"If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that grow up around them will deprive the people of all property until their children wake up homeless on the continent they conquered."
Thomas Jefferson
Has that little-voice-in-your-head been telling you that things are horribly wrong, despite the anointed one telling us that everything will be fine? It looks like that little voice may well be right. You know big trouble is heading our way when Comptroller General David Walker recently quit in frustration because as the government's top accountant had warned that the country’s finances are going over a cliff and no one is acting to stop it... we’re about to see history's largest debt bubble pop under the weight of national bankruptcy.
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 15 Jan 2009 stands at $10,617,631,827,683.86. That debt has continued to rise at an average of $3.40 billion, every single day, since September 2007! With the estimated population of the United States being 305,461,697 people, each citizen's share of this debt is $34,759.29. That’s nearly thirty five thousand dollars in debt, for every man, woman, and child in this country, including those still in diapers! You also might want to remember, that’s in addition to whatever personal debt you owe to the bank, mortgage company, credit card company, rich uncle, or whoever! A lot of folks like to think that we owe all this government debt to ourselves, and quite a bit of it is. But, how much is owed to foreign interests? Try $2.4 Trillion on for size! Of the $9.2 Trillion in Federal government debt outstanding at the end of 2007, approximately $5.1 Trillion was owed to the public (foreign and domestic) in the form of treasury bonds and T-bills. Of that $5.1 trillion, nearly half was owed to foreign countries. This means that every single one of us owes $7,973 in federal debt to foreign interests. A family of 4 owes $31,893 to foreigners, 25% of that to Japan, 20% to China, and those numbers are growing every day. In July 2007 the US comptroller general said that; "Foreign interests have more control over the US economy than Americans, leaving the country in a state that is financially imprudent. More and more of our debt is held by foreign countries – some of which are our allies and some are not. The huge holdings of American government debt by countries such as China and Saudi Arabia could leave a powerful financial weapon in the hands of countries that may be (make that “are”) hostile to US corporate and diplomatic interests.” Foreigners own about "$9 trillion of U.S. financial assets, including 13% of all stocks, 13% of agencies, and 27% of corporate bonds", according to Gillespie Research/Federal Reserve. In addition, foreign interests already own quite a bit of our real estate, and a lot of our mines and factories as well.
To get the economy through the recent election, Congress, the Treasury, and Federal Reserve have enacted a whole series of emergency actions. In addition to artificially suppressing the price of gold and silver with the Exchange Stabilization Fund, they have already printed and pumped over a trillion more Monopoly Dollars into the U.S. financial system. When that "stimulative" effect wears off (and it soon will), the American public will find themselves up the proverbial watercourse, without the proverbial means of propulsion! How many Americans have a large part of their savings in the bank? How many Americans have invested their money in corporate stocks? How many Americans have purchased overpriced real estate? How many Americans are retired or disabled, or both? If, or rather when, the government goes bankrupt, do you really think all that “money” will be worth anything? Will those social security checks continue to be sent out every month? Where is the money going to come from for disability checks? No more welfare checks either, or food stamps. How are people going to survive? How are they going to pay the rent, cover the utilities, or buy food? … and there are a lot of Americans totally dependant on those retirement checks. Well, how about whatever they’ve managed to save? Paper money will be little more than so much low grade toilet paper I’m afraid, and we haven’t used silver coins since the mid 1960’s. Unless you own a gold mine (or perhaps an oil well) you might want to polish your trading and/or bartering skills. The rural areas will be hard hit, but what will happen to our cities? Food riots perhaps? And the winters are going to get mighty cold without electricity, coal, or heating oil.
Post WW I Weimar Germany found itself saddled with astronomical war reparations payments which effectively bankrupt their government. To some extent Germany printed large amounts of fiat money to deal with the crisis, which allowed them to pay some war loans and reparations with essentially worthless paper marks. Circulation of that paper money skyrocketed, and Germans soon discovered that their banknotes were worthless. The value of the Mark dropped from 4.2 per US dollar at the outbreak of World War I, to 1 million per dollar by August 1923. The main cause of such hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of printed money that is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services, and that soon results in a complete loss of confidence in the money. In 1923-24 Germany, the price of a loaf of bread could easily exceed a few million marks! Hyperinflation wipes out the purchasing power of private and public savings, distorts the economy in favor of hoarding, and causes the hard currency monetary base to flee the country. People will soon find that they can burn a few bales of money to help keep the house warm, but it has very little nutritional value. Now, in addition to the nearly trillion dollar bank bailout, the automaker bailout, and the proposed bailout of the various state governments, along with all the mandatory pork of course, I understand that Mr. Obama wants yet another economic “stimulus”, by some reports having as much as a thousand dollars sent to every American citizen. Where does the government plan to get all that money? By borrowing it from foreign countries of course, rather than by biting the bullet and slashing government expenditures. We’re in deep trouble because our lawmakers consistently think the US treasury and the taxpayers pockets are a bottomless bag of money for them to lavish on pork barrel projects and their corporate friends. Hey guys, when you’re in over your head, stop digging!
