A World of Hurt

Note to old veterans of TBP.. You probably won’t learn much new from the rant below. We’ve pretty much beaten the subject to death over the last few years. But I just boiled over again today and vented.. MA

Our debt crises.. Our welfare crises. Overseas wars. You hear it every day.. How do we deal with it all? What can we do to solve it? What will we do to get it behind us? Even temporarily?

What will save us from a Supreme Court that has legalized “elections to the highest bidder”, reduced the First Amendment to ash and a President that has trashed the Constitution at every turn and a Congress who will not stand up to an Imperial Presidency? Who will save us from a spiral of every higher inflation, unemployment and poverty? Since the Government can’t “fix” anything, only one thing can.

In one word, WAR.

Will going to war truly solve our economic malaise? Our exceptionally negative Debt to GDP ratio? The counterfeiting of currency and credit by the Federal Reserve? The continued trashing of our Constitutional rights?

Of course not, but it will accomplish one critical thing. It will frighten the vast majority of the non-thinking (ever poorer people) into getting behind the Federal Government in a “patriotic” manner that convinces and coerces the same uninformed non-thinking mass of middle and lower class American citizens that “sacrifice” and “doing without” is both the appropriate and least thing they can do in order to support America’s efforts to fight a War.. This will be encouraged and demanded in all the old fashioned ways by the Federal Government.

Who we fight is totally unimportant and not germane to the point (but I’ll speculate later). The fact is that the Federal, State and local governments of this country have over spent and scammed themselves into a totally non-tenable and unsustainable position of being completely unable to fulfill commitments made to foreign creditors, the general public, retirees, union members, government, private and public employees and welfare recipients. With a tad over 50% of the general population receiving some sort of Governmental assistance or payments how could they cover the bill other than print money to do it? Who else would pay for it? How about 49% of the population works full time, if they could find a job, to pay the other 50%?? I don’t think so..

These promises include Medicare with unfunded liabilities of $39 trillion(1), Medicaid at $84 trillion(2), a mere $74 billion for some 150 plus programs for “school aid”- a real bargain that(3), unfunded Federal Employee retirement fund equal to $1.6 trillion(4), and it doesn’t count the over 30% of the Federal budget that is spent supporting a military that is multiples in size of all the other nations of the world! (PS: That 30% also does not include the multitude of huge corporations that feed off the military to perform R&D, build weapons and ammunition and drones and such for the military’s use!)..

This cash is furnished, in a significant part, by the Federal Reserve which purchases – today – just about 100% of the Treasury Bonds and Bills issued by the U. S. Treasury to fake the assets (in the Fed books) to back our fiat currency in order to pay all those unfunded liabilities, broken housing bubble, military budgets, contractors, federal employee salaries, foreign aid, educational loan guarantees (that are about to default as the next bubble), bailouts to banks who would fail without them and everything else you can possibly think of. But don’t want to think about.

I’d say things are far beyond control. These small insignificant sums are just a sample of the few hundred $trillions of the total unfunded liabilities of the Federal, State and local governmental entities of these sorry wrinkled, scabby, busted United States. When you add them ALL UP, it totals over between $220 and $600 trillion (depending on which data you use) and climbing. This does not count the liabilities of mortgage backed securities and other garbage paper (which are being purchased at a $70 billion monthly rate by the Federal Reserve from Zombie banks) or the literally hundreds of $trillions of credit default swaps ($620 trillion at last estimate) and other phantom securities issued by those zombie of the financial world, who collect fees with every sale and know, that, if the counter-party can’t pay off, well, the Federal Reserve will! After all, they’ve paid off on everything else that’s gone broke, right? Anyone in jail or prosecuted? Nope! I hope “place” Holder sleeps well at night.

Can this absolutely obscene pile of debt ever be paid off? Of course not. It’s a Grand Oversized Cancerous Ponzi Scheme of massive proportions and is doomed to collapse upon itself sooner than later.

Ah, you say! Collapse is never going to happen in our America! We are too smart, too industrious, too vigorous and besides, the Federal Government is way too intelligent and too powerful to ever allow that to happen!

Ha! The jokes on you! It not only can collapse, it will collapse. The only question is when, not if. We, as a nation of “consumers” are no longer too smart, too industrious, too vigorous, too responsible or too self-reliant to fall on our collective faces.

