A few weeks ago, before the circus we came to call the Debt Ceiling Show got underway in earnest, I met a California friend who is in the financial biz. “The time has come,” we said, sipping the Chardonnay, “to talk of Maynard Keynes, of cuts, and caps, and income tax, Of Congressman and reigns, of why the debt is boiling hot and spending that’s insane.”
Well, apologies to the Walrus. There was not, in fact, much levity about our chat. America’s finances were in a parlous way, and the future was murky. Friday’s downgrade of U.S. debt seemed to come as a thunderclap to the people whom we pay to look after the country. That’s one of the side-effects of living in the Washington bubble: reality has a hard time breaking through the carapace of self-congratulation. But out there in the business world, people had heard and heeded rumors of a downgrade for months. They were worried. In April, Treasury Secretary Tim “taxes-are-for-little-people” Geithner pooh-poohed the rumors. There was, he said, “no risk” — no risk, Possums! — of a downgrade. My friend, who actually works for a living, knew better. The problem was the entrenched Washington mindset that combined these features:
1. It was anti-growth. I mean, its policies were anti growth. If you asked President Downgrade, “B., are you in favor of growth?” he would say, “Of course.” He says “of course,” but he does “no way.” ObamaCare, Cap-n-Trade (under whatever name), higher fees and taxes everywhere, an increasingly burdensome regulatory environment: no, the administration of Barack “Downgrade” Obama is the opposite of pro-growth.
2. It is pro-entitlement. That is, its policies are pro-entitlement. If you asked President Downgrade, “B., are you pro-entitlement?” what you would get is a parade of equivocations. The bottom line, however, is in the policies he supports. And what are those policies? Just take a look at what the Downgrade administration has done about (e.g.) unemployment benefits, union benefits, welfare benefits, etc. etc. It’ a litany of largess.
3. It is pro-spending. That is, its policies are pro-spending. President Downgrade, back when he was Candidate Downgrade, campaigned on fiscal “responsibility.” But he has added more than 30% to the federal budget. He is running a deficit of more than $1.5 trillion. He has a federal debt of more than $14 trillion (soon to be more than $16 trillion).
President Downgrade is good. If I were twenty years younger I would set to work on a historical study of predictable and predicted “unexpected” failures, flops, disasters and cataclysms.
1) Anti-growth
2)Pro-entitlement
3)Pro-spending
4)Pro-Workers’ Party Not only were the unions placed at the front of the line as creditors, they have been protected by the NLRB, bloated onto the roles of local, state and federal government, and allowed to destroy jobs at home, while forcing them abroad…they “recycle” money back into the small c communists, currently hiding under the name of the Democratic Party.
5)Pro-propaganda Not only do the small c communists, currently masquerading as the Democratic Party enjoy a ridiculously partisan and unprincipled advantage in the lapdog media…they are actively engaged in trying to silence anyone and everyone who dares to expose or oppose them.
6)Anti-ally The small c communists currently shrouded in deceit as “centrists” in the radical Democratic Party have spent the better part of the past three years making Israel as exposed to danger as possible, sending back Winston’s bust, and generally slapping the faces of our allies…while gently stroking the hair and whispering sweet “resets” into the ears of our sworn enemies and those who mean to harm us.
7)Anti-energy In a startling and jarring assault on our independence, the small c communists disguising themselves as honorable patriots have decided to give a billion dollars to George Soros’ favorite Brazilian energy company, while doing everything they can to kill off every segment of our natural resources, including coal, nuclear, natural gas, and oil.
8)Anti-Middle America The small c communists, an “idea” itself conjured up in the criminally insane mind of Bill Ayers…who helped to mastermind a plot so evil, he wished to attack young men (and their innocent dates) at Ft. Dix…and for which he is “guilty as hell, free as a bird”, also wafted its odious stench into ways to “take out” at least 25 million Americans. Not just any Americans, but the “aging, white, rock-ribbed, flyover country”. They wanted to murder or eliminate through attrition the “loyal and dedicated opposition”. Hence…death panels in Obamacare.
9)Pro-discrimination The Department of Justice, seeks to deprive protection at the voting booth, on the basis of color. They wish to hire nothing but small c communists and they have declared war on the Constitution.
