Posted on 06/27/2005 5:48:36 AM PDT by blueberry12
Real estate bubble. Clues: Speculators driving prices. Lenders offer cheap money, short-term loans. Home-equity loans fund short-term spending. Fed chairman sees minimal froth.
Energy and oil bubble. Clues: Crude hits another record. Political turmoil in oil-producing nations. Consumers buy gas-guzzlers at record pace. GM, Ford in trouble.
Foreign-trade deficit. Clues: Monthly deficits top $50 billion. This year's deficit will beat 2004's $617 billion. Foreigners now own $2.5 trillion of America.
Federal-budget deficit. Clues: Federal debt now $7.8 trillion; add another $400 federal deficit this year. Corporate pensions underfunded. Clues: Airlines, auto, other manufacturers heavily burdened, default to taxpayers.
Local government pensions deficits. Clues: A near $400 billion mess draining local taxpayer resources.
Weak U.S. dollar. Clues: Fear China and other foreign powers will replace dollar reserves. Warren Buffett now betting $20 billion on foreign-currency hedging.
Social Security deficit. Clues: No choice, cut benefits or raise taxes; politicians hate both, so it'll get worse.
Health-care costs. Clues: Burden shifting to employees. Costs above inflation. 43 million uninsured.
Medicare deficit. Clues: Going broke faster than Social Security. Prescription drug benefit added an unfunded $8.1 trillion. Long-term estimates over $36.6 trillion.
Personal-savings shortfall. Clues: We consume not save. National savings rate is zero, down from 8% two decades ago. Average household net worth less than $15,000, excluding home equity.
Consumer debt bubble. Clues: We're living beyond our means. Consumer debt at $2 trillion. At 13%, household interest as a percent of income is at all-time high. Personal bankruptcies rising.
Homeland insecurity. Clues: Minimal legislation to protect ports and chemical plants. Federal budget even cut border patrol 90%. Vigilantes patrolling.
(Excerpt) Read more at marketwatch.com ...
"Federal budget even cut border patrol 90%."
This is an example of why we will never get spending under control. The proposed INCREASE was cut 90%, not the border patrol itself.
And there's hamburger all over the highway in Mystic Connecticutt.
Convey?
The guy's a friggin' skywriter...
I gather that "Mister" Farrell is a graduate of the Chicken Little School of Journalism...
Such hyperbole!
Such bathos!
Such "C-S"...
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