U.S. on Track to Surpass Italy's Debt Within 5 Years

According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the United States is on track to have a worse debt profile than Italy by 2023. "The U.S. debt-to-GDP ratio is projected to widen to 116.9 percent by 2023 while Italy’s is seen narrowing to 116.6 percent" according to Bloomberg. That would leave the United States with nearly the worst debt profile in the world, second only to Japan.

Spending More and Making Less

Much like you and me, the government has a fiscal responsibility to make sure that it makes more money than it spends. When it makes more money (through tax revenues) than it spends in a given year, it is said to be running a surplus. When it's spending more than it's bringing in, it's running a budget deficit. The U.S. has not had an annual budget surplus since 2001.

On the revenue side of the U.S. income statement, depressed economic growth and Trump's recent tax cuts have greatly reduced money coming in. On the cost side, endless international wars and a ballooning of entitlement program spending (ie. Social Security, Medicare, etc.) due to an aging population has greatly increased spending.

The Party Can't Last Forever

As some of you may recall, the world was watching and markets took a dive in 2011 when Italy was on the verge of defaulting on its debts and the US had its credit rating dropped by several credit ratings agencies. Currently, the U.S. Dollar is the #1 currency held by most of the world in their foreign-exchange reserves. As U.S. creditworthiness continues to deteriorate, other countries will hedge their bets and diversify away from the U.S. dollar as their main foreign currency in their holdings. "Right now, central banks are drawn to the US’s deep and liquid treasury-bond market and the near certainty the US will always repay its debts for the near future. However, there are increasingly more and more alternatives that are stable. About a year ago, the International Monetary Fund formally made the Chinese renminbi a reserve currency." (Quartz)

Enter Cryptocurrency

The problem with countries diversifying away from the U.S. dollar is that central banks all over the world are facing similar issues - explosive debt increases. Additionally, central banks have long been under scrutiny for their manipulations of entire economies. As cryptocurrency adoption increases, whether it be through bitcoin or a number of currencies, I suspect that more and more smart money will move into cryptocurrency as a hedge against the reckless budgeting (or lack thereof) of governments all over the world.