Charles Hugh Smith – A number of systemic, structural forces are intersecting in 2016. One is the end-game of debt-fueled “growth.”

We can summarize the official “solution” to the Global Financial Meltdown of 2008 in one line: borrow and blow trillions–of yen, yuan, dollars, euros, reals, you name it.

The goal of borrowing and blowing trillions was to re-invigorate “growth”– any kind of “growth,” no matter how wasteful, unproductive or even counter-productive it might be: wars, nation-building, ghost cities, needless MRIs, useless college diplomas, bridge to nowhere–anything the borrowed money was squandered on counts as “growth” in the Keynesian status quo.

Unsurprisingly, this strategy yields diminishing returns as the negative returns on all this debt-fueled spending piles up. While the yield on the “investment” is either negative or only fleetingly positive, the interest due on the debt is forever. That’s the source of diminishing returns in a nutshell.

The diminishing returns on additional debt is clearly visible in these charts.

Global debt has soared but this massive stimulus has yielded subpar “growth” (and the final costs of all the astounding mal-investment have yet to be totaled): Continue reading →