Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Neither Side Has Clean Hands

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/03/03/AR2010030300122.html

I was listening to Representative Ron Paul who is both a Republican and a Libertarian which these days is an odd combination. Because a libertarian has views similar to those that wrote the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights and the Constitution originally. So, such a person doesn't really sound like either a Republican or a Democrat these days.

What he said was likely the most honest straightforward thing I've heard yet. It went something like this, "The country is bankrupt. We don't have actual money to pay for anything that we are doing. We are like a person out of work who is just running up our credit cards before they file for bankruptcy. But Countries can't declare bankruptcy. So, what do we do?" The above was paraphrased from what I heard him say.

So, even though retiring Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky held the nation and congress hostage and thereby harmed countless U.S. Citizens this week, still he makes a good point. And the point is, "Where is the actual money stream to pay for all this because right now it is ALL borrowed money. Sooner or later this will all crash down on top of us one way or the other."

After the Viet Nam War the U.S. went through stuff like this on a much more minor level. If you study the recessions of the late 70's and 80s they were a direct result of our original move towards bankruptcy after the Viet Nam War and the Arab Oil Embargo drove us there. However, now, if it weren't for loans from other countries like China and Japan we would be bankrupt. This is just a fact that all of us need to be aware of.

So when Republicans and Democrats try to sound like life is still like it was in the 1960s when the country was actually rich in all ways, don't believe it. There will be a reckoning. The Congressional Alice in Wonderland Tea party will end likely sometime in the next 10 years.

However, there is one hopeful caveat to all this. If China or Japan harms us they lose all their billions of dollars that they have loaned us. So, if they want to be repaid they need to keep us afloat and not harm the U.S. or the inevitable default by the U.S. on all these loans will occur just like it did with Central and South American Countries which caused the Savings and Loan Collapse in the U.S like it did during the 1980s and 1990s.

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