Anyone following the federal budget deficit knows we're heading into an abyss.  I still have my dad's books from the 1970s about the impending recession and economic collapse.  We've had some downcycles and turbulence since then, but nothing that compares to economic collapse.  The sophisticated ability to kick the can down the road is truly remarkable. 

                  But how long can you kick the can down the road?   That's the million dollar question.  The interest on the debt now exceeds the defense budget.  Will the collapse/correction happen in the next 4 years?  If it does, Trump is toast.  When major disruption occurs, peasants always blame the guy in charge.  And Trump's stimulus package in 2020 was both economically devastating and wrong.  So what does he really believe?  Who knows?

                  Larry Fink is chairman and CEO of BlackRock, the largest investment holding company in the world.  What does he think?  In an op-ed piece in the Wall Street Journal, he says we need to grow our way out of the deficit. While he calls the debt America's Achilles heel, he can't cotton reducing the federal deficit.  No, it's spend, baby, spend. 

                  On what?  Data centers.  He says they'll be equivalent to the economic boom created by railroad development between 1860 and 1890.  Then the interstate system drove positive growth from 1950 to 1989. 

                  And what will data centers require?  Electricity.  Lots of it.  Perhaps as much as doubling the grid, and that's without ubiquitous electric vehicle expansion.  High voltage power lines and Artificial Intelligence everywhere.  That's the solution.

                  He may be right, of course, but refusing to even think about the debt seems foolish.  The railroad expansion happened before we even had an income tax, welfare, Social Security, Medicare.  Before we built military bases around the world and funded the CIA to topple and prop up dictators.  The interstate system, likewise, occurred when Social Security was supported by about 6 workers per recipient.  Today, it's down to two and trending down. 

                  The federal bureaucracy was a third what it is today.  We didn't have an EPA, Department of Education, Department of Energy--they didn't even exist.  And we certainly weren't housing immigrants on the taxpayer dime in hotels in New York City.  To dismiss the debt as irrelevant seems either foolish or geared to take our eye off the ball. 

                  I did a media interview today and explained that one of the primary reasons Teresa and I were successful getting our farm started was not because we figured out how to generate income; it was because we figured out how to live cheaply.  Living on $300 a month, growing our own food, never buying coffee, alcohol or processed food, driving a $50 car--all of this took the pressure off generating income.  That gave us time to experiment and develop production protocols at a tiny scale--small mistakes rather than big mistakes. 

                  Assuming we as a nation can give a nod and wink to spending this exorbitantly beyond our means by simply installing power lines, energy-consumptive data centers, and tripling electricity generation doesn't attack the moral rot of spending beyond our means.  The deficit indicates a moral failing.  A complete moral bankruptcy of our society.  

                  When profligate deficits dominate our civilizational balance sheet, the "living beyond your means" axiom penetrates throughout society.  It destroys savings.  The work ethic.  Living responsibly.  Fink admits "runaway debt can drag down a country's economy," but cares not a fig, apparently, about reining it in.  Just build more stuff and all will be well. 

                  True wealth is moral wealth that comes from living within your income.  That's better than money.  Being able to look yourself in the mirror.  It may be we're headed into a new golden age of prosperity, but seldom does that follow material growth; it follows moral growth. 

                  Do you think data centers are the key out of our economic woes?