Posted on 01/11/2014 6:50:24 AM PST by Kaslin
Like Enron, Greece, and Donald Trump before us, America is about to go bankrupt. Unfortunately, our bankruptcy will probably be more Enron and less Donald Trump because we're very unlikely to come back bigger and better in the lifetime of anyone reading this column. Instead, most Americans are probably going to experience skyrocketing taxes, spiraling inflation, widespread disorder, and a dramatically reduced standard of living. This isn’t a crisis that our great-grandchildren will have to figure out one day. To the contrary, it's entirely possible it will occur within the next decade and unless we make big changes no one in DC is even seriously discussing right now, it's more likely than not that it will transpire within the next 20 years.
America doesn’t have to go bankrupt and it wouldn't if the American people were to rise up and demand serious action, but sadly, most Americans are too intimidated by the size and scope of the problem to demand major changes to the irresponsible way the government does business. Without the American people insisting that Congress move, the Republicans have shown that they're not serious about dealing with the deficit and the Democrats remain so intent on increasing spending that they wouldn't be behaving much differently if their goal was to create a debt-driven economic collapse.
Our nation's future is slipping away right in front of us and that’s why it’s important for those of us who care about our nation’s future to point out quotes like these while we still have a short window of time where we can make a difference. Those of us who love this country need the American people to stand up, speak out, and force our government to behave responsibly before it's too late.
1) What would you think of a person who earned $24,000 a year but spent $35,000? Suppose on top of that, he was already $170,000 in debt. You'd tell him to get his act together -- stop spending so much or he'd destroy his family, impoverish his kids and wreck their future. Of course, no individual could live so irresponsibly for long. But tack on eight more zeroes to that budget and you have the checkbook for our out-of-control, big-spending federal government. -- John Stossel
2) John Kitchen of the U.S. Treasury and Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin published a study in 2010 entitled:
Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money in the World -- and At What Cost?
The fact that sane men are even asking this question ought to be deeply disturbing. As to the answer, foreign official holdings of U.S. Treasury securities have usually been less than 5 percent of the rest of the world's GDP. By 2009, they were up to 7 percent. By 2020, Kitchen and Chinn project them to rise to 19 percent of the rest of the world's GDP, which they say is....do-able. Whether the rest of the world will want to do it is another matter. A future that presumes the rest of the planet will sink a fifth of its GDP into U.S. Treasuries is no future at all. But on Big Government's streetcar named Desire we have come to depend on the kindness of strangers. -- Mark Steyn
3) The Federal Reserve is propping up the entire U.S. economy by buying 61 percent of the government debt issued by the Treasury Department, a trend that cannot last, Lawrence Goodman, a former Treasury official and current president of the Center for Financial Stability, writes in a Wall Street Journal opinion article published Wednesday. -- Newsmax
4) In fact, in 2006, the Census Bureau found only 2.2 million households earning more than $250,000. And most of those are closer to the Lubbock city manager than to Carlos Slim, income-wise. To jump from the 50th to the 51st percentile isn’t that tough; jumping from the 96th to the 97th takes a lot of schmundo. It’s lonely at the top.But say we wanted to balance the budget by jacking up taxes on Club 250K. That’s a problem: The 2012 deficit is forecast to hit $1.1 trillion under Obama’s budget. (Thanks, Mr. President!) Spread that deficit over all the households in Club 250K and you have to jack up their taxes by an average of $500,000 -- which you simply can’t do, since a lot of them don’t have $500,000 in income to seize. Most of them are making $250,000 to $450,000 and paying about half in taxes already. You can squeeze that goose all day, but that’s not going to make it push out a golden egg.
