I have a lot of respect for Glenn. He seems to honestly care about where we're headed as a country. Unfortunately, I don't believe that the "change" needed can occur without violence. I pray I'm wrong, but as each year passes, I cling to less hope.
Someone asked me the other day why I think this, and while the answer is simple, the explanation isn't.
The answer quite simply is power, and we the people don't hold it any longer. It's not even a problem of Democrat vs Republication- both equally rape the American people in their quest to fill their pockets, and steal more power from us.
The explanation falls into every area of America.
Politics--
How are politicians elected? Your first answer is typically "by the people". Really? Who provides most of the money for a candidate to run his/her campaign?that answer is big corporations.
So why would they provide the sums of money they do in order to elect their candidate? What's the payoff?
That part is easy- they want legislation, money, or pork projects favorable to their interest. So far, pork spending in 2009 is over twenty billion for almost 11,000 projects.
Politicians keep telling us we "have to pass this or that legislation because it's the right thing to do". Unfortunately, they don't bother to pay for it.
Social Security was passed with the understanding that you pay into an account, the money sits there gaining interest until you retire.
Too bad they lied about that. It makes Bernie Madoff's ponzi scheme look like a piker. Bernie defrauded us for approximately 65 billion. Social Security unfunded obligations are in the neighborhood of of 7 trillion, with a total unfunded obligation for all government being approximately 65 trillion dollars. That's more than 11 trillion more than the entire world GDP.
We can't pay it. We have been defrauded. We have been lied to. But, in a way, we deserve it. We keep sending the same thieves and con men back to Washington.
The financial system cannot sustain this.
Let me put it another way-- could your personal finances sustain a debt that was so large you couldn't even pay the interest on?
No, you couldn't. You or I would be bankrupt.
The governments only desperate hope is to print money. A lot of money. Enough money to devalue the dollar to a level that they could pay the debt. Unfortunately, every country that has EVER done this has collapsed. It's called hyperinflation caused by:
The main cause of hyperinflation is a massive and rapid increase in the amount of money, which is not supported by growth in the output of goods and services. This results in an imbalance between the supply and demand for the money (including currency and bank deposits), accompanied by a complete loss of confidence in the money, similar to a bank run. Enactment of legal tender laws and price controls to prevent discounting the value of paper money relative to gold, silver, hard currency, or commodities, fails to force acceptance of a paper money which lacks intrinsic value. If the entity responsible for printing a currency promotes excessive money printing, with other factors contributing a reinforcing effect, hyperinflation usually continues. Often the body responsible for printing the currency cannot physically print paper currency faster than the rate at which it is devaluing, thus neutralizing their attempts to stimulate the economy......
As it allows a government to devalue their spending and displace (or avoid) a tax increase, governments have sometimes resorted to excessively loose monetary policy to meet their expenses. Inflation is considered by some another tax on citizens but less overt and is therefore harder to understand by ordinary citizens. Inflation can obscure quantitative assessments of the true cost of living, as published price indices only look at data in retrospect, so may increase only months or years later. Monetary inflation can become hyperinflation if monetary authorities fail to fund increasing government expenses from taxes, government debt, cost cutting, or by other means, because:
- (1) during the time between recording or levying taxable transactions and collecting the taxes due, the value of the taxes collected falls in real value to a small fraction of the original taxes receivable;
- (2) government debt issues fail to find buyers except at very deep discounts
Our government has all but admitted that this is their plan. They want us to believe they are wise enough to dump literally trillions of worthless dollars into the economy, and then pull them out before the cycle spirals out of control.
This, from the same idiots who can't run a "Cash for Clunkers" program. The same idiots who can't run the post office in the black, the same idiots who plundered Social Security and bankrupted Medicare with feel good, fiscally unsound plans.
That is the people who have the prints churning out printed money as fast as they can.
I maintain that nothing gets better until the greedy powerful short sighted idiots in government and business are out. I doubt a single one willingly gives up that power. Not unless they are forced to.
