Posted on 06/26/2012 3:56:44 AM PDT by Kaslin
America is on track to go bankrupt. Just like Greece. The signs are all around us. We've lost our AAA credit rating. Trillion dollar deficits are the new normal. The Fed is buying 61% of our own debt. Barack Obama's 10 year budget will leave Americans with “more debt than has been accumulated by all previous Presidents in American history combined.” Nobody on the Left or Right seems to believe we'll ever pay off all of the money we owe. Life as we know it is very close to ending and yet Americans seem to be infected with a tragic stoicism. Like turkeys being led to the slaughter, most Americans seem content to put their necks down on the butcher's block and wait for the ax to fall. There are reasons for this puzzling inactivity in the face of an avertable catastrophe.
1) They're being misled by people with bad motives: What do you think would happen to Paul Krugman if he were to tell everyone that he is still a liberal, but the Tea Party and Paul Ryan are right about the deficit and Barack Obama and the Democratic Party are wrong? His column at the New York Times would be gone within six months. Do you think Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid would continue leading their caucuses after 2012 if they insist on serious deficit reduction? Not a chance. What about a Democrat running in a liberal district who talks like Jim DeMint on deficits in a primary up against another Democrat who wants more spending? Who do you think would win? The big spender, right? Unfortunately, there are a lot of people in this country whose personal welfare depends on encouraging as much government spending as possible and even if the country goes bust in the process, they're hoping to have enough money in the bank to be able to move somewhere else by then anyway.
2) They think it's far off in the future: Most people think bankruptcy is a problem we'll be leaving to our kids after most of the people reading this column are dead and gone. That's not so at all. If you were a betting man, 5-15 years would be the likely timeframe on a default with it practically guaranteed to happen within 25 years without major changes -- although that may be far too optimistic. America is already stretched to the breaking point and who knows what sort of unexpected event could push us over the edge in the next few years? Maybe the crack-up of the EU, a European bank collapse, an organized effort to keep other nations from buying our debt, another, even more devastating 9/11 style attack, a dramatic surge in oil prices caused by an Israeli/Iranian war, etc., etc. Just as the mortgage crisis caught us flat footed and caused much more damage than we expected, a new crisis that occurs while America's economy is still puttering along as it has been during the Obama years could lead to a much deeper economic spiral than we anticipate.
3) Crisis fatigue is rampant: This is the most important election ever! Tune in at 6:00 P.M. to find out which ordinary product you use will kill you! George Bush is Hitler! Republicans want you to die! Racism today is as bad as the sixties! If you oppose gay marriage, you want to drag homosexuals to death behind your truck! If you disagree with Obama, you're a racist! Your freedom is at stake! Global warming is going to kill us all! Modern Americans are deluged with phony crises and ginned-up outrages all day long. That's why it's not a surprise when a real crisis as serious as anything we've ever faced in our nation's history comes along, many people have trouble distinguishing it from the fake dangers they hear about on a daily basis.
4) It's too confusing to comprehend: Most Americans don't even remotely understand the scope of the problem. They think we can raise taxes on the rich, cut a few bucks off foreign aid, and everything will take care of itself. When you start talking about unfunded liabilities, GDP, and trillions in debt to people who don't know much about economics and don't follow politics very closely -- which probably describes more than half of the American electorate -- you might as well be explaining the ins-and-outs of heart surgery. In other words, they may get it in the most general sense, but they don't really understand it, and they probably aren't going to opt for it unless they become convinced they're going to die otherwise.
5) It's painful to stop and easy to continue: It doesn't matter how reasonable the spending reductions you're suggesting are, if you want to cut ANYTHING in D.C., it will set off squawks of protest from the vultures who are having meat snatched out of their greedy mouths. However, if you really want to make people angry, start hacking money out of the three biggest expenditures in the budget: defense spending, Social Security, and Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP. We MIGHT be able to get by without cutting defense significantly since it's a relatively stable expenditure, but unless significant changes are made to both Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid/CHIP, both of which are rapidly increasing in cost, this country is going bankrupt. That's reality. Of course, it's also reality that making changes to both of those programs is unpopular, easy to demagogue, and scares most politicians more than a special prosecutor talking to their favorite hooker.
6) We still seem to be a rich country: America is a like a guy who lives in a five million dollar mansion with a dozen servants, drives a Ferrari, and hands out hundred dollar tips to waitresses and bellhops. The only problem is the mansion and the Ferrari aren't paid for, he's borrowing the money for the servants and the tips, and he has no hope of ever paying off the debt he's accruing while he lives a lifestyle he can't afford. Superficially, he looks to be very rich, but when the bill comes due, life is going to change for him in a hurry.
