Posted on 04/12/2011 9:10:41 AM PDT by Kaslin
"Madness is rare in individuals - but in groups, parties, nations, and ages it is the rule." -- Friedrich Nietzsche
Does it seem too strong to call the way America deals with its debt "madness?" If not madness, then what? Denial? An addiction? However you phrase it, we're a country that's in deep trouble, but so many of us seem unable to deal with it.
Liberals in this country, for the most part, will admit that we're running up "unsustainable" deficits. Yet, these same liberals adamantly oppose any and all serious efforts to do anything about it. Once you move out from liberals to the general public, once again you'll find plenty of people who admit that this nation has a huge problem. Yet, when you leave generalities, get down to specifics, and start looking for programs to cut, then suddenly everyone gets nervous and says, "never mind." It's like the old saying, "Everyone wants to go to heaven, but no one wants to die."
Sadly, this is a natural outgrowth of ladling out public funds to special interests. There is so much collective money that few people feel or appreciate it when even billions are saved. Yet, if we yank even a few million away from special interest groups like PBS, Planned Parenthood, or the unions, they squeal like pigs that are about to accidentally be put in the wolves’ pen at the zoo.
In the face of that, people have to realize that this country is on pace to go bankrupt -- and it could happen relatively soon if we don't start taking serious steps to control our spending. Mike Pence thinks we could just be ten to fifteen years away. Tom Coburn is less optimistic and thinks it could happen in as little as five years. If that happens, we're not a tiny country like Greece -- we're the biggest economy in the world. That means there's no cavalry coming to pay our bills for us because we ARE the cavalry.
What happens then? Well, we don't know for sure, but we can make some educated guesses about what COULD happen and how it will impact YOUR life.
1) Your life savings could be reduced to nothing almost overnight. Inflation is a fact of life. As Thomas Sowell has noted, "As of 1998, a $100 bill would not buy as much as a $20 bill would buy in the 1960's." That's under normal circumstances.
However, the thing governments have traditionally done when they simply can't pay their debts is print more money. The problem with this is the further you expand the money supply, the less the money you already have on hand is worth. This can wipe out the savings of a lifetime in a relatively short period. Imagine spending billions of dollars just to buy a loaf of bread. Sound far-fetched? Well, guess what? That has happened in the Weimar Republic, which was crushed under debts from WWI and decided to pay it off by printing more money. It could happen here, too, and all the money you've scrimped and saved could become worthless in a short order.
2) Your taxes will skyrocket. We've been conned into thinking that we can fund a massive government on the backs of the rich. This is simply not so. It's not working today and it's not going to happen in the future. We cannot tax the rich enough to pay off our debt or even enough to keep the government going long-term. Even if we could, the rich have the resources to flee the country for greener pastures if they're being taxed into oblivion. The middle class? Not so much.
What that means is the more desperate the government gets, the more the average American is going to be hammered with new taxes. How much more of your income can you afford to send overseas to pay China for the money they've loaned us to keep PBS, Planned Parenthood, and the National Endowment of the Arts going? What about if the country goes bankrupt and your income tax rate shoots up fifty percent? How are you going to pay your mortgage? How are you going to feed your kids? When the government runs out of cash and it can't borrow any more money, then it will start leveling massive taxes on the American people.
3) Your life could be in danger. If the government goes bankrupt, you'll have an extremely angry, confused, and frustrated populace that has little faith in its leaders -- combined with a horrific economy and a reduced ability of the government to keep order. Under those circumstances, widespread rioting and violent crime seem entirely plausible.
When Argentina had its crisis, violence went up 142% and "young men began looting supermarkets."
Here's some of what happened during the German hyperinflation of the currency in Weimar Republic after it started printing money night and day,
The flight from currency that had begun with the buying of diamonds, gold, country houses, and antiques now extended to minor and almost useless items -- bric-a-brac, soap, hairpins. The law-abiding country crumbled into petty thievery. Copper pipes and brass armatures weren't safe. Gasoline was siphoned from cars. People bought things they didn't need and used them to barter -- a pair of shoes for a shirt, some crockery for coffee. Berlin had a "witches' Sabbath" atmosphere. Prostitutes of both sexes roamed the streets. Cocaine was the fashionable drug.