....Every time you raise the threshold for eating the rich, you get a much, much smaller serving of meat on the plate — but the deficit stays the same. The long division gets pretty ugly. You end up chasing a revenue will-o’-the-wisp. -- Kevin Williamson
5) Within a decade, the United States will be spending more of the federal budget on its interest payments than on its military. You read that right: more on debt service than on the armed services. According to the CBO's 2010 long-term budget outlook, by 2020 the government will be paying between 15 and 20 percent of its revenues in debt interest. Whereas defense spending will be down between 14 and 16 percent. -- Mark Steyn
6) (In Pennsylvania, a) single mom is better off earning gross income of $29,000 with $57,327 in net income & benefits than to earn gross income of $69,000 with net income and benefits of $57,045." -- From Gary Alexander, Secretary of Public Welfare, Commonwealth of Pennsylvania
7) For every 1.65 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance. For every 1.25 employed persons in the private sector, 1 person receives welfare assistance or works for the government. ...The punchline: 110 million privately employed workers; 88 million welfare recipients and government workers and rising rapidly. -- Tyler Durden
8) My name’s Ronnie Bryant, and I’m a mine operator…. I’ve been issued a [state] permit in the recent past for [waste water] discharge, and after standing in this room today listening to the comments being made by the people…. [pause] Nearly every day without fail — I have a different perspective — men stream to these [mining] operations looking for work in Walker County. They can’t pay their mortgage. They can’t pay their car note. They can’t feed their families. They don’t have health insurance. And as I stand here today, I just … you know … what’s the use? I got a permit to open up an underground coal mine that would employ probably 125 people. They’d be paid wages from $50,000 to $150,000 a year. We would consume probably $50 million to $60 million in consumables a year, putting more men to work. And my only idea today is to go home. What’s the use? I don’t know. I mean, I see these guys — I see them with tears in their eyes — looking for work. And if there’s so much opposition to these guys making a living, I feel like there’s no need in me putting out the effort to provide work for them. So as I stood against the wall here today, basically what I’ve decided is not to open the mine. I’m just quitting. Thank you. -- Ronnie Bryant
9) Wyatt Emerich of The Cleveland Current analyzes disposable income and economic benefits among several key income classes and comes to the stunning (and verifiable) conclusion that "a one-parent family of three making $14,500 a year (minimum wage) has more disposable income than a family making $60,000 a year.
10) The typical husband and wife who reach age 66 and qualify for Social Security -- Starting next year, this typical couple, receiving the average benefit, will begin collecting a combination of cash and health-care entitlement benefits that will total $1 million over their remaining expected lifetime.
According to my calculations based on government data, such married couples will begin receiving monthly Social Security checks that will, on average, total about $550,000 after inflation. They will receive health-care services paid for by Medicare that, on average, will total another $450,000 after inflation. The benefactors will be a generation of younger workers who are trying to support themselves and their families while paying taxes to finance the rest of government spending.
...Medicare premiums paid by senior citizens once covered half of the cost of physician and related services. They now cover one-fourth. Copayments once covered nearly 40% of these services’ costs. They now cover only 20%. -- Joe Cogan
11) The CBO numbers foresee net interest payments rising from 9 percent of revenue to 36 percent in 2030, then to 58 percent in 2040, and up to 85 percent in 2050. If that trajectory holds, we'll be spending more than the planet's entire military budget on debt interest. But forget mid-century because, unless something changes, whatever goes by the name of "America" under those conditions isn't worth talking about. -- Mark Steyn
12) The total present value of payments expected under Social Security and Medicare beyond what is expected to be collected under current tax laws is about $100 trillion. One way to put that amount of money in context is to note that it is about twice the amount of all the net private assets that exist in America today. To answer cw’s question directly, the best back-of-envelope estimate is that meeting this unfunded portion of our Social Security and Medicare commitments would require roughly an immediate 80 percent increase in federal income taxes, sustained forever. — Jim Manzi
13) The total fiscal overhang of our federal, state, and local governments — their combined debt and unfunded liabilities — is around $140 trillion, and growing. That is about twice the annual economic output of human civilization, and nearly the value of all the financial assets in the world. It is something close to a mathematical certainty that those debts and obligations will not be made good on at their present value. -- Kevin Williamson
Thanks for making my day/not!
It is what it is, though, and has been coming for a long time.
Indeed
We’ve heard a lot more about traffic in New Jersey than about the 1 billion in taxpayer dollars to Russia for purchase of helicopters for Afghanistan!
Russian Helicopters for sale...
Does anyone remember Barack Obama’s great promise of the campaign of 2012? He did not make a promise to America nor to Americans. He did not make a promise to fellow politicians. Unlike so many of his promises, he is keeping this one. His promise was to Vladimir Putin of Russia. What is Obama doing to keep his promise to Putin? Everyone remembers the hot mike incident in 2012 when Barack Obama pleaded with Russian President Dmitri Medvedyev to give him time until the election. After the election, he promised Vladimir Putin, through Medvedyev, he would be more “flexible.”
Now we have seen this flexibility.
Barack Obama is going to spend almost $700 million dollars of taxpayer money to buy Russian helicopters for the Afghan Air Force. But wait. Just like those TV commercials, this gets better. When Congress passed the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act, it had an interesting provision. Congress included, as a part of that law a prohibition on the United States buying helicopters from Rosoboronexport, the Russian manufacturer of the Mi-17 helicopter.
