That's probably an oxymoron. Kind of like "non-essential government workers" but I digress.
From the link
The Senate voted Thursday to allow the national debt to swell to nearly $9 trillion, preventing a first-ever default on U.S. Treasury notes.
The bill passed by a 52-48 vote. The increase to $9 trillion represents about $30,000 for every man, woman and child in the United States. The bill now goes to President Bush for his signature.
There are several notable observations here.
Hah! What faith and credit? The debt is already more than can ever be paid unless the government inflates our currency into oblivion to pay it off with even more worthless dollars. More on this thought in a moment. Maybe that's one reason the rest of the world is looking to alternatives to the U.S. dollar like the Euro.
And...
These macaroons don't even care what the consequences are of foreign countries holding ever increasing amounts of U.S. debt. What's with that?
And here's a good one...
Treasury Secretary John Snow authorized the government to use the $15 billion available in the exchange stabilization fund on March 3 and issued a ``debt issuance suspension period'' to temporarily stop investments in the Civil Service Retirement and Disability Fund. The Treasury also redeemed some of the fund's current investments.
In other words the government raided the retirement accounts of the government workers and replaced it with IOUs just like they did with Social Security. Those accounts belonged to the employees of the government but they have just been hijacked.
This brings up an interesting thought. The government has demonstrated time and again that it will raid accounts for funds wherever it can find them and replace them with meaningless IOUs. Social Security, and now government employee retirement accounts do not appear to be off limits. I wonder when they will set their sights on IRAs.
There are only two ways any government debt can be paid back. The traditional way is for the GDP of the country to raise creating wealth to meet the obligation. The other way is to monetize the debt simply by printing currency to cover it. I wonder if this has anything to do with the Fed's plan to discontinue reporting M3 later this month.
Given the current state of affairs regarding the U.S. economy the first option isn't likely. The national debt crossed the $1 trillion mark in 1981 under President Ronald Reagan and grew to $3.2 trillion during the presidency of George H.W. Bush. During the administration of Bill Clinton, it hit $5.5 trillion, but government surpluses enabled Congress to pay down some of the debt. Since President George W. Bush has been in office, the figure has climbed from $5.6 trillion to the new $9 trillion mark.
Here's the take home message dear reader. Since 1981 our economy has obviously not grown sufficiently to cover its borrowing. If it had, we wouldn't be looking at a $9 trillion deficit. Why would any thinking person believe the trend is going to change now?
The debt is going parabolic and the only recourse will be to print the fiat dollars to pay it down. The result will be a U.S. dollar that is essentially worthless and given the rate at which the debt is accelerating, it won't be long before this happens.
There's only one way Americans can protect themselves from incompetent government bureaurocrats determined to destroy America...
Got gold?