4) Your payments from the government will dramatically decrease or stop altogether. Contrary to what some people believe, Medicare and Social Security are paid out of the same fund that pays for everything else. In other words, if the government goes bankrupt, there is no money set aside to pay for these programs. So, if you're receiving Social Security, Medicare, welfare, food stamps, or any other similar programs, those checks could stop or be slashed down to nothing. That seems unthinkable to people, but if the government doesn't have any money, then it can't pay it out to people. As they say, "You can't get blood out of a turnip."
5) You will have a dramatically reduced standard of living. If taxes and inflation escalate dramatically, both of which are very likely if we go bankrupt, economic activity will slow to a crawl and we'll go into a depression. We're not talking about a "This is the worst economy since the Depression" situation that we hear every time there's a mild downturn in the economy; we're talking about a REAL depression. Businesses will close left and right, the stock market will tank, unemployment will soar to heights not seen since the thirties, and the government won't be in a position to help very much.
If that happens in a country like America, where people have been so prosperous for so long, it's going to produce utter misery. It's not a lot of fun to be poor under the best of circumstances, but it's much worse to go from having a comfortable life with a bright future to growing vegetables to eat in the backyard and wondering how you're going to keep warm in the winter.
LLS
OR the future of the world.
LLS
LLS
We are well on the way.
Well that might be true...but I doubt very many people think any of this is roses or will be...unless of course they are stuck in their normalcy bias.
I believe that a gov’t shutdown would have been far more devastating to the Democrats then the GOP (like it was during Clinton). It would have given laser focus to the real issues.
But what do we get...a government that continues on its current path...literally unscathed. Nothing has changed...they wasted all the time to save 38 billion in the 8 days up to the agreement they spent another 56 billion and everything Obama agreed to was slight of hand.
So are we better off letting the government continue?
two words “Karl Marx”
“.....is for the republicans to refuse to raise the debt ceiling and force the Fed and everyone else into living within their means...”
That would be a good first step!!
The first gallery rep I had was a very nice german woman
who told me her experiences of growing up during the Weimar
period.
She said during the time of hyper inflation she pawned her
fathers gold watch and paid off the family house note.
Great gal, she went to school near Peenemund and the
government used the students to do math problems for
the rocket program.
Very interesting lady.
In 1965 I was getting silver quarters in change...Now they are worth over 7 bucks for their melt value alone.
I don't know about that. In Hitler's case, the German economic collapse was largely due to the outside influence of the WWI reparations payments demanded by the French and the British.
[Side Note: There are those that claim that the US would have moderated this under Wilson, but he was affected by the 1918 Influenza outbreak and was largely incapacitated and ineffective during the critical parts of the reparations discussions. A bit difficult to believe, given the "progressive" tendencies of Wilson, but since the U.S. hadn't been subject to as much pain as our European "partners", there may be some merit to this.]
In the current scenario, any collapse here will be almost entirely our own (read: O-bambi, Senator Undertaker (D-NV) and the Wicked Witch of the West (MB-SF)).
If y’all are expecting any amount of game to survive more than a few weeks, you’re dreaming. Still, if you have gotten that mythical deer, you’ll probably be most likely to share a few meals before it spoils with the guy who’s offering you gold.
I guess it could depend on what you mean by "being held to account".
You never heard of the "Night of the Long Knives"? Kurt von Schleicher? Weimar politicians in exile, some later sent to concentration camps, having their property expropriated? All political parties but the NSDAP banned and their assets confiscated.
You never heard of any of that?
OK. Make that, guns and food.
BTTT.
When you see the dollar replaced as the world’s reserve currency, we’re done.
My fortune cookie the day of the Japanese tsunami reads, "Pleasures await you at the seashore."
We got the media we deserve. By not being concerned with the facts of reality and being ridiculously gullible, we allowed the growth of a corrupt media just like we allowed the growth of a corrupt government. TANSTAAFL.
1) Your life savings could be reduced to nothing almost overnight.
It doesn't have that far to go.
2) Your taxes will skyrocket.
Blood from a turnip.
3) Your life could be in danger.
Of course. Time to hit up Wally World for some more 9mm, and cheap Russian 7.62x39.
When Argentina had its crisis, violence went up 142% and "young men began looting supermarkets."
Surviving in Argentina" (http://ferfal.blogspot.com/). I have Ferfal's book Surviving the Economic Collapse, advice based on experience living through Argentina's crisis. "Cat, the other white meat."
4) Your payments from the government will dramatically decrease or stop altogether.
I expect so. Such as they are.
5) You will have a dramatically reduced standard of living.
"Will" have?
Severe, in this case, would mean no animals left to hunt.
BTTT
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