We're All Socialists Now? How did that happen?

Does this seem to have happened overnight? Go to bed one evening a proud but poor American, wake up in the morning a proud American but part owner of some banks and a couple of car companies? Don't get too excited. I doubt that you'll be able to cash in on any profits. You will, however, get to share in their debt. Where have all the trillions of dollars that the government loaned in the last nine months gone? How does a government already seven trillion dollars in debt loan another three trillion dollars (that is just the debt that they show on the books)? How much is a trillion dollars? I remember when a billion was the huge number that people could not get there mind around. A trillion is nine hundred ninety-nine billion plus one billion. Another way to demonstrate how much a trillion is would be to lay thousand dollar bills one on top of another. In order to reach a trillion, the stack would be sixty-seven miles high. OK, we have a lot of people to spread that trillion around, so if we divide three hundred million into ten trillion you get...lets see...thirty-three thousand three hundred thirty-three dollars and thirty-three cents. That's not so bad (if some one wants to check my math I would be grateful). So what did you get for your thirty-three thousand? Bear in mind this does not include the unfunded liability (money that has not been spent but is already promised).



No one has ever spent their way out of debt. It just seems counter intuitive. How would you personally get out of debt? I try to work my way out of debt by tightening my purse strings (figuratively, I don't actually have a purse) and pay off my debt as soon as possible. And yet, we have in office people who tell us that we need to spend more. President Obama was asked the other day when the country would be out of money. His response was that we are already out of money. I nearly choked on my dinner when I heard that. What? We're out of money? Really? When did this happen? The truth is, we have been running huge deficits for years and as long as someone buys our debt, we are able to get by. Country's who have bought our debt for a long time are no longer buying as much (China, our biggest lender, is now only buying short term bonds). The Federal Reserve Bank is now buying our debt. I know that the Fed is supposed to be a private institution but its ties to the federal government are undeniable. An example of what is going on with the Fed buying our debt would be if you were to buy up your kid's Monopoly money and then go shopping. Monopoly is a great game but your grocer is not going to sell you Diet Dr. Pepper for Monopoly money.



Why do supposedly smart people put our country in this peril? The problem starts with the motivation of those in elected office. It is not that they don't listen to their constituents, it's that they listen to an uneducated constituency. A constituency that looks to the federal government to solve life's ills and inequalities. It is a belief system that is shared with the majority of the people in federal office in one form or another, including most of the remaining Republicans. This need to throw money at problems without trying to gage unintended consequences has been a problem since the founding of our country. It has been a balancing act since the days of Jefferson and Hamilton (the two of them had distinct differences on how to run our government ). When congress declares a crisis and rushes to get legislation passed, you can almost count on said legislation being bad, loaded with unintended consequences. Congress was designed to be a deliberative body who's function is more in line with preventing bad law then passing quick law.



There is the possibility that this race to spend so much money is a deliberate act to collapse the government so that a new governing body could arise from the ashes; one that would attempt to be a utopia and that would address so called "social injustices". This is a vision that I have heard was set forth by the founders of ACORN. President Barack Obama was a lawyer for ACORN. The Glenn Beck Show (radio and TV), as well as Bill O'Rielly have been investigating ACORN. It will be interesting to see where this investigation leads.



What is written above and in other posts on my blog are my take on current events, If the three of you out there who read this have differing opinions or something to add to mine, I would love to hear it.