America is that guy and the bill is going to come due.
7) They don't see how it will affect them: Most Americans don't have the slightest clue how a default would change their lives for the worse. They don't understand that it would lead to another Depression, their life savings could become worthless almost overnight, their taxes would skyrocket, their standard of living would drastically decrease, Medicare and Social Security checks could stop, and we could have widespread disorder. In Greece, some government workers haven't been paid in months, government road projects are being abandoned, healthy businesses can't get credit, and medicine is in short supply. Unless something changes, Americans won't have to imagine what that will be like because we'll be living it soon enough.
Isn't that somewhat similar to what would happen if we cut these programs as necessary anyway? This is just one of those "sooner or later" things.
What we need to do is to stop spending.
We don’t rule the world.
We cannot afford to rule the world. We cannot even rule ourselves.
TOP SPENDING.
‘Political advantage’ seems to be the focus of everything lately, and not just because of the coming national election.
It’s as if Liberal America is in the process (unimpeded, it seems) of re designing our political system.
Each and every crisis is magnified and willfully exacerbated to endorse Liberalism… where Liberalism, on its own merit, could never succeed as a reasonable or even a moral option.
This gratuitous politicization of our problems is almost treasonous. Leave it to American Liberals to descend to this level in the pursuit of their own agenda over and above all else.
For THEM, the current financial crisis is less a problem for America than an OPPORTUNITY to radicalize our politics and expand Liberal control!
Conservatives see the financial crisis as a problem for Americans and for the future of America as a strong and sovereign nation.
“STOP SPENDING”.
(argh)
The problem is, it won’t end with liberalism.
It will end up with Chinese communism.
They do a tremendous, tremendous job of lying to the public, the finance sector, the business sector and a buttload of bullying, frankly.
Unfunded liabilities are horrible, the economy is horrible (still), unemployment is much larger than the government publishes - they’ve even skipped the auction thing and are letting China buy its T Bills Directly from the Federal Government! Amazing! These are all acts of a desperate government that so far has been able to hold it together - through paper and electronic disbursements.
The one group that will tip the whole shebang over the cliff are this country’s entitlement group - WICs, EITC, AFDC, Section 8, SNAP, SCHIP, PELL Grants & Student loans, EBT, SSDI, SSI, SS. When the feds don’t have even the wherewithall to printup trash or spew worthless electronic bits, this whole debacle will come crashing down.
Smart, thinking people will have long since made other financial arrangements like getting their money in a more liquid position beyond the Fed’s Tap and Grab ability...
Yessiree. Those people are gonna riot like all hell’s broke loose.
Very few physicians are rolling in clover any more. The big needless operational medical costs are in paperwork, hospital administration, and inflated union salaries. Freaking hospitals as constructed today are palatial boondoggles. Think of the artwork you see, the fancy glass and groovy building shapes, bridges, code requirements... there isn't much utilitarian about them. You should see what a "hospital grade" electrical plug or switch costs; it's almost as bad as military hardware. Yet for a lot of this equipment, again, the documentation is the biggie, even for applications that really don't need the additional expense from a safety perspective.
Much of that paperwork, from military to medical, exists because of lawyers. As a society, that's where I see the really big hidden costs, particularly in terms of lost opportunity in what a business would not attempt.
-—The unmistakable, unconcealable pain is the only thing that will make the American people stop their bread-and-circuses march to an ever more socialist state.——
Seems that way.
The worst part is that we will learn nothing, just as we learned nothing from the Depression.
Now, the question of where that money is being spent needs to be brought up.
Do we really need drone flights over cow pastures? How much do those cost?
Do we need deputy under undersecretaries? Why?
COuld the Federal government do what many private households have over the past couple of years and reduce expenditures by 10%, 20%, 50%?
It becomes a question of priorities, of whether it is economical to spend billions on armies of flunkies to swarm the country and tell us how to live, how to raise our children, how to hammer a nail, and that (surprise!) every now and then, range cattle pee in the creek.
Or, to question the economics of generating tens of thousands of pages of new regulations every year?
How much would be saved annually by RIF'ing the Federal Workforce?
Why are the most essential services ALWAYS the ones to be cut first?
Do we need battalions of social workers?
If we quit subsidizing poverty will it continue to grow, or will people work their way up, as they have done for centuries?
SSI and Medicare: If you paid for it, you should get it, but there should be some means testing. If you didn't pay for it, good luck (This especially means illegal immigrants).
