Posted on 03/01/2010 6:39:45 AM PST by shortstop
The other week, while you were watching American Idol, Greece went bankrupt.
Not all the way, but pretty close.
And people have been rioting in the streets.
See, the government had been financing things for years on end with debt. The government was taxing and spending, of course, but it was also borrowing. A lot. A staggering amount.
So much that the people who do the lending decided theyd had enough. Which left Greece insolvent. Which brought the economy to collapse.
Which created a crisis for the European Union and for its currency, the Euro.
Which made the world jittery.
Which endangered you.
But Germany and France bailed the Greeks out, so now you dont have to worry anymore.
Except, of course, for the fact that the United States is in the same position. America is only a half a step behind Greece.
Our politicians are as stupid as theirs, our policies are as unsustainable as theirs, our peril is as great as theirs.
The simple fact is that the American economy can collapse at any moment, because of the suffocating load of federal-government debt. That is not a political opinion, it is not a talking point, it is not the ranting of an alarmist. It is a simple economic truth. We are living beyond our means and money does not grow on trees. The simple truths that govern family budgets apply as well to the affairs of nations.America is bankrupt.
And the only thing that keeps our entire economy from disintegrating is the fact that there are still people and nations who will loan us money. But as they increasingly realize that there is no honest way we can pay them back, their willingness to give us their money will evaporate.
And then we will riot in the streets.
Because our money will become valueless, the government trough will be empty, our jobs and savings will be lost, and we will go hungry.
In the end, nobody is too big to fail.
Not even us. Not even the United States.
And the current policies of the United States government, building on some 70 years of fiscal foolishness, destine the nation for failure.
Let me repeat: We are destined for failure.
It is not a question of if, it is a question of when.
Unless a dramatic and painful sea change is made, our financial doom is certain.
Heres why.
Our annual budget deficit for the foreseeable future is in excess of a trillion dollars. More than a trillion dollars of new borrowing every year.
On top of the other trillions weve already borrowed.
That poses two immediate threats.The first is that our creditors will recognize that we are a bad risk that we are sub prime. That will hurt our credit rating and, consequently, increase the interest we have to pay.
Thats kind of what happened to the Greeks. It would be devastating to us, as the cost of government already unsustainable would jump dramatically.
Which would come out of our hide.
The other threat is that the government will try to cheat its way out of debt. It is called monetizing the debt. The government can simply print more money and make its payments that way.
Doing so, however, would cause inflation. That would be good for the government, as it would be paying debt with devalued dollars. It would be terrible for us, because the true value of our paychecks, investments and savings would plummet.It would force an overlay of poverty upon the nation, devaluing not only possessions but dramatically lowering lifestyles.
We would all be poor.
Our economy would not work.
Our prosperity, our security, our freedom and even our existence would be jeopardized.
Its not a matter of opinion, its a matter of natural law. You cant spend what you dont have, and if you try, itll come back to bite you.
Were about to get bitten.And neither we nor our politicians have the stomach for the austerity necessary to avert catastrophe.
On the contrary, our dependent class demands more, our politicians want to spend more, our greed lusts for more. Our culture has become drunken on entitlement and government beneficence.
At first, politicians promised beyond their means because they knew they wouldnt be around to pay the bill and clean up the mess. Now, it seems, they promise beyond our means because the want to hasten and benefit from the ultimate collapse.
And so they promise more benefits and take over more of the economy, further enmeshing the nations wealth in their failed and immoral policies.
That will soon end either by our wiser choices, or by our nations economic collapse.
Welfare and entitlement programs must be gutted or scrapped. All citizens must be brought into the shared burden of income taxation. We must return to the understanding that the only American entitlements are those listed in the Bill of Rights. Politicians must stop bringing home the bacon, and realize that they never should have taken it away from there in the first place.
The government must get its hands and its snout out of the economy.
Or it will kill the economy.
Something which, as the Greeks could tell us, is horrifyingly close to happening.
One FReeper said it best, invest in tangibles. And I don’t mean gold.
That said, I believe the U.S. is still more resilient than other countries.
It was tough during WWII, the difference is that our tolerance for pain was greater then and people were more self sufficient.
Only time will tell...
I for one don’t.
I think he’s doing it out of hubris and stupidity.
I was not aware that Greece had been bailed out...
This awful truth invades my thoughts all the time. I believe that in the next year the United States will not exist as we have known it.
Soros is making a move to destroy the Euro. The dollar will be next.
When the welfare and social security checks vanish or the payments stay low during hyperinflation, thats when the rioting starts.
Entitlements have to end, that is simply a fact. Funding for crap pet projects and Planned Parenthood and ACORN also has to end.
And it will.
The longer it takes the US to adjust to this reality the harder its going to hit.
You would be amazed at how many otherwise intelligent people have convinced themselves that our national debt is not important, and that we can simply grow our way out of it in time.
Invest in land in the country that you can grow food on, gold and silver can help pay those taxes I guess.
Something I've been saying, though I don't know if you were referring to me.
Beans, Bullets, and Bandaids: Capabilities Checklist
I guess Bob is assuming that France and Germany will finally bail out the Greeks. I doubt they do, they’ll ask the IMF (us) to do it.
We might (longshot might at that) be able to grow our way out of it if we had a government that did not choke and stifle the economy. A small chance at that.
Before a nation goes financially bankrupt, it must first go morally bankrupt.........................
There’s still time to prevent this, providing we get a President who’s unafraid to do what must be done - reduce taxes, cut entitlements and lift the suffocating red tape from the necks of businesses so that they can once again pursue profits without fear of government.
More tellingly, lost in all the hoopla about Greece is the fact that it's economy is the same size as the economy of Massachusetts.
Soros is making a move to destroy the Euro. The dollar will be next.
I think I've seen this movie before.............
as much as I dislike fubo, he is not the only one in on this, he may merely be the last...this has been going on for so long, by every administration, for generations...
Why? What would he gain from that?
An open field to start a global monetary system.
bttt
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