John Mauldin scares us

The US’ fiscal reality

Next year, the US national debt will top $20 trillion. The deficit is running close to $500 billion, and the Congressional Budget Office projects that figure to rise.

Add another $3 trillion or so in state and local debt. As you may imagine, the interest on that debt is beginning to add up, even at the extraordinarily low rates we have today.

Sometime in 2019, entitlement spending, defense, and interest will consume all the tax revenues collected by the US government. That means all spending for everything else will have to be borrowed.

The CBO projects the deficit will rise to over $1 trillion by 2023. By that point, entitlement spending and net interest will be consuming almost all tax revenues, and we will be borrowing to pay for our defense.

So if we get a bit of the blue the deficit will go bzonkers!

Josh Barro,. white people expert

Josh: Political-science research shows "ethnocentric white voters" tend to look negatively at government programs for the poor, but they are disproportionately likely to favor programs aimed at the elderly. Relatedly, a lot of white voters were happy to vote Democratic when they saw big government as serving the interests of their own ethnic group but shifted to the Republicans when they started to see government as working to help mostly others. Here are the racial voting patterns  from  Roper Public Opinion at Cornell:

	2012		Group	Obama	Romney
	All Voters		Pct.	51.00%	47.00%
	SEX	Men	47	45	52
	Women		53	55	44
	RACE	White	72	39	59
	African-American		13	93	6
	Hispanic		10	71	27

And we see that whites had the most diverse voting pattern, which makes Josh full of crap.

Who does the most killing?

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Murder rates by city, and Latin America dominates the charts, holding 10 of the worst  11 positions.  There are four US cities more violent than Tijuana!  The all time winner? Brazil.

Rank	Municipality	Country	Homicides (2015)	Population (2015)	Homicides per 100,000
1	Caracas	Venezuela	3,946	3,291,830	119.87
2	San Pedro Sula	Honduras	885	797,065	111.03
3	San Salvador	El Salvador	1,918	1,767,102	108.54
4	Acapulco	Mexico	903	862,176	104.73
5	Maturín	Venezuela	505	584,166	86.45
6	Distrito Central	Honduras	882	1,199,802	73.51
7	Valencia	Venezuela	1,125	1,555,739	72.31
8	Palmira	Colombia	216	304,735	70.88
9	Cape Town	South Africa	2,451	3,740,026	65.53
10	Cali	Colombia	1,523	2,369,821	64.27
11	Ciudad Guayana	Venezuela	547	877,547	62.33
12	Fortaleza	Brazil	2,422	3,985,297	60.77
13	Natal	Brazil	921	1,518,221	60.66
14	Salvador	Brazil	1,996	3,291,830	60.63
15	St. Louis	United States	188	317,416	59.23
16	João Pessoa	Brazil	643	1,100,956	58.40
17	Culiacán	Mexico	518	923,546	56.09
18	Maceió	Brazil	564	1,013,773	55.63
19	Baltimore	United States	343	623,911	54.98
20	Barquisimeto	Venezuela	719	1,308,163	54.96
21	São Luís	Brazil	802	1,511,678	53.05
22	Cuiabá	Brazil	412	849,083	48.52
23	Manaus	Brazil	985	2,057,711	47.87
24	Cumaná	Venezuela	199	416,587	47.77
25	Guatemala City	Guatemala	1,528	3,239,185	47.17
26	Belém	Brazil	1,101	2,402,437	45.83
27	Feira de Santana	Brazil	281	617,528	45.50
28	Detroit	United States	295	672,193	43.89
29	Goiânia	Brazil	847	1,952,607	43.38
30	Teresina	Brazil	360	844,245	42.64
31	Vitória	Brazil	802	1,910,101	41.99
32	New Orleans	United States	164	395,710	41.44
33	Kingston	Jamaica	492	1,196,040	41.14
34	Gran Barcelona	Venezuela	334	833,328	40.08
35	Tijuana	Mexico	668	1,708,679	39.09
36	Vitória da Conquista	Brazil	132	343,230	38.46
37	Recife	Brazil	1,492	3,914,317	38.12
38	Aracaju	Brazil	349	925,744	37.70
39	Campos dos Goytacazes	Brazil	175	483,970	36.16
40	Campina Grande	Brazil	146	405,072	36.04
41	Durban	South Africa	1,237	3,442,361	35.93
42	Nelson Mandela Bay	South Africa	413	1,152,115	35.85
43	Porto Alegre	Brazil	1,479	4,258,926	34.73
44	Curitiba	Brazil	1,121	3,230,061	34.71
45	Pereira	Colombia	153	469,612	32.58
46	Ciudad Victoria	Mexico	107	350,862	30.50
47	Johannesburg	South Africa	1,344	4,434,827	30.31
48	Macapá	Brazil	138	456,171	30.25
49	Maracaibo	Venezuela	477	1,653,211	28.85
50	Obregón	Mexico	90	318,184	28.29