The only previous times budget deficits have been this high have been during severe crises - the World Wars and the Covid pandemic when the economy was shut down. Here is the graph from the Federal Reserve's public statistics:

They were marked down by a whopping 818,000 for the 12 months through March or around 68,000 less each month.The Bureau of Labor Statistics does make regular revisions to their statistics, as more data comes in, but this is the biggest downward revision since 2009. See

The good news is that this is an improvement on last year when the deficit was $1.6 trillion for the first 10 months of the 2023 fiscal year.The bad news is that high debt interest is still causing massive problems. See the following graphic from the US Treasury:

US CPI for the year ending June came in at 3%. down from 3.3% for May. Here is the chart:sourceThe markets are excited because they think this means an interest rate cut by September.But the Fed's target for inflation is 2%, and there is no sign they'll achieve it by September. Indeed inflation has been in the 3% to 3.5% range for nine months. Far from cutting rates, the Fed might need to hike to get inflation down to 2% (though they won't hike till after the election).

Here is a graph with percentage changes in income under Chinese leaders since Deng Xiaoping:sourceThe Chinese economy is obviously maturing, and that brings slower income growth by itself. In addition there is this trade war with the USA.

China has sold about $53 billion of US Treasuries in the first quarter of this year (2024). Belgium, often seen as a custodian of China’s holdings, also sold $22 billion of Treasuries during the first quarter. Here is the chart: