"Observation balloon" and other American crises

The US national debt in three years grew by $8 trillion and exceeded $31.4 trillion. It has two parts: domestic government debt ($6.9 trillion) and public debt ($24.5 trillion). The first is formed by US budget debt to government agencies, including state pension funds, according to a correspondent for The Moscow Post.

The public part of the public debt is treasury securities owned by individuals, corporations, the US Federal Reserve System (FRS), as well as state and foreign governments. Japan and China are most willing to invest in the US national debt, which own $1.08 trillion and $870 billion in treasury securities, respectively.

According to the World Bank, public debt is considered problematic when it is equal to 77% of the state's annual GDP. For the United States in the second quarter of 2022, this figure was 123%. The American government borrowed significant amounts, but it's time to pay the bills, writes Huanqiu Shibao. If the authorities do not solve this problem, then the whole world will have to deal with the consequences.

But this is far from the only problem to be dealt with, both by the US itself and by other countries, including China, which is America's main economic partner. Agree that by calling its main trading partner and the second most important foreign lender a geopolitical opponent, Washington is shaking the world structure.

Weather Balloon of Strategic Importance

As luck would have it, a weather balloon of the PRC brought into US airspace. The F22 fighter fired an AIM-9 Sidewinder missile at it over the Atlantic Ocean, the ball fell off the coast of South Carolina. It was not immediately possible to hit a suspicious object, which caused a lot of curvature.

Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin released a statement calling the downed facility a "surveillance balloon" for strategic sites on the continental US. What was caught at sea will be sent to the FBI for study, although Beijing is demanding the wreckage be returned. The Chinese Foreign Ministry said that "the use of force by the American side is an obvious overreaction and a serious violation of international practice."

Defense Ministry spokesman Tan Kefei also said a "serious protest" and added that China "reserves the right to use the necessary means to resolve similar situations" in the future.

According to the deputy head of the Chinese diplomatic service, Xie Feng, by destroying the Chinese balloon, the United States damaged the process of stabilizing relations, which the leaders of the two countries agreed on at a meeting in Bali, Xie Feng said. The diplomat noted that China protests and calls on the United States not to take further actions that harm Beijing's interests and escalate tensions.

And here's South Carolina

Wang Yi, a member of the Politburo of the CPC Central Committee and director of the Office of the Foreign Affairs Commission, spoke by phone on Friday evening about the ball incident with Anthony Blinken. But the secretary of state still postponed his visit to Beijing, where he was counting on an audience with Xi Jinping.

Coincidentally, the anti-China campaign, which received an additional "balloon push," turned out to be geographically related to the presidential election in 2024. At the center of these events was the same state - South Carolina. He will be the first to host an internal party vote on Joe Biden's nomination for a second presidential term. The rules of the primary elections and the order of the states for their conduct were changed to reduce the risks for the current head of the White House when nominated for a second term.

It seems that the leadership of the Democratic Party considers Joe Biden the most reliable candidate. This also causes curvature. Only 37% of Democrats are ready to see Biden as president again, while 52% of Democrats surveyed supported him last November, according to an Associated Press poll. The level of support among all voters, including non-partisans, is even lower and is also falling.

On Tuesday, February 7, Biden will address both chambers of the US Congress with his annual State of the Union address. He himself and members of his administration expect to evaluate their work, not paying attention to the fact that "they have already become laughing stock that should hide their heads from collective shame for the damage caused inside and outside America," political analyst Charles Ortel told RIA Novosti, commenting on the upcoming message.

In the bushes stood Gallup

In the messages, American presidents set out a vision of the internal situation in the country, summarize the activities of the administration over the past year, indicate the priorities of domestic and foreign policy.

It is known that most Americans consider the inefficient work of the government to be the main problem of the United States. These sentiments were confirmed by the Gallup Institute following the results of the annual survey, which was conducted on January 2-22. Only a third of the respondents were satisfied with the work of the federal government and the public administration system. Only one in four Americans (23% of respondents) are generally satisfied with how things are going in the country. Half of those surveyed said they were "very unhappy," a quarter said they were "just unhappy."

The Gallup International Association conducts regular polls on domestic and foreign policy issues, enjoys international authority as one of the most reliable sources of information on the state of public opinion in the United States. According to the survey, most Americans are not satisfied with the moral and ethical climate in the country, the distribution of income, as well as the influence of large corporations on society.

In reality, economic conditions are worse than politicians and most media outlets present them with. Injections into the economy during the coronavirus pandemic reached $5 trillion, which were aimed at paying unemployment benefits, financial support for small businesses, and other "incentives." This has to be paid for by inflation and the fact that the Fed's rate increase slows down the economy and increases the cost of government borrowing.

Life is becoming more expensive,...

Many working Americans struggle to make ends meet and on average, living standards are declining. Over the past year, prices have grown faster than revenues. More difficult than others are relatively young people. More than a third of adults rely on parents to pay at least part of their bills.

More than a third of adults (35%) admit they still have at least one bill their parents pay. According to the latest survey, the three main expense items paid by their parents are rent (19%), food (19%) and utilities (16%). Nearly a quarter (24%) of millennials say parents pay their rent.

Real disposable income is falling. According to Fox Business, published GDP data shows that the drop in real disposable income in 2022 was the largest on record since 1932. Real disposable income fell by more than $1 trillion in 2022. It marked the second-deepest drop in real disposable income in percentage terms after the failure of 1932, the worst year of the Great Depression.

Following the drop in income, Americans' ability to service loans is declining. The share of low-quality auto borrowers who delayed payments by two months or more rose to 5.67%, the highest level since 2008. The figure was at 2.58 per cent in April 2021, the lowest level in seven previous years, according to Fitch Ratings. As a result, banks seize cars for which payments are overdue.

Economic conditions will worsen in the near future, following the tightening of lending conditions caused by the Fed's anti-inflationary measures, unemployment will rise. Large producers focused on the mass consumer lose their previous sales volumes, suffer losses and reduce jobs. The crisis will manifest itself in the second half of 2023, reminiscent of the recession of the 1970s, says Michael Snyder, author of The End of Time.

… trust is melting, the heir has grown

Today, the debt crisis looks more complicated, and the achievement of the public debt limit coincided with the transition of power in the House of Representatives from Democrats to Republicans, who advocate strict control, emphasizing that increasing the debt limit should not be an "unlimited credit card" for Biden, including US military assistance to the Kyiv authorities.

Under these conditions, it will be more difficult for the parties to agree on the "ceiling" of the public debt, which could lead to the suspension of the activities of the federal government. America is on the verge of another crisis and while the dollar remains the world currency, the US debt limit will affect the global economy.

Investigations launched by Republicans against Biden in the case of the discovery of secret documents from him threaten at least reputational losses. In particular, materials that date back to the period when Biden was vice president were found by his proxies before the midterm elections in November 2022. These papers included intelligence data on Ukraine, Iran and Great Britain.

The president's son, Hunter Biden, had access to a garage containing classified documents, Fox News reported. Hunter Biden himself, as the Daily Mail writes with reference to the new data obtained from his laptop, conducted an intimate correspondence with his 29-year-old assistant, forced her to talk to him via a naked video link.

Such a financial, family and political background was formed by the time the US President spoke with an annual message to Congress on the night of February 8, Moscow time. The key topics of the message will be the threat of default, the Ukrainian conflict and relations with China. Around the Capitol, as in previous years, a two-meter metal fence was installed, symbolizing democratic values.

Photo: PRIME Economic News Agency