Bush to Addresses Economic Anxiety – Sprains Finger of Blame

In a startling show of his lack of either his understanding of the situation, or general honesty, President Bush today blasted Congress for not doing enough to address Americans’ financial fears.

Unbelievable. But perfectly in line with our leaders’ weak grasp of the situation.

Okay, for the slow learners in the back of the room (who invariably get picked to run things), here are our economic problems in a nutshell:

1. The Government of the United States is bankrupt. I’m not talking morally here (though that’s debatable), I mean economically bankrupt. Read John Williams’ Shadow Government Statistics. Williams’ calculations (which in my opinion are well-founded and more legitimate than those our government gives us) show that the U.S. is in debt to the tune of $62.7 trillion dollars. That’s impossible to pay back. According to Williams, if taxes were raised to 100%, the government still couldn’t meet its obligations. The U.S. is broke.

2. The Government of the United States is trying to keep everything running by pumping trillions of dollars into the system, and since our currency is a fiat currency, one that isn’t backed by gold or any other standard, that means every new dollar introduced into the system dilutes the value of every dollar already in circulation. That’s why inflation is running rampant (Williams says the true rate is 11%). As our leaders pump more and more liquidity into the market, the U.S. Dollar will become worth less and less. This cycle will increase in rate, becoming hyperinflation. It’s happened before, and will most certainly happen to us, unless things change.

3. The farm subsidy system has created enormous problems. We pay farmers not to plant certain crops, and we’ve wasted huge amounts of production capacity in corn and maize by trying to grow these commodities for use as biofuels. It’s a ridiculous pipedream that in the end will do nothing but put a tiny amount of fuel into the system at the cost of the starvation of many, many people around the world, and huge increases in the price of food that uses corn in the production cycle (meat, for instance).

Bush can talk all he wants and point fingers of blame in every direction, but unless the U.S. Government takes dramatic steps to protect the value of our currency by stopping the printing presses, and cutting the expenses of resource-draining foreign wars and failed nation-building, our economy will be buried sooner, rather than later.

Posted in Economy