10)Anti-Constitution In a bit of levity and frivolity…the small c communists cloaking themselves as non-radicals, have attempted to name “czars” and “czarinas” in a stunning power grab to circumvent the Constitution and to impose by fiat what they could not pass as legislation.
11)Anti-capitalism It is not only George Soros, Bill Ayers, Michael Moore, Sean Penn who are looking to tear down the free market system, the small c communists posing as “moderates” in our government have seized the healthcare, insurance, auto, energy, banking, real estate, mortgage, and space exploration industries. They put a gun to the head of banks and told them to make ridiculous home loans…or else. Then blamed Wall Street. They tie up small business with strangling regulations and confiscatory taxes and blame the Tea Party. The crashing of Wall Street is not a bug, it’s a feature. Soros, Ayers, Moore and Penn are thrilled. So are the clandestine lackeys, the small c communists who pose as capitalists, while destroying it from the inside.
The resulting pain we are experiencing was not unpredictable, it was inevitable.
Free market constitutional democracy is under siege from small c communism, still hidden and duping the masses in numbers that are as saddening as they are maddening. Remember these words, as if you heard them every week for twenty years on your knees. God Bless America? No, God DAMN America!
I’m in the unenviable position of being able to tell my friends, “I told you so.” What did I tell them?
I told them, “Don’t vote for an inexperienced politician from Chicago just because he’s half black. He has no experience and his presidency will be a disaster.” In my case, foresight was 20/20.
We are destroying your currency and economy. We are setting the stages for a New World Order and One World Government. The nation-state no longer exists. Patriotism and nationalism is dead. There will some pain for some people. Adjustments will have to be made. It will require a whole new mindset. Don’t think of yourself as an American citizen. Think of yourself as a global citizen, a citizen of the world. We are entering a new era in the history of mankind. Those who refuse to join us will cause themselves unnecessary pain and suffering. A New World Order and One World Government is inevitable, just a matter of time. Those who resist will end up in the dustbin of history. I hope none of you are foolish enough to attempt to resist. Resistance is futile.
Under the guise of free trade we are destroying your manufacturing base, your economy, your currency, and ultimately your sovereignty. Under the guise of all these free trade deals we are erasing your borders, your national identity, your loyalty, we are outsourcing all your manufacturing jobs and destroying the middle class. Your economy is based on nothing. You produce no real wealth. Your economy is a deck of cards which we will collapse when the time is right. We control both political parties. You are peons. You have no power. We control the media, the financial institutions, Wall Street, the corporations, the entertainment industry etc. You are so Balkanized and divided, you will never be able to stand up to us.
The world is changing. Very soon an independent “America” will cease to exist. Get it through your heads. The nation-state is dead. Borders are obsolete. Nationalism is dead. You are not am American citizen. You are a global citizen, a citizen of the world. There is no American economy. There is a global economy. Your system of government is obsolete, irrelevant and inefficient. It will be replaced. Initially, there will be some pain for some people/countries. They will have to adjust to the new way things are done. But long-term things will be much better, much smoother, much more efficient. The world faces many problems, and the only solution is a New World Order and One World Government. We are entering a new period of human history. Those who are stubborn and refuse to join us will cause themselves unnecessary pain and suffering. A New World Order and One World Government is inevitable, just a matter of time. Those who resist will end up in the dustbin of history. I hope none of you are foolish enough to attempt to resist. Resistance is futile.
Got a fresh hit of crack this morning, did ya?
jenkem
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jenkem
This is your brain on drugs.
You are right, of course…Globalist.
We are too weak to fight back, too controlled to resist, too brainwashed to comprehend the danger, too fractured to unite, too mild to complain, too easily led to pull back.
Those who dismiss you lightly are not aware of your danger. Those who ignore you, do so at their peril.
You are real, not imagined. Oh, perhaps not you…the commenter on this blog. But you are a light in the darkness, shining right in our eyes. We will submit, because we know not how to fight you. And, perhaps…we do not care enough to even try.
I will resist with every round of .45 ACP and 7.62×51 that I possess, as long as I draw breath. Bring it, commies!
Oh, they be bringin’ it.
Rather entertaining on one level I suppose! By the way, do you know the individual names of your enemy or what they look like in a lineup? What if your ideological enemy never takes up arms? You just going to shoot them in the back assuming of course, you know for certain they are the enemy? The people of this nation are their own worst enemies today…so maybe try aiming for your foot.
