First the problem:<p>Say your company brought in $1M a year in revenue and you had $1.04M in debt and growing. Say you had 40% margins and were trying to service that debt with your 400k of gross profit.<p>You would not be in business long.<p>The fiscal reality of the US government is the same save for one key fact: they can print money. As a result, they can carry on this sorry fiscal situation for an amazingly long time, but not forever.<p>Japan has been in this situation more than a decade. They remain powerful.<p>This state of affairs will affect you as a company in these ways:<p>1. Your taxes must go up. This isn't a political thing so much as bottom line math thing. The more they take in revenue from you, the less they have to borrow or print and the longer this whole system keeps going. They can tax the rich at 100% and still not have nearly enough money to service their current debt, let alone the constantly increasing spend.<p>2. Market certainty will go down. No one wants increased taxes - politicians or citizens. This pressure from both sides creates things like the coming 'fiscal cliff' where either we reach a budget cutting agreement or draconian cuts go into effect. The market hates not knowing and people spend less in these cases. It looks like there will be a pattern of these occurring in the foreseeable future, which means less people spending less money with your business.<p>3. Dollars will be worth less. To hold the true value you receive for your service steady, you will have to increase the number of dollars you ask for from customers. Unfortunately, these customers will have less dollars in their pocket because wage inflation tends to trail price inflation. Be aware that as long as the US can borrow money and keep interest rates on bonds low as a result, inflation reported by the feds will remain low. It also pays to be the tallest midget. US dollars remain the world standard, so when there is a panic in Europe or Asia, people rush to buy our bonds, which bolsters our dollar and purchasing power relative to other nations. This ends when the market no longer believes we can pay. This could be tomorrow, next year, in 10 years or never if we really get our act together.<p>4. The dollars you've earned might not be worth much when you go to spend them. Say there's nothing to worry about for the next 10 years, but then it gets so bad that the market says 'enough, we're not buying these bonds anymore USA.' The USA at that point can print the money and pay the bonds with it or default. Either way, the dollars you earned through sweat and tears aren't worth much and the business that made them isn't attractive to customers at the "new normal" price points. At this nearly worst case point, you are poor, hit from both sides of the inflation game. This is one reason any thread of this nature has at least one mention of 'Gold!', as it holds its value no matter what the government does - assuming you can both hold onto it and trade it for fair value when you need it.