Classic fascist maneuver: Wilson did it, Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, FDR sure as hell did it....
May God bless Jonah Goldberg:
Posted on 12/24/2009 7:26:31 AM PST by FromLori
Do you believe everything the government tells you? Economist and statistician John Williams sure doesn't. Williams, who has consulted for individuals and Fortune 500 companies, now uncovers the truth behind the U.S. government's economic numbers on his Web site at ShadowStats.com. Williams says, over the last several decades, the feds have been infusing their data with optimistic biases to make the economy seem far rosier than it really is. His site reruns the numbers using the original methodology. What he found was not good.
Maymin: So we are technically bankrupt?
Williams: Yes, and when countries are in that state, what they usually do is rev up the printing presses and print the money they need to meet their obligations. And that creates inflation, hyperinflation, and makes the currency worthless.
Obama says America will go bankrupt if Congress doesn't pass the health care bill.
Well, it's going to go bankrupt if they do pass the health care bill, too, but at least he's thinking about it. He talks about it publicly, which is one thing prior administrations refused to do. Give him credit for that. But what he's setting up with this health care system will just accelerate the process.
Where are we right now?
In terms of the GDP, we are about halfway to depression level. If you look at retail sales, industrial production, we are already well into depressionary. If you look at things such as the housing industry, the new orders for durable goods we are in Great Depression territory. If we have hyperinflation, which I see coming not too far down the road, that would be so disruptive to our system that it would result in the cessation of many levels of normal economic commerce, and that would throw us into a great depression, and one worse than was seen in the 1930s.
What kind of hyperinflation are we talking about?
I am talking something like you saw with the Weimar Republic of the 1930s. There the currency became worthless enough that people used it actually as toilet paper or wallpaper. You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine.
We just saw an extreme example in Zimbabwe. ... Probably the most extreme hyperinflation that anyone has ever seen. At the same time, you still had a functioning, albeit troubled, Zimbabwe economy. How could that be? They had a workable backup system of a black market in U.S. dollars. We don't have a backup system of anything. Our system, with its heavy dependence on electronic currency, in a hyperinflation would not do well. It would probably cease to function very quickly. You could have disruptions in supply chains to food stores. The economy would devolve into something like a barter system until they came up with a replacement global currency.
What can we do to avoid hyperinflation? What if we just shut down the Fed or something like that?
We can't. The actions have already been taken to put us in it. It's beyond control. The government does put out financial statements usually in December using generally accepted accounting principles, where unfunded liabilities like Medicare and Social Security are included in the same way as corporations account for their employee pension liabilities. And in 2008, for example, the one-year deficit was $5.1 trillion dollars. And that's instead of the $450 billion, plus or minus, that was officially reported.
Wow.
These numbers are beyond containment. Even the 2008 numbers, you can take 100 percent of people's income and corporate profit and you'd still be in deficit. There's no way you can raise enough money in taxes.
What about spending?
If you eliminated all federal expenditures except for Medicare and Social Security, you'd still be in deficit. You have to slash Social Security and Medicare. But I don't see any political will to rein in the costs the way they have to be reined in. There's just no way it can be contained. The total federal debt and net present value of the unfunded liabilities right now totals about $75 trillion. That's five times the level of GDP.
What can we, the people, do to stop the government from, you know, taking all our money?
We should have acted 20 years ago. There's not much you can do at this point to prevent the eventual debasement of the dollar. This involves both sides of the political spectrum. It's not limited to the Republicans or the Democrats. They've both been very active in setting this up.
What can individuals do?
The only thing individuals can do now is look to protect themselves. I wish I could see a way, but shy of severe slashing of the social programs that is so politically reprehensible and would create such problems and social unrest, I don't see that as a practical solution.
If you're a young 20- or 25-year-old guy or gal, would you move to another country? What would you do?
We still have a great country. We're going through a period of economic pain. It's happened before. This is the kind of thing that's taken us decades to get into and it will take us decades to get out. Although the hyperinflation is going to be limited largely to the U.S., the economic downturn will affect things globally. I can't tell you how things will go with a hyperinflationary Great Depression, which is where I see things going.
It's the type of thing that will tend to lead to significant political change. People tend to vote their pocketbooks. You could have the rise of a third party. You could even have rioting in the streets. I'm not formally predicting that — anyone can run these different scenarios. For the individual, what you need to do, from an investment standpoint, look to preserve your wealth and assets. Don't worry about the day-to-day fluctuations in the markets. What I'm talking about here is over the long haul...
[Gold is] going to be highly volatile, as will the dollar, over the near term, but longer term, physical gold I would look at as a primary hedge for preserving the purchasing power of your wealth and assets. Maybe some physical silver. Get some assets outside the U.S. dollar. I might even look to move some assets physically outside the United States. The key here is to look at a longer range survival package, battening down the hatches, and preserving your wealth and assets during a very difficult time. Once you're through that, you'll have some extraordinary investment opportunities, and I can't tell you what it's going to be like on the other side of this crisis.
Sure this is a pretty good article ever read it?
A question to consider is why; if a near-controlling entity wants to expand, would it allow the economy to make a down-turn? The answer seems simple. It is only when there is loss, panic, or confusion can power and control be usurped. If economics is indeed a science, then it can be manipulated
Thank you so much for the information.
Classic fascist maneuver: Wilson did it, Hitler did it, Mussolini did it, FDR sure as hell did it....