The United States is a big country after all, and even today we’re quite wealthy in many ways. But when all those foreign debts are called in, with what do we pay them? Our gold reserves are totally insufficient, and our fiat money is only worth what they think it is, and certainly not what we’d like to think its worth. I suppose we could sell Yosemite National Park to Japan as a theme park, and China could get a few dozen national forests to subdivide into homesites for their excess population. But watching the Saudi’s haul the Statue of Liberty away for scrap will be a bit hard for this American to take.
The Outstanding Public Debt as of 15 Jan 2009 stands at $10,617,631,827,683.86. That debt has continued to rise at an average of $3.40 billion, every single day, since September 2007! With the estimated population of the United States being 305,461,697 people, each citizen's share of this debt is $34,759.29. That’s nearly thirty five thousand dollars in debt, for every man, woman, and child in this country, including those still in diapers! You also might want to remember, that’s in addition to whatever personal debt you owe to the bank, mortgage company, credit card company, rich uncle, or whoever! A lot of folks like to think that we owe all this government debt to ourselves, and quite a bit of it is. But, how much is owed to foreign interests? Try $2.4 Trillion on for size! Of the $9.2 Trillion in Federal government debt outstanding at the end of 2007, approximately $5.1 Trillion was owed to the public (foreign and domestic) in the form of treasury bonds and T-bills. Of that $5.1 trillion, nearly half was owed to foreign countries. This means that every single one of us owes $7,973 in federal debt to foreign interests. A family of 4 owes $31,893 to foreigners, 25% of that to Japan, 20% to China, and those numbers are growing every day. In July 2007 the US comptroller general said that; "Foreign interests have more control over the US economy than Americans, leaving the country in a state that is financially imprudent. More and more of our debt is held by foreign countries – some of which are our allies and some are not. The huge holdings of American government debt by countries such as China and Saudi Arabia could leave a powerful financial weapon in the hands of countries that may be (make that “are”) hostile to US corporate and diplomatic interests.” Foreigners own about "$9 trillion of U.S. financial assets, including 13% of all stocks, 13% of agencies, and 27% of corporate bonds", according to Gillespie Research/Federal Reserve. In addition, foreign interests already own quite a bit of our real estate, and a lot of our mines and factories as well.
To get the economy through the recent election, Congress, the Treasury, and Federal Reserve have enacted a whole series of emergency actions. In addition to artificially suppressing the price of gold and silver with the Exchange Stabilization Fund, they have already printed and pumped over a trillion more Monopoly Dollars into the U.S. financial system. When that "stimulative" effect wears off (and it soon will), the American public will find themselves up the proverbial watercourse, without the proverbial means of propulsion! How many Americans have a large part of their savings in the bank? How many Americans have invested their money in corporate stocks? How many Americans have purchased overpriced real estate? How many Americans are retired or disabled, or both? If, or rather when, the government goes bankrupt, do you really think all that “money” will be worth anything? Will those social security checks continue to be sent out every month? Where is the money going to come from for disability checks? No more welfare checks either, or food stamps. How are people going to survive? How are they going to pay the rent, cover the utilities, or buy food? … and there are a lot of Americans totally dependant on those retirement checks. Well, how about whatever they’ve managed to save? Paper money will be little more than so much low grade toilet paper I’m afraid, and we haven’t used silver coins since the mid 1960’s. Unless you own a gold mine (or perhaps an oil well) you might want to polish your trading and/or bartering skills. The rural areas will be hard hit, but what will happen to our cities? Food riots perhaps? And the winters are going to get mighty cold without electricity, coal, or heating oil.
Post WW I Weimar Germany found itself saddled with astronomical war reparations payments which effectively bankrupt their government. To some extent Germany printed large amounts of fiat money to deal with the crisis, which allowed them to pay some war loans and reparations with essentially worthless paper marks. Circulation of that paper money skyrocketed, and Germans soon discovered that their banknotes were worthless. The value of the Mark dropped from 4.2 per US dollar at the outbreak of World War I, to 1 million per dollar by August 1923. The main cause of such hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of printed money that is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services, and that soon results in a complete loss of confidence in the money. In 1923-24 Germany, the price of a loaf of bread could easily exceed a few million marks! Hyperinflation wipes out the purchasing power of private and public savings, distorts the economy in favor of hoarding, and causes the hard currency monetary base to flee the country. People will soon find that they can burn a few bales of money to help keep the house warm, but it has very little nutritional value. Now, in addition to the nearly trillion dollar bank bailout, the automaker bailout, and the proposed bailout of the various state governments, along with all the mandatory pork of course, I understand that Mr. Obama wants yet another economic “stimulus”, by some reports having as much as a thousand dollars sent to every American citizen. Where does the government plan to get all that money? By borrowing it from foreign countries of course, rather than by biting the bullet and slashing government expenditures. We’re in deep trouble because our lawmakers consistently think the US treasury and the taxpayers pockets are a bottomless bag of money for them to lavish on pork barrel projects and their corporate friends. Hey guys, when you’re in over your head, stop digging!
The United States is a big country after all, and even today we’re quite wealthy in many ways. But when all those foreign debts are called in, with what do we pay them? Our gold reserves are totally insufficient, and our fiat money is only worth what they think it is, and certainly not what we’d like to think its worth. I suppose we could sell Yosemite National Park to Japan as a theme park, and China could get a few dozen national forests to subdivide into homesites for their excess population. But watching the Saudi’s haul the Statue of Liberty away for scrap will be a bit hard for this American to take.
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