History is literally stuffed full of fiat money collapse (debt default) from ancient Roman coin clipping to Zimbabwe’s 6.5 sextillion percent inflation rate in November, 2008. There is no historical exception to the rule that once a currency is converted to a fiat instrument (i.e. printed with no commodity backing), it ends up being inflated and depreciated to its’ intrinsic value; i.e. the value of the paper it’s printed on, or less.

The U. S. Dollar is a fiat currency, backed by nothing and will indeed end up being worth the paper it’s printed on.

It matter not one whit whether you use the term “printed” money or “credit” money, it’s all the same. Digital, paper or plastic, anything that is used to purchase real hard goods of any kind from land to toilet paper is “money”. As the money supply expands and loses value and everything costs more to bring home in a bag or stake out as a house foundation, you are being taxed, continuously and stealthily with nothing you can do about it. How do you vote “NO” on inflation? How do you vote “NO” on the subject of your purchasing power being reduced day after day, week after week, year after year? Why does the American public put up with such fraud and outright stealth stealing and dishonesty by the Federal Government?

#1. Because most of the uninformed “general” public has as much knowledge of economics as a tick. All they know is the price of gasoline, beer and their smart phone bill. Sorry, but the truth hurts sometime.

#2. The American public can no longer agree on the time of day, much less take sides on a vital issue such as printing money! Half of the “public” gets handouts from either local, state or the Federal Government anyhow, so why should they grump? What they really deserve is going to be what they get.

So it’s tough to defend yourself. You can purchase real assets (like agricultural land, gold or silver) or you can get mad. Sooner or later, there will be a sufficient number of citizens of this totally busted United States who get mad that it will attract the attention of the Powers That Be.. The Elite. Those who pull the puppet strings that make the President, Congresspeople and the Judicial System dance.

Then comes trouble. Cars burn, store fronts get windows broken, tires are lit off in the street, a few banks are knocked over and Walmart closes some stores because the shop lifting gets too much to bear on their bottom line. The natives grow restless and torch a few houses and buildings. Then the militarized police roll out their pseudo-combat vehicles and we look Greek (or Spanish or Egyptian or Italian to the rest of the world. Horrors!

The Elite does not appreciate nor desire more than a few percent of the citizens to get upset – after all, about 10% of the population drove the American Revolution back in 1776 – the rest being either Loyalists to the Crown or just typical disinterested people who wanted to be left alone to get on with it. 10% was not a lot of people back in 1776. Today, 10% would be about 3.3 million rabble-rousers that could make a lot of noise, break a lot of windows, roll over a whole bunch of cars and generally make a nuisance of themselves.

So, as far as The Powers that Be are concerned, “something” must be done.

Since the country is bankrupt to start with, we now have reached the point of no return. Inflation is probably running higher than tolerable (or the 10% wouldn’t be ticked off!), cities are weeping about their budgets and many are “bankruptured”, perhaps a state or two is busted and awaiting bailouts that will never come.. What to do? What to do?

Ah Haa! The Power’s That Be come upon a solution that has provided a pretend bail out for many a country throughout history that was high and dry and flat broke (think Germany in 1933). Think America in 1939. History begins to echo.

Let’s start a War! Lot’s of targets out there. Syria’s is being an ever bigger pain in the butt but we can’t touch Russia or China – they’re nuke city. But we need to find someone who is beatable “over there”, after all, we sure don’t want to fight a war on United States’ soil. After all, the last time we fought a war inside this country, we killed over a half million citizens and it took almost three generations to get over it and, by the way, we’re still suffering the aftermath of that civil war today.

I know! Let’s go after Iran and Syria both! That way, we can perhaps drag Turkey into it and not really tick off anyone else over there that we haven’t already made froth at the mouth! Saudi Arabia, being Wahabi Muslim anyhow (which are on the Sunni side of the street) and everyone else in the area being mostly Sunni Muslim anyhow, no one will object too strenuously if we kill off some Shiites if we’re careful not to blow up too many mosques.. (I also suspect that Iraq will once more boil over into civil war (remember the two wars there that we declared a “victory” and decamped?). More fun to come there sooner than later.

