Historian Niall Ferguson warns that the United States may be heading for the same fate as every other advanced civilization in history if it doesn’t address its debt issue.
The US’s attempts to build an empire may be more costly than beneficial.
amount to expansion.
The historian suggests that Trump’s actions are occurring while he is aware of the more practical influence of budgetary limitations and notes that empires from the Habsburgs to the Spanish to Bourbon France in the 18th century.
Ferguson quotes fellow historian Adam Ferguson, who argues that taking out loans to finance warfare shifts the financial responsibility to future taxpayers.
He says the elder Ferguson describes debt as ‘extremely dangerous… in the hands of a precipitous and ambitious government.’
‘An expense, whether incurred domestically or internationally, whether a waste of current resources or an investment in the future, if it yields no corresponding benefit, should be considered a cause of national decline,’ Adam Ferguson noted.
He claims that the US will spend more on debt servicing ($1.124 trillion) than on defense spending ($1.107 trillion) in 2024.
The US hasn’t seen such high levels of debt servicing and defense spending since the pre-World War II era of isolationism.
-thinks that the weight of debt tends to weaken a powerful nation’s global influence, making it susceptible to military threats.
He cites the Congressional Budget Office, which predicts the federal debt will reach nearly 5% of the US Gross Domestic Product by 2049.
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He is concerned that the US may be heading in the same direction as pre-WWII Britain, which pursued a policy of appeasement, but warns that the consequences could be even more severe, potentially leading to a path of default, depreciation, and imperial decline.
Without significant reforms to America’s primary entitlement programs, which past administrations have either struggled to implement or deemed unfeasible, the only viable option for the US to return within the fiscal limit set by Ferguson’s Law is through an extraordinary increase in productivity.
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to bring an end to their three-year conflict.
It’s a shocking concession from Zelensky, who had said just days earlier: ‘I defend Ukraine, I can’t sell our country.’
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“We’re signing an agreement hopefully within a relatively short period,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office when asked about a deal for Ukraine’s minerals.
It was later confirmed by several individuals familiar with the deal that it is nearing completion and will be finalized within a matter of hours.
reported.
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and National Security Adviser Michael Waltz – in the span of a week prior to a deal being finalized.
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