May God bless Jonah Goldberg:
A very dear friend of mine invented this. It is unique from anything else on the planet. Not sure how to make a clickable link but you can cut and paste.
http://junglebucket.com/Jungle-Bucket-1.htm
Excellent advice that is exactly what we did we have no bills I mean we don’t live in a palace lol but everything we have is paid for and we have acres to grow food and keep chickens,etc. if worse comes to worse.
Yep, and it was planned. Search "The Frankfurt School" with NEA to see. Then with "Columbia University" (can we guess who went there?).
yep - the "greener", the better.
financial read.
I don’t believe that hyperinflation would be restricted to USD. All major central banks hold substantial dollar reserves. Increasingly, they are diversifying into commodities and metals. The euro is not better off than USD with free spending countries such as Ireland, Spain, Greece dragging down the relatively solvent Germans. As usual, the UK has a higher ratio of debt to GDP than the US (although, we now have a greater slope upwards). Japan also has a tremendous amount of debt relative to GDP after years of Keynesian economics.
Whatever happens, the entire world economy will be affected and calls for one world central bank and global governance will ensue. We don’t have much time to right the ship. The establishment of an effective third party only weakens our resources and wastes precious time. That’s why our first goal should be to get rid of the most pernicious elements of our government. With single-minded determination we must DEFEAT THE DIMS.
While I agree with the idea we are in deep do do with the economy. I think the OP is a little tinfoil in nature.
Take this for instance:
“You could go to a fine restaurant and have an expensive dinner and order an expensive bottle of wine. The next morning that empty bottle of wine is worth more as scrap glass than it had been the night before filled with expensive wine”
I don’t really think anything like this happened. The whole economy would only last a couple of days at that rate. Who would be going to a fine restaurant one night with an economic crisis so bad that the glass from an “expensive bottle of wine” they had that night was worth more than the entire product the night before. Seriously, what did the economic crisis just pop up with no warning while they were on the way to the restaurant? I realize this is an example but I think its a gross exageration. In reality it would be impossible for this to happen. Hyperinflation happens but not that fast.
You just made me hungry. As to the cigar, are the Cuban ones all that great?
There was a hand pump on the backyard well on my great-uncle's farm back in the 60s with another in the kitchen. I don't even have a well - I'm on 'city water'. I guess I'll be buying a rain barrel in the spring.
There are lots of sources for hand pumps on the web for both deep and shallow wells.
Classic deception isn’t it people are brainwashed to believe liberals can’t be Fascists but in reality nothing could be further from the truth! Witness obamas payoffs from the big banks and companies like GE!
Costa Rica is teetering on the lip of communism.
My husband and I lived there for 6 months while attending language school. ( We lived with Costa Rican families) Part of my program was to read every day and discuss with my tutor the editorial pages of the major Costa Rican newspapers.
We were there during the voting for the TLC ( NAFTA) with the United States. The pro-capitalistic side won but very very very narrowly. I was **shocked** at the outright blatant communist propaganda in the newspapers and on the TV.
Costa Rica could switch to a Chavez or Morales-type government in **one** election cycle. That is how powerful the communist forces are in Costa Rica. I think anyone who invests in a business or buys property in Costa Rica is NUTZ! The left there **HATES** Americans.
The fall of the Soviet Union did not mean communism was defeated. It's like a cancer. We merely had a temporary remission. The communist cancer has not only always been there eating away at the heart and soul of our nation but it is worldwide!
We have a deep well hand pump in case there's no electric. If you need a pump, or info about a pump, try Lehmans Non-Electic. They sell to the Amish, and we've bought a lot of stuff off them to get set up for off-the-grid. They have high quality goods you can't find anywhere else.
You can scoop small amounts of water out of a narrow well neck by using a can attached to heavy string. It helps to put a stone in the bottom of the can to keep it upright.
(Boil water for at least 15 minutes to sterilize it if you must use pond water etc. A magnifying glass, or even a pair of reading classes, will help start a fire in an emergency.)
Guy’s probably right although I think the hyperinflation is a few years off. BUT, I think it would be good to quit blaming just the democrats and the liberals. Conservatives and the GOP have had a big hand in making this mess too, to wit:
Tax cuts without spending cuts. NAFTA. All the free trade b*llsh*t which sent jobs overseas. Big over-focus on the rich and big business to the detriment of the country as a whole. Deregulation of Wall Street. etc.
The reason I mention this is that nothing will ever get fixed if we sit around blaming the other guys while ignoring our own role in this mess.
parsy, who is also hurt by the truth
One of them probably is for geothermal, but, as a former neighbor who ran an HVAC business found out in the massive storm of March 1993, it won't do them much good in the depths of winter here. We're on top of the Cumberland Plateau and we tend to get fairly major ice storms every year. Power outages can and have lasted for weeks.
When I designed my house I intentionally went with a passive solar design. If the sun is out my house stays 70F on the coldest winter days. In case it is cloudy and cold, I installed radiant floor heat that has a wood stove loop, in addition to the LP fired boiler. The floor heat takes two small pumps to run, both together are not quite the load of a 60 watt bulb. It can easily be run off of a battery with an inverter for weeks, or off my generator. It'd take a pretty big generator to run a dual stage heat pump when line power is not available.....
Our current government is full of Commies! But believe me obama is a Fascist.
And while the American people struggle, Obama vacations in Hawaii. What a guy.
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