Remodel the welfare system so it is easier to get off of, and not a people trap.
Remove incentives to have 'disabled' kids (ADD, 'depressed'--as if growing up in the projects and being told there is no hope for you isn't depressing--, medical, but no extra funding). Currently branding children as something they are not not only brings in more bucks for the baby momma, but for the system itself, which means raises and advancement and more money.
As we have found in our household, on a few occasions, cutting 10% off the budget can be done, and not just once but numerous times over years.
Fixed costs remain fixed, but so much of what 'government does' doesn't need to be done. It's fluff, unnecessary, beyond the imagined scope of the Constitution, often a duplicated or contradictory effort, and a damned waste.
In the meantime, raising taxes, again, on the very people that so many would throw to the wolves who are in the last decade before 'retirement' just keeps many from being able to fend for themselves in the future.
Most people feel they have no ability to control or change the program whatsoever. As both parties have more than adequately demonstrated, it makes little difference if they vote Democrat or Republican. Both parties are big government spenders tied at the hip to big lobbyists and insiders.
If you have no control over the situation, logically, it makes no sense to worry about it!
This isn't Walton's Mountain. Families are scattered over huge areas, and many of us are raising grandchildren, so for all practical purposes, we are 'moved in together', but the support mechanism is reversed. If we don't provide for ourselves, no one else will.
Look around us, why would anyone think there is an impending crisis coming?
All I see is fat people with plenty of food or ways to get it any time they want it, an Obama phone in their hand, cable tv, a roof over their head and at least one car.
We’ve forgotten what it means to be told “NO”, forgotten as a people what hunger truly is, what it’s like to live without a down padded safety net under us and rely solely on our own worth to make a life for ourselves.
I moved out of the Detroit area and down into central Indiana a few years ago and it was the best decision we ever made. I watched growing up how dependent most people are for everything they need in this life - clean water, food, electricity, transportation, etc. One day I knew that it could all come to a standstill and where would I and my family be? Shuffling along looking for my next meal even if I had a nice bank account, home and car I would still be surrounded by people fighting for everything I need to survive.
When the checks stop coming, the EBT cards are empty, or when the pregnant woman with her four kids go in to get her monthly check and is told that benefit has been discontinued then all hell is going to break loose in our urban centers. When that happens it will make the LA and 68 Detroit riots look like a family squabble. I want no part of any of that, and I am surrounded by people who think the same way as I do. I will help out my fellow man as much as I can when they hold their hand out, but when they come to take what is mine then that is a different story, and I see that day coming closer every time I turn on the news and read between the lines.
or perhaps another way to say the truth is:
The enemy (debt) was created by those who held the purse. All signed off, and now it is too late. Or is it? Wonder what would happen if someone told the American people the truth? Our debt is the enemy. Then that person went about to explain a plan to reduce our debt. Perhaps that person or group of persons would be soundly defeated if that person or group chose to run for office. Would such a defeat tell Americans our true fate? Maybe, maybe not, and yes maybe there have been persons (who came forward) to make an attempt to tell the people the truth and were defeated. Perhaps those defeats slipped by the people. The future (she) is a tricky mistress. Though am in agreement with this author and another poster who stated, surprised it has lasted this long.
Your words show the solution that would have worked 20 years ago.
But with all the new handouts and the sheer magnitude of the debt, it is now at the limit of repayment or even beyond it.
9) Ingestion of flouride via public water works. http://fluorideisbad.wordpress.com/2009/06/09/its-offical-fluoride-makes-you-stupid/
Thank You BRL. Though I was alone.
I’m all for retrenchment of our military back home especially since it accounts for about 300 billion or so of our deficits. Europe would have to spend more for its own defence and they can just operate their own nuclear umbrella...that is if the US could trust them not to use that umbrella against us!
Most of them buy into this Leftist fallacy that we can just get it from “the 1%” if things get tight enough.
Could the majority (leadership and people) be appealed to reasonably to avoid calamity? Has it been tried? Don't know here, another topic to research, as possibly the time ticking away becomes less and less, while more and more is the call from the masses. Scary stuff.
IF we cram the Gov’t back into the hole that it belongs, restricted to the functions as listed in the Constitution, fulfilling only legitimate funtions, then this can be overcome.
Entitlements are not a function. NASA, not. Illegal amnesty and support, not. But military (Defense) is. Should the cost be controlled? Absolutely. It is not meant to be a monetary black hole.
But to lump defense in with entitlements is worng. Defense is a legitimate function of FedGov.
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