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The State of Our Union Is Broke
National Review Online ^ | January 28,2012 | Mark Steyn

Posted on 01/28/2012 5:31:02 PM PST by Hojczyk

Had I been asked to deliver the State of the Union address, it would not have delayed your dinner plans:

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

An honest leader would feel he owed it to the citizenry to impress upon them one central truth — that we can’t have any new programs because we’ve spent all the money. It’s gone. The cupboard is bare. What’s Obama’s plan to restock it? “Right now, Warren Buffett pays a lower tax rate than his secretary,” the president told us. “Asking a billionaire to pay at least as much as his secretary in taxes? Most Americans would call that common sense.”

But why stop there? Americans need affordable health care and affordable master’s degrees in Climate Change and Social Justice Studies, so why not take everything that Warren Buffett’s got? After all, if you confiscated the total wealth of the Forbes 400 richest Americans it would come to $1.5 trillion.

Which is just a wee bit less than the federal shortfall in just one year of Obama-sized budgets. 2011 deficit: $1.56 trillion. But maybe for 2012 a whole new Forbes 400 of Saudi princes and Russian oligarchs will emigrate to the Hamptons and Malibu and keep the whole class-warfare thing going for a couple more years.

(Excerpt) Read more at nationalreview.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: marksteyn; steyn

1 posted on 01/28/2012 5:31:07 PM PST by Hojczyk
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To: Hojczyk

We’re broke because Barry put “Americans” back to work by giving them jobs printing money so they can be paid.


2 posted on 01/28/2012 5:35:23 PM PST by FlingWingFlyer (Hey America! Your President's DOJ is taking the Fifth Amendment! How do you feel about that?)
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To: Hojczyk
"The cupboard is bare. What’s Obama’s plan to restock it? "

The plan that the ruling class of bipartisan born regulators provided for him, of course.

The Never-ending Government Bailout of Mortgage Borrowers by Taxpayers
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2839450/posts

You see. Then they buy more things to keep the debt regime, er, economy going. Brilliant, eh?


3 posted on 01/28/2012 5:43:31 PM PST by familyop (We Baby Boomers are croaking in an avalanche of rotten politics smelled around the planet.)
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To: Hojczyk

“The State of our Union is broke, heading for bankrupt, and total collapse shortly thereafter. Thank you and goodnight! You’ve been a terrific crowd!”

Probably the most succinct SOTU ever .... but entirely too truthful to ever be spoken by the Food Stamp President.


4 posted on 01/28/2012 5:47:17 PM PST by RetiredTexasVet (There's a pill for just about everything ... except stupid!)
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To: Hojczyk

Man, I love Mark Steyn.


5 posted on 01/28/2012 5:49:32 PM PST by WXRGina (Further up and further in!)
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To: Hojczyk

Yes. It is. HOWEVER....we have PRAYER on our side...

Please everyone, USE it!


6 posted on 01/28/2012 5:56:19 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma (PRAY for this country like your life depends on it....)
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To: RetiredTexasVet

I think if Newt continually mentioned getting the Feds out of the business of running the states, that would go over very well with most conservatives.


7 posted on 01/28/2012 6:00:31 PM PST by Jonty30 (What Islam and secularism have in common is that they are both death cults.)
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To: Hojczyk

I cannot grasp the concept of borrowing money from the Chinese and giving it away in the form of foreign aid to other countries(INCLUDING CHINA) and paying interest to the Chinese to do so. Syria, right now, is a mess.I heard today that the U.S. is considering forgiving the debt that she owes us......I will borrow money so that I can forgive some who owes me money....


8 posted on 01/28/2012 6:09:55 PM PST by terycarl (lurking, but well informed)
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To: Hojczyk

The overwhelming debt has put our national sovereignty at stake, and quite possibly our national survival.


9 posted on 01/28/2012 6:29:21 PM PST by The Sons of Liberty (Psalm 109:8 Let his days be few and let another take his office. - Mene, Mene, Tekel, Upharsin)
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To: Hojczyk

Here’s the problem with the idea of confiscation of the entire wealth of the Forbes 400 (or whatever): Most of their wealth isn’t liquid, it is actually tied up on usually illiquid assets, such as businesses and real estate.

