00:00Three months ago, Ray, you said that we were about three years away from the U.S. going broke.
00:05A lot has changed since then. The tariffs, Liberation Day, the markets, no spasms from that,
00:10and Moody's downgraded the U.S. debt. They were the third of the ratings agencies to do so.
00:15How close are we now, if not three years away?
00:17Well, it really depends on how we're going to deal with this.
00:21We are at a juncture right now. If we can, soon, very soon, while the economy is still good,
00:28cut the deficit to 3% of GDP, which is possible, you only have to change a couple of things,
00:37change spending by 4%, change tax income by 4%, then you'll have a lower interest rate as a result.
00:45This is possible. It was done between 1991 and 1998, that balance.
00:52If everybody gives a little bit. If you don't do that, and we probably will not do that,
00:57it is like the plaque building in the heart, and so we are now then going to have not only more debt
01:05and more debt service encroaching on our spending, but it's also going to mean that we're going to
01:11have a supply-demand problem, and this is a heart attack, like an economic heart attack.
01:16I would guess it's about three years, give or take, the basic picture has not changed.
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