USA or Zimbabwe?

From Dr. Martin A. Weiss at Uncommon Wisdom:

FACT #1: The official national debt now stands at $12.68 trillion — an amount equal to about 88.5% of all the goods and services our economy produces in an entire year.

FACT #2: Contingent obligations for Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, veterans, and pensions now stand at an additional $108 trillion over and above the "official" national debt.

FACT #3: State, county and local governments are nearly $3 trillion in debt. Many can't pay and will ultimately demand that Washington assume responsibility for that debt as well.

FACT #4: Total federal, state and local government indebtedness now stands at a mind-blowing $123.6 trillion.

FACT #5: Last year, Washington added $1.4 trillion to the debt. In this fiscal year, the Obama administration will add another $1.6 trillion!

FACT #6: In addition to funding the current trillion-dollar-plus deficits, the U.S. Treasury must borrow MORE each year to replace bills, notes and bonds that are maturing.

FACT #7: This record-shattering borrowing by the Treasury has resulted in a Mt. Everest of Treasury obligations being dumped onto the market, which naturally depresses bond prices and drives interest rates higher.

FACT #8: In a desperate attempt to keep interest rates low, the Bernanke Federal Reserve has created $1.25 trillion out of thin air to buy mortgage-backed securities ... another $300 billion to buy U.S. Treasuries ... and yet another $170.6 billion to buy other government bonds — a total of nearly $1.7 trillion in all.

FACT #9: From September 10, 2008 to March 10 of this year, Bernanke increased the nation's monetary base from $850 billion to $2.1 trillion — a 250% increase in just 18 months.

FACT #10: Despite this massive money-printing, the yield on the benchmark 10-year Treasury note has STILL risen by more than one-fifth — from 3.2% to 3.86% — since December.

FACT #11: Because of this massive money-printing, the U.S. dollar has lost nearly 10% of its value in the past 12 months alone.

The Clowns in Washington have to STOP THE SPENDING!

Give Bunning A Gold Medal

He deserves one for trying to bring a little bit of honesty and common sense to the Senate floor by opposing a bill to extend government benefits without showing where in the current budget the money would come from, meaning it will expand our current debt. The opposition stepped up their personal attacks and resorted to bomb threats at his office in Kentucky before he relented and quit his one man campaign to stop the spending and obey the Pay Go law passed just two weeks ago. Of course the media attackers painted him as someone who hated the poor unemployed instead of examining the policies that put so many people on unemployment for such a long time.

Although his stand appeals to the public and would have garnered additional voters for the Republican party, the entrenched RINO's in the Senate refused to voice any support for his principled stand. In the end, only 18 others voted with him:
Alexander, TN
Barrasso. WY
Bennett, UT
Burr, NC
Coburn, OK
Corker, TN
Cornyn, TX
Crapo, ID
DeMint, SC
Ensign, NV
Enzi, WY
Gregg, NH
Hatch, UT
Johanns, NE
McConnell, KY
Risch, ID
Sessions, AL
Thune, SD

This is not the first time Bunning has stood for sanity: a)In 2008, he was the lone dissenter in the massive mortgage bill, b)he voted against TARP, c)he has severely questioned Ben Bernanke when other committee members rolled over like eager puppies, d) he voted against the massive bailout for the UAW and GM, and e) he voted against the GIVE/SERVE program that wastes money and inhibits personal freedom.

I'm just sorry that he plans to retire, although I don't blame him.

Defeat the Debt

Defeat the Debt is a website all Americans should bookmark. Among other things, there one learns:
* one million seconds will pass in 12 days
* one billion seconds will pass in 32 years
* one trillion seconds will pass in 31,688 years

No wonder Obama quietly, almost secretively, signed the bill that raised the US debt limit to $14,300,000,000. He did it late on a Friday afternoon before a holiday weekend. At one dollar per second, it will take us 453,138.4 years to pay off just the principal. Then there's the interest to factor in.