Turning that wealth into money requires a buyer for these assets... which, once we’ve seized the wealth of the 400 supposedly wealthiest people in the US, will be in short supply. The value of those assets, dumped into market where $1.5 trillion in wealth has been seized... would likely go down rather a lot. So I think that, overall, the government would obtain less than $1 trillion in net gain on seizure of those assets and conversion into money.

The central problem in the US are the twin deficits: The federal (and state) budget deficits, which are running well over a $1 trillion per year, and the current account deficit, which includes trade deficits and investment deficits (ie, greater foreign investment in the US than US investment off-shore), which has been running over anywhere from $200B to $700B+ per year for years now. That means that $200 to $700+ billion in US wealth is leaving our shores per year and not coming back in - whether in return for what we export, or as foreign investment in the US, or tourists coming here to spend money, whatever.

While other nations (including the US) have had periods in which they’ve run fiscal deficits of the size we are now running (relative to GDP) and recovered, no other nation in human history has been able to sustain a current account deficit of the size we have for as long as we’ve had it. Sooner or later, the party we’ve been funding with Other Nations’ Monies will come to a stop.


10 posted on 01/28/2012 7:01:32 PM PST by NVDave
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To: Hojczyk

I can appreciate humorous hyperbole as much as the next fellow, but anyone who claims that the United States is broke is a damn fool.


11 posted on 01/28/2012 7:29:50 PM PST by sergeantdave
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To: Hojczyk

bump


12 posted on 01/28/2012 7:47:07 PM PST by Christian4Bush (PSA. As of 1/28/12, 283/358 days 'til we vote out/take out the trash. (11/6/12, 1/20/13))
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To: Brad's Gramma
God answers all prayers, but sometimes the answer is no... sorry Gram but this time i think we're done for
13 posted on 01/28/2012 8:32:07 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Chode

From a spiritual standpoint...please, Chode...be very very careful. Pray for His will to be done, and for us to come back to Him.


14 posted on 01/28/2012 9:00:40 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma (PRAY for this country like your life depends on it....)
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To: Brad's Gramma
believe me Gram, i am... but i's still afraid his of his answer
15 posted on 01/28/2012 9:12:23 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Chode

Yeah, I know...

I’m still not giving in to the enemy. He may win this round for a bit...but I’ve read the end of the story. Jesus wins.


16 posted on 01/28/2012 9:15:03 PM PST by Brad’s Gramma (PRAY for this country like your life depends on it....)
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To: Brad's Gramma
Bless you my child...
17 posted on 01/28/2012 9:19:36 PM PST by Chode (American Hedonist - *DTOM* -ww- NO Pity for the LAZY)
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To: Hojczyk

Of all the comments (at link) on Steyn’s article, I liked this one the best:

“I’ve been a long-time Steynophile. Guy hits the nail on head all the time and is the funniest man alive.

However, I can’t get totally on board with this vein of thought he’s been on the last couple of years. I agree with all of his observations and analysis - and I do think we face the worst fiscal and social problems we’ve seen since the Great Depression.

But I just think there is too much historical evidence that the American system corrects course pretty dependably. He’s making projections assuming we continue on the trajectory we have been on - but that never happens.

Things could get worse, but they are likely to get better.

Who knows what social, technological, economic, and political innovations are heading our way?

I don’t think I’m a Pollyanna or think my country indestructible - I just think we’ve done the chicken little thing to ourselves throughout both American and Western history.

I think we’re going to be OK. But we still have to fight it out as if we weren’t.”


18 posted on 01/28/2012 10:14:58 PM PST by avenir (I'm pessimistic about man, but I'm optimistic about GOD!)
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To: NVDave

That money will come back. Eventually. Our daughters and grandchildren will get it as “sex workers”. See what happened in Germany after WW1.


19 posted on 01/29/2012 2:36:56 AM PST by wastoute (Government cannot redistribute wealth. Government can only redistribute poverty.)
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To: NVDave

The whole game will continue, but only as long as the USD is the reserve currency of the world, allowing us to print it, willy-nilly.

Knowing that the Chinese have no special love for us, and not being so foolish as to continue to lend us money ad infinitum, I suspect that they have a plan “B” for us, that we won’t particularly care for.

The tip-off to me is their massive accumulation of gold, and their declaration that the “world needs a new reserve currency.”

Hmmmmm.... Like the Gold-backed Yuan, perhaps? Ruh-roh.


20 posted on 01/29/2012 5:28:25 AM PST by pingman (Durn tootin'; I like Glock shootin'!)
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