Perhaps a few “false flag” situations are staged to get the American public’s attention and suitable propaganda is broadcast to them that makes a convincing case that “if we don’t fight this war, civilization is lost” or some such baloney. After all, we’ve already fought two wars of “choice” over there, lost both and they both are like tar babies to get out of (which we haven’t managed to do yet).

Plus, the Powers That Be figure, this kind of WAR can capture the imagination of the millions of the unthinking masses that dwell in the middle reaches of the U. S. A. . If we tell them often enough and loud enough and long enough, they will believe that this WAR is necessary for their own wellbeing as well as freedom of the poor and oppressed, those who are persecuted for their religion, human rights, women’s freedom and education, blah, blah, blah ( shhhh!Never mention gasoline or oil or the fact we’re broke!). We can rally the ignorant dummies into accepting gas rationing, food rationing, perhaps a few brown outs here and there for good measure and make sure that all the Main Street Media stress that anyone not for this WAR is unpatriotic and not deserving of any handouts from the Federal Government. Besides, if you’re not for us, you’re against us and we just might throw you under the jail using HSA to imprison you as a terrorist! Not to mention monitoring what TV channels you watch and who you talk to about what on telephone or computer (which they are already doing)!

Also, as a good upstanding citizen of the U. S. A., don’t forget that saying anything or doing anything that leads the Government to believe that you are not 100% behind this Just and Necessary Military Action will result in great displeasure upon you – far beyond an ordinary grope at the airport – and you will be labeled non-patriotic and banned from most of the rationed goodies we’ve let everyone else have. Bad on you if you don’t think like your Government does!

Oh, and by the way, because of the WAR EFFORT, we’ll have to cut down on Social Security payments, Medicare, Medicaid, also Welfare, Unemployment, Education Assistance, School Lunches (and about a thousand other give-aways) in order to support our military in fighting this just and righteous WAR. You may also have to put up with gas rationing (since no one will take dollars for oil any more — shhhhh!) and grocery rationing (Chile just said “No dollars for grapes!” shhhhh!) but it’s all for a great NATIONAL CAUSE of WAR which we have to win because (1) “because” and (2) “because” and (3) “because” this too!

Do you think this is all too far fetched to believe? Sure you do! Just like the German’s believed in 1933 that when Hitler came to power, well, he wouldn’t do anything that went against fairness and goodness. Oh, he might toss a few Jews into jail to fulfill a campaign promise – but nothing evil, right?

I’m sorry to disabuse you of your belief, but Governments at all levels and all times have one thing in mind; their continued survival and command of power to control you and you and you. Once in power, power is what they care about and power is the dope that intoxicates those Elites and Powers That Be because power is the thing that allows those same Elites and Powers That Be to rape and pillage the financial and industrial systems to their benefit.

Their only desire, upon getting such power is to dictate to all those below them on the hierarchical ladder, as much as possible, what they do, how they do it, when they do it and even why they can’t do it and, oh by the way, pay me while you do it.

If you don’t believe this or understand it, you have not been living in these United States for the past 40 years. Ever since 1971 when “Tricky Dick” Nixon slammed the international gold window shut, defaulting on United States international debt to redeem our dollars in gold, we have been on the ever steepening slope to insolvency.

If you don’t understand that the “dollar bill” is a debt instrument that will never be redeemed with anything of value, you need to review your economic literacy.

That one 1971 default (check the charts!) has led to our downfall, removing the very last limiting factor for spending more than we produce that Congress and the Executive Branches of Government have taken advantage of, to the extreme, ever since.

Debt started to accumulate in 1972 and has increased into an exponential and hence unsustainable rate ever since. At the moment, it rises almost vertically and will, in the near future, S-T-O-P. At that point comes civil unrest and a knee-jerk reaction leading to WAR to distract the masses. “Shared” sacrifice (and reduction of “freebies”) will be the word and while men die, the PTB will try mightily to kick the can down the road just a little further, paying for it in misery, blood and death. The Three Horsemen will ride – for a violent short time.

And then even that will fail too.

End

Author: MuckAbout

Retired Engineer and Scientist (electronic, optics, mechanical) lives in a pleasant retirement community in Central Florida. He is interested in almost everything and comments on most of it. A pragmatic libertarian at heart he welcomes comments on all that he writes. View all posts by MuckAbout