Great observation. We’ll never get our chance to “live free or die” in any dramatic way because we are allowing our freedoms to slowly erode; law by law, tax by tax, fee by fee, regulation by regulation, czar by czar, debt upon debt, etc. We are frogs in warm water – soon to be boiling and helpless if we don’t stop things now.
Organized, non violent, civil disobedience is the answer. We can unilaterally agree on a fair amount of flat tax. Send that only. If they borrow or print money, we can reduce the rate as a group. They can’t put us all in jail – but if they do it might be a better deal than fighting it out in the private sector.
Obamabot says worry not,
About that triple A;
For when I schooled,
No A’s had I,
And now I touch the sky!
Not “what if the downgrade wasn’t enough”, but “what will be enough”, because the downgrade certainly was not.
In markets, bubbles are inevitably followed by crashes. In 2008, it was a 50% crash, which is pretty normal. But the crashes can be worse. The crash after 1929 was 90% (note: it took years to get there). Societal crashes can be similarly devastating. The worldwide Great Depression is only one example.
The US is headed for a societal crash of epic proportions unless we win in 2012, followed by an extremely significant course correction.
Not talkin about ‘no iphones’, talkin about ‘no food’. And not sayin ‘unprecedented’, saying ‘normal’. Thousands of cultures ignored the handwriting on the wall.
Here is an idea. Oil trade groups: Drilling deregulation could create 190,000 jobs Published: 12:04 AM 07/12/2011 | Updated: 2:34 AM 07/12/2011
http://dailycaller.com/2011/07/12/oil-trade-groups-drilling-deregulation-could-create-190000-jobs/
“Circumventing Congress by granting states conditions-based waivers will exacerbate Washington’s decades-long history of failure at improving educational outcomes. In fact, the Administration’s NCLB “blueprint” is NCLB on steroids—ballooning the federal role in education by calling for resource equity among schools and national standards and tests.” -Heritage Foundation
Circumventing Congress and Regulating (600+ new ones in July alone) and then of course the “rule by Fiat” like the above…..the debt downgrade was the plan all along, hell they’re celebrating !!! Up next? We HAVE to raise taxes… it’s the only way!!!
Growing Federal power is an addiction, and rehab not only has begun but will continue.
["reality has a hard time breaking through the carapace of self-congratulation."]
Well stated! However, it’s not just the politicians in the glass bubble of fantasy! Most Americans are submersed and consumed in fantasy…with a great deal of being led in such fantasy by both sides punditry.
Most people (self annointed experts) haven’t a clue what lies ahead and it has zero to do with the personal faults of Daddy Bush, Clinton, Sonny Bush, or Obama. It has everything to do with an irresponsible citizenry for the past few decades. The ‘fiddler’ is going to be coming in full force and effect for his dues and it isn’t going to be pretty when he arrives!
If anybody has gotten out of their glass bubbles this morning and listened to the ‘experts’ across the air ways, they’re finally meeting up with reality. Everything they know of in their bag of tricks has failed and only one remaining….the printing presses. And guess what that means and the consequences! Some are beginning to wake up to the circular catch-22 the people have put the nation in.
Government spending and the national debt isn’t the problem….only a symptom of something much larger! A broken and corrupted private sector economy has long been the problem and the government nor a particular social and political ideology didn’t break it! On the other hand, the government has long failed to control immigration which has led to an economic/population ratio problem.
The fiddler is coming!
Obama and has followers embody ideologies. These ideologies may be progressivism or redistributionism or black liberationism or environmentalism. It makes no difference what they are because all ideologies are SUBSTITUTES FOR THOUGHT. If you have used an ideology as a substitute for thinking during your life, then you end up not knowing how to think and can’t think, even if you find yourself in a crisis.
An ideology gives answers to any question or any situation that may arise. Because the ideology is a fixed mental entity (a cognitive construction), its answers are also fixed and therefore are often totally irrelevant to reality. Practically speaking, an ideology operates like an algorithm: it grinds out answers. But like an algorithm, it can only accept inputs congenial to it. All other data are ignored. The output of this algorithm will be the same as it was before. Pick one: (1) spend or (2) tax or (3) print money or (4) any combination of the preceding.