Unfortunately as always happens, when such laws are passed, Congress always gives the Regime an escape hatch. The law stated that Obama could buy from Rosoboronexport if the Secretary of Defense certified it was in the interest of National Security. And of course, the Secretary of Defense, Chuck Hagel , a man committed to destroying the US military immediately signed off on that certification. Where do we even start with this one?
Congress is outraged over this with Senators and Representatives from both parties writing letters about this. Of course, this is Congress’ fault for allowing a law to be written with such an escape hatch. More importantly, Americans need to be asking just what the hell the Obama Regime is doing.
Why are we spending $700 million dollars with a Russian arms manufacturer? Why are we even giving the Afghans these helicopters?
If we are going to give them helicopters, which we really shouldn’t, then why not give them American made helicopters and put Americans to work?
if we are going to give the Afghans Russian helicopters, the ones we are giving them are an old Cold War design. There are hundreds of used MI-17 helicopters floating around the world. Why are we paying to give the Afghans brand new helicopters?
In the era of the Sequester, isn’t there something better we can do with $700 million? American Medicare cancer patients are being turned away from hospitals and are being denied life saving treatment because of budget cuts. The American military is being gutted to the point of ineffectiveness because of budget cuts.
Or consider this. The United States Air Force is grounding 17 squadrons because of $591 million dollars in budget cuts. Our Air Force is not able to do its mission because it lacks the money to fly but we have the money to give Afghanistan $700 million dollars in Russian helicopters.
And this is where Barack Obama thinks we should spend our money?
Bring back American manufacturing.
Now.
The Federal Reserve is propping up the entire U.S. economy by buying 61 percent of the government debt issued by the Treasury Department
*********
In effect, the government is buying the government’s debt. What could possibly go wrong with this scheme? /sarc
You sure are redundant
China is now the largest exporter in the world, and growing.
America needs to pay attention.
We need industry. Right here. Now.
We are financially, roasting our own future.
Now. Maybe it is redundant to point that out, but it is a growing problem.
We need to fix it. Not ignore the problem.
Bring back American manufacturing.
We can discuss how to do that, but we have a huge problem which is growing right now.
Well, by golly, you still have two wishes left. So, you’re going to Disneyland. That means you still have one wish left.... Lucky you.
Look the GOP will win elections, by supporting American strength.
For the last ten years, the GOP has been asleep, exporting US manufacturing around the globe, and laying off millions of American workers. (The democrats have also been doing this, I am not just picking on the GOP here)
For an entire generation, the GOP (and the democrats) have been firing Americans.
This has gone on long enough.
The GOP needs to wake up. Stop selling out the people you should be supporting in order to get their VOTES.
Global industry does not win elections.
GOP bring back American jobs.
damn :-(
Things that cannot happen, don't. The public debt cannot be paid, so it will be repudiated.
It's what comes next that's interesting.
Is it time to really start organizing a national group of local affiliates with the goal of a PEACEFUL secession movement.
I was thinking how infinitely divided the two halves are and how we’d be much happier on both sides.
The USA is simply TOO BIG and should really be two or more countries at this point.
Sudan did it. I think the USA could pull it off with little to no bloodshed.
We need to get on this now so both countries can build THEIR OWN vision.
The differences are NOT reconcilable from an economic, philosophical, sociological, political, theological perspective.
Sometimes split ups are good and I think in this case we have justification.
With two countries going their separate ways now, there is a better chance for them to get things off to a great start.
I believe the answer it to reach out to liberals and make the case for this. Both sides would we happier in the end although it might be rough at first.
You and I agree completely about the return of industry to the heartland. Without it, we die - it's that simple.
But I don't think it's principally a financial issue - it's a spiritual and moral one.
Simple, ordinary men with IQs in the 88-98 range are ether going to be miserable serfs or free men. To be free men, they need women and work.
On welfare, they get neither.
“America” can’t go bankrupt, but the public sector can and will.
The power went back to the satellite countries. We should be students of history here.
I will also remind everyone , NO ONE wanted to put the USSR back together again, an NO ONE will want to put the USA back together again.
Our only hope is for power to go back to the states. This is a very likely scenario.
BFL
The GOP isn’t your friend in this; they have no desire to see you prosperous.
In part I agree with you.
Which is why I support the Tea Party.
The GOP-e is completely on the globalists’ side, not on Americans’ side.
We need to be on Americans’ side.
Just saying.
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