for decades. As a result, total US debt continues to increase year after year with no end in sight. The end may not be in sight but the debt cannot continue to grow forever. We just don’t know when markets will shed the dollar, although the process may already be underway. In this brief essay, I will not point out all the disastrous consequences except that they are disastrous and will happen.

Is Deflation Bad for the Economy?

It is maintained by most experts that a general fall in prices, called deflation, is “bad news” for the economy because it postpones people’s buying of goods and services. This, in turn, allegedly undermines investment in plants and machinery. All this sets in motion an economic slump. Moreover, as the slump further depresses the prices of goods and services, this intensifies the pace of economic decline. 

According to the former Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke,

Why Stable Systems Fail: The Illusion of Institutional Control

There is a persistent belief in modern political life that systems fail because they become fragile. Institutions, it is assumed, weaken under pressure and eventually break down. This intuition is not just incomplete—it is backward.

Systems do not fail when they become fragile; they become fragile because they have already lost contact with the realities they claim to govern. What appears as stability is not strength, but the final illusion of a structure that can no longer correct itself. This is not a matter of conspiracy or intent, it is structural.