"This is a stick up, everybody get your interest rates on the floor and give me the money!"

Here we are, the edge of the cliff is now in sight and the western caravan of debt is proceeding, full speed ahead.  With interest rates as close to zero as the Fed can manage and with negative real interest rates at home and abroad, the western world has emerged a growth stunted, self-medicating doctor with few options left.  The United States is my focus when the news hits about Euro debt woes and the Euro Zone is my focus when the US debt burden hits the headline.  At this point it seems like we are taking turns with our descending steps into a downward spiral, now the news events are merely much more frequent and thus closer together.  Periods of market calmness will be more short lived and volatility spikes will soon dwarf the recent sell off and 2008 crash, but that lies ahead.  We have a lot of bullets to fire in this fight to the finish or race to the bottom as some close to me have called it.  

Currently in the US, our annual interest on the federal debt is over 18% of annual federal revenue.  This is with rates at the rock bottom.  Ben Bernanke has declared the US will be paid to borrow money for another year or more.  This simply won't last.

As of yesterday, the federal government's total public debt outstanding was $14,620,196,583,424.20 and quickly counting. In fact as I write this the treasury would have to update this another $9+ billion, just since yesterday.  If rates normalized we would be paying around 35% of our revenue into debt service.  If fact the breaking point would currently be around 15.5% at which point all federal revenue could not service the debt.  Clearly 15.5% is merely an example and not an expected rate, but it should be representative of how dire the problem could become in a matter of months.