I’m going to say this again. The big problem with “progressive” regulation isn’t that it’s burdensome, though it can be. The big problem is that it’s capricious. It creates an investment environment where nobody knows what’s going to come flying out of left (literally) field or when.
We got two more ratings agencies, and a long way down from AA+. The real question you seem to be asking is “how low do they go”? Meanwhile, the Chinese are on telegraph message #769 that this is getting seriously serious. But the Chinese couldn’t possibly be right, could they?
http://www.mvarmedia.com/aboutus.html
Getting voters to believe that Democrats actually listen to them is creative.
Getting them to “find” it’s credible is the key.
This has been a public service announcement.
What will be ‘enough’? Probably total societal collapse. We may not get there, at least not for a while. We may limp along, slowly getting more and more impoverished, but not quite collapsing all the way, I have no way of knowing. But collapse is a possibility.
The solution is not more taxes, certainly; trying to tax an all ready overtaxed population is a recipe for disaster, and actually trying to get sufficient funds from the ‘superwealthy’ is probably not possible in dollar terms, and they can just leave anyways.
The solution is not cut spending, at least not by itself. Way too many people and way too much of the economy is tied to gov’t spending right now. To actually make a dent in the debt by cutting spending you’d have to essentially end entitlements. That’s a good idea, but if you do that alone, society may collapse because of major suffering.
The solution is: follow the Constitution. Do that, and the vast swathes of unConstitutional Fed agencies that stifle the economy disappear, allowing business to boom and wealth to rise. This benefits the poor, so they won’t need the entitlements anymore. Debt disappears, the Republic thrives, win-win.
But we won’t do that. Not one in a hundred understand how deeply we are in violation of our own foundational Law in America. This does not end well.
I agree that the Obama regime is anti-growth, pro-entitlement and pro-spending but I think the key problem is that it is anti-investment and anti-production and focused only on consumption.
An economy is based within three operations: Investment; production; consumption. Investment is the most important. This is profit wealth, produced by private enterprises, that is not consumed but re-invested. Into more businesses, more workers, more new equipment etc. This enables the second phase: Production. And..the final phase..consumption of goods and services.
The major problem with the Obama regime is that it focuses only on the last phase: consumption. But…where do people in this regime get the money to use for consumption? From the taxpayer! The Obama economy takes money from the producing class, the small and medium businesses..and gives it to the non-producers!
This leaves NO MONEY FOR INVESTMENT. Which means..no production. Which means..no consumption. A vicious circle. The Obama gang then turn to BORROWING money to give to these non-producing consumers! That’s what they are doing now. But how can you pay it back? You borrow more..to repay the debt interest!
Insane and outrageous ‘economics’. That’s the Obama-economics.
Growth in an economy is only possible within private small and medium businesses. But growth must enable the production of wealth and must enable the private businesses to keep their profits to invest.
Instead – Obama -economics takes that money for consumers. Or, it sets up government ‘businesses’. Government run businesses rapidly become focused, not on production of goods and services, but on the well-being of their unionized employees. And the civil service in such an economic mode DOES GROW! So do their taxpayer funded salaries and benefits.
This socialist Obama regime is destroying the capacity of Americans to set up, maintain and prosper in small/medium businesses.
The taxes, the threat of more taxes, the smothering business regulations, the intrusive government – all destroy the small business capacity to prosper.
The growth of the non-productive class, all dependent on government funds, such as the civil service, and social security, medicare, education funds, child care funds etc, etc..increase the size of the population who are not contributing to wealth production and simply consume goods/services. The govt requires more and more money to maintain this class – and less and less is left in the hands of private business to INVEST.
Result? A dead economy mired in debt.
You know the answer. The Democrats are attacking everyone except the ones really responsible. They will push the blame on the Tea Party, the Standards and Poor, Republicans, Bush, God, unhappy Arabs, everyone but the real spenders. Then they will say we have to spend more money to find out if it will work.
It is not enough. Seniors will selfishly vote to keep their expensive entitlement programs. They don’t give a hoot about the country and how those programs will eventually destroy the country.
The US will self destruct. It is as certain as the rising sun. The game has been set into motion. It is just a matter of letting it play out.
The ironic thing is that in the end when the country finally defaults for real, those entitlement programs will be wiped out entirely.
