We’re broke because Barry put “Americans” back to work by giving them jobs printing money so they can be paid.
“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.
Man, I love Mark Steyn.
Yes. It is. HOWEVER....we have PRAYER on our side...
Please everyone, USE it!
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....
The overwhelming debt has put our national sovereignty at stake, and quite possibly our national survival.
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.
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.
bump
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.”