100% sound advice
It has been said that our government gives us 100% sound advice. I would suggest that it’s 95% sound and 5% advice.
We are seeing what I call government’s version of musical chairs. In musical chairs, the object of the game is to be the one sitting down in the remaining chair when the music stops. Our government’s version is not to be caught sitting down when the music stops. Why? Because that individual will be the person history blames for the downfall.
How does Washington work? You start by being elected as a high paid congressperson, or appointed as a political appointee. Then you start lining up your “consulting” jobs and board seats when you leave office. Those consulting jobs are with companies you’ve sent billions of dollars to. One hand washes the other.
You quit, or in the very unlikely event you get voted out, collect your fat pension and go on to the high paying “consulting” jobs and laugh, over cocktails, at the public struggling to make ends meet.
It’s a stab in the back for America.
When Ben Bernanke, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank announced that the Fed would continue to create money out of thin air quantitative easing at about the current $1 trillion a year level, the stock market loved it.
What wasn’t reported is that the U.S. dollar collapsed.
I follow the value of the Euro and other currencies every day. The Euro’s trading range is from 1.30~ 1.33, that means 1 Euro costs about ~$1.31. After the announcement, it jumped to over 1.35! You may not think that means a lot, but in the currency market it’s huge.
Professional currency traders are very smart people. While the public saw continued low interest rates, the traders saw a disaster. What does it mean? It means that smart money thinks that our U.S. dollar is doomed. I think that they are correct, unless we rein in the spending.
The same happened with the Australian dollar. Australia didn’t have a recession over the last five years. Why?
Because they prostituted their natural resources, iron ore and coal, to China. China slowed down its purchases so Australia is reeling and its currency, the Australian dollar, collapsed. It was trading at U.S. $1.05 to one Australian dollar. It dropped so that U.S. 90 cents would buy one Australian dollar, and after the Fed’s announcement it soared to 95 cents!
The same goes for the British Pound –
Within a few weeks, Congress will be asked to raise the debt ceiling as our government’s credit limit will be reached and it won’t be able to squander more public money. Why? Because our government doesn’t know the meaning of cutting back. The Sequester was a joke, just slowing down the rate of growth, not cutting back. The Republicans and Tea Party subset will threaten to vote no. They won’t; that’s more sound from the “sound advice.” Why?
Because they are more interested in keeping their jobs, as there will be a possibility that the public will blame them for shutting down the government. It won’t actually shut down or our debts stop being paid, but that’s the scare talk from the Democrats.
So after some posturing, the debt ceiling will be increased and we will be another step closer to the edge of the abyss.
Our government needs an intervention. It has become a spending addict. In the same way that heroin users need more and more drugs just for the same sense of euphoria, or only to avoid the withdrawal symptoms to get by, our government lives to spend borrowed money.
It needs to spend more and more, more expensive wars that we continue to lose, more benefit programs to buy votes, more entitlements, more stupid laws costing taxpayers trillions and so on.
It must stop. Vote for me, and I’ll work to stop the madness.