Seniors paid for their “entitlements”. They paid all of their lives into a program that was being looted daily by the thieves in Washington. You already know that they paid, so what is your agenda?
The entitlements can be fixed without government breaking the contract with those who have honored their side. Those who are just starting out in the workforce, or are still quite a few years from retirement, will only endure minor tweaks.
It is not a difficult fix, but you want to pretend it is about seniors. I presume you are really taking a cheap shot at the Tea Party.
History has, it appears, taught us but little. An economy in a coma needs not a cold Calvinist bath and a stern, Polonian polemic on the anodyne nature of frugality. What utter nonsense. This was the remedy prescribed by Hoover in 1928. We know how well that worked. He had, at least, the excuse of brain blood flow restriction induced by over-tight celluloid collars. An economy on its death bed needs the paddles and adrenaline of fiscal stimuls; big spending for big effect. The “on what” matters but little to the effect, although we certainly can use our common sense and morality to choose the “on what.” Look at the stimulative effect Roosevelt had spending on roads, infrastructure, reforestation, etc. The war that was thrust upon him had, sadly, even more effect, but only because of the order of magnitude. It was tragic that that spending bought death as well, and that our counting house served also as charnel house. Had Roosevlet had the vision to spend as profligately on infrastructure as he did on weapons, imagine the dividends that we would be enjoying still. Are we really too stupid to heed that simple lesson?
The root cause of our troubles is the conversion of Gold Based US currency to petro dollar based currency in 1971 by President Nixon and that legislative branch.
This allowed unlimited printing of US dollars, and the spending practices that resulted, increasing entitlements, adventures in nonsensical wars, etc, etc.
Unless and until this currency idiocy is addressed, the US economy will continue collapsing until finally the US dollar is abandoned by International Trade.
One of the great things of your generations over my generation is that you’ll never grow old nor experience consequences for which you can’t control. What a priviledged lot you folks are!
["The ironic thing is that in the end when the country finally defaults for real, those entitlement programs will be wiped out entirely."]
How exactly did you conclude this? Is the government going to file a Chapter 7 and go to bankruptcy court? I think NOT! Thats not quite what ‘default’ means or how it works within the government. You see, the government has a constant revenue stream via taxes and other instruments. Some taxes such as social security and Medicare are ‘specified’ taxes and like ones government/government back backed student loans, they cannot be defaulted. Likewise, the government must maintain a national defense. Read the constitution paying attention to the defense and general welfare clauses of Article I, Section 8. Now, if you have a problem with defining their meaning, the Supreme Court has long addressed their constitutional meanings and it long settled law. Continuing! All but a very small percentage of the nations debt is held by the people.
I would submit to you that, in your analalysis of the ‘end’, it will be those in the private sector economies who have become accustomed to receiving government handouts in the form of subsidies who will be biting the bullet….while the military, elderly and infirmed will receive their benefits!
Afterall, your blessed and perfected generation will never become elderly or infrimed so the government will never again be faced with such liabilities.
Of course, the downgrade is not the end of the story. S&P has also downgraded Freddie and Fannie. Now, all eyes sre on GM.
Bond investors did not like Obama fleecing secured investors of GM, only to hand a free gift to union voters.
All this fulminating against S&P’s downgrade is to fire a shot across the bows of Moody’s. That ratings agency already has the US on a negative watch. S&P will not downgrade GM, it has enough on its plates now, from the likes of Obama and Sarkozy. It’s up to Moody’s now to take the baton, if it wants to retain the support of bond investors.
An economy in a coma needs not a cold Calvinist bath and a stern, Polonian polemic on the anodyne nature of frugality. What utter nonsense. This was the remedy prescribed by Hoover in 1928.
Um, the economy was in anything but a coma in 1928 and Hoover wasn’t the president.
Hoover, btw, was a Nixon-type economic interventionist and not a laissez-faire guy like Reagan.
When he became president in 1929 he supported regulatory growth, and when the market crashed that October he pointedly rejected the the hands-off policies advocated by Treasury Secretary Andrew Mellon to our continuing regret.
The downgrade will fail to communicate the intended message to the tone-deaf. Divided constituencies will focus too narrowly on their own ox. But never fear, the coming CRASH [hyper-inflation / historic volatility in markets] should do the trick. Newest paradigm: loot to upgrade your smart phone [see So. England].