Our Economic World is Shakier Than We’ve Been Told

 

The mainstream media, especially the European Media, are all the news all the time covering the Greek economic meltdown. Some of the more honest media has also included the crises that could be soon to topple as if dominoes all in a row of which Greece is but the first domino to be tripped to fall and they have shown how Spain and Portugal would be precariously hanging and soon toppled partly as a result of Greece’s defaulting though it might be likely they would have fallen eventually all on their own. These would trigger a crisis in Ireland and Italy as to which would be the fourth victim and which would follow as the fifth victim signaling the end of the most endangered Eurozone nations too close to default to be comforting. The real horrific effect of these five weaker economies finally tripping the default cable and snagging the economic webbing, which has held the European Union and the Euro together since 1999, doing irreparable damage to the delicate webbing, more fragile than the most slightly laced spider’s web, tearing enormous holes in its intricate weaves slashing at the most vital threads and upsetting the ever so precarious balance that underlies its supporting structures threatening to unbalance and collapse even the previously though stable economies of France, Poland and many of the other east European economies possibly pushing them right to the cliff-face and potentially tipping them beyond the cusp and into default thus lacerating the last remnants of the Eurozone and possibly taking with them Germany and the ECB (European Central Bank) causing unimaginable damage to the financial structure of Europe and beyond, the ripple effect causing a second deep recession well more serious and taking longer to tank-out and hit bottom and then begin a long sluggish scent clawing for every single Red Cent and Dollar and Euro after having taken its toll on Asia and beyond. But the Euro, Greece, and the rest of the European Union and the Eurozone is but one whirlpool looking to sink every last economic boat.

 

The Euro is what we have been led to believe is the only threat. Where previously economic ships only had to worry about rising and falling tides, now they are adrift and facing not just one whirlpool representing the Euro dying, but now there is a second even more massive whirlpool coming from deep within Asia. China has hit the road’s end and is attempting to push its enormous mountain of debt using a garden trowel while piling on fresh debt using Caterpillar 990K series front end loader shoveling an additional $19.3 billion in an effort to end their three week slide totaling $3.2 trillion downturn in the past three weeks alone. These losses were the result of a Chinese Stock Market where as many as two-thirds of the stocks were frozen in a further attempt to stem the torrents of dollars flowing from their stock market and their economy like the icy waters which flooded the lower decks of the Titanic as she slowly but inexorably fell beneath the waves, something somewhat prophetic for the Chinese markets and economy. There is actually a comparison between the situation in Greece and the downturn in China as one must remember that Greece is as socialist as a nation can be without being either fascist or Communist and Greece has retained their spirit of a democratic Parliamentary system despite it all but China has taken socialism that one final step to communism, the addition of mostly state owned corporations and central planning of the economic engines and manufacturing. Chinese leaders had been attempting to liberalize their economic sectors, though not all of them, selling a number of previously State run businesses and even permitted competition between companies in the same market hoping this would charge their economy further and it had been working but even free-market economic liberalization was unable to stave off this meltdown. The problem obviously is what will this mean for the liberalization of the Chinese economy as the leadership are still Communists who serve the Party and depend on the Party, may decide that much of their financial woes are the result of these new policies and curtail or even reverse some or all of the liberalized companies, markets and take a giant leap backwards to increased government control over every iota of the economy and the manufacturing and sales etc.

 

United States Treasury Secretary Jack Lew commented Wednesday on the current crisis in China stating at the Brookings Institution, that the economies of the United States and China are “still pretty much separated.” In further testimony Secretary Lew queried, “I think the concern … it is a real one … is what does it mean about long term growth in China?” Further in his speech he pointed to the main potential impacts which could emerge as a result to the Chinese Stock Market bleeding financially leaving the leadership seeing ‘Red’ in more ways than one. The leading question is to figure out as soon as possible what the reaction of the leaders of the Communist Party is and whether they may decide that the problem dictates such as appointing new leadership, freezing prices, injecting even more dollars into the markets through the banks and state owned businesses or closing the banks and Stock Market for a week or two cool down and reset to normalcy again; the choices and potential marrying of any two or three makes predictions near to impossible. The one thing which can be computed and predicted as long as the numbers being released and any steps taken are done so in plain view then the impact of the Stock Market freefall on the Chinese economy’s core condition and whether it appears that it will have much elasticity and dynamics when the end is finally reached and the rollercoaster slides on in to the station signaling the end of the ride, and what a ride it was with vigorous growth only to drop who knows how large a percentage of that growth in this correction, and what a correction. Secretary Lew’s closing thoughts are worthy of being repeated as he emphasized, “The question isn’t their commitment to the goal; the question is the pace at which they implemented it, and do they do it fast enough for it to be effective. I hope this is not something that slows down the pace of reform. If the reaction is to put the brakes on reforms, that will slow that process.”

 

With China making a long overdue correction which will be far more severe than it should or could have been if the leadership was not so intent on what numbers they released to the world and on making their predicted economic increase and meet all targets set within the government as to fail was unthinkable and would have been a terrible loss of face thus undermining faith in the economy. This has caused the Chinese to follow the example first used by President George W. Bush and turbocharged by President Barack Hussein Obama which was in the old school simply called a ‘stimulus package’ but is now known by a more enigmatic phrase of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ either of which hides the actual result and method being implemented as who would stand for the government announcing they were devaluing the money supply and taxing every single American by a minimum percentage directly proportional to the percentage increase the total added funding was doled out in stacks of hundred dollar bills, literally thousands of such stacks in the United States and unknown amounts though what is known is the Chinese leadership pumped close to twice the percentage of GDP as did the United States. Just as the United States took their hit starting back in late 2008 and continuing through 2011 and briefly relieved with another round of ‘Quantitative Easing,’ this was like the third pitcher of beer at a table trying to drink their way sober. The economic burst from that mid and late 2011 ‘Quantitative Easing’ gave the economy a burst of hope which appeared to continue due to lowered interest rates and the paring down and mostly neutering of the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform Act gave the economy the needed push for President Obama’s reelection as he could run his campaign claiming to have turned the economy around and that great times lie ahead. Well, as far as that goes I’ll point to Greece and China and point out that the United States has followed similar patterns of fueling the economy and especially the Stock Market with borrowed monies and when loans were unavailable the Federal Reserve would electronically buy Treasury Bonds with funds they imagined into existence as a few strokes on a Federal Reserve keyboard and one produces and completed sale with funny money in that the receipt for the Treasury Bonds was used to balance the books as it represented the electronically derived cash used. This is a very convenient way to purchase items this way when you are the government or a very clever fraudster as just try using the sales slip from one register, say men’s clothing from a department store as cash at the Jewelry Counter and see how far that takes you. The catch, and there is always a catch, to ‘Quantitative Easing’ is that eventually you either have to pay back the money that was invented which can only be done some combination of these three methods, first is retire actual money from circulation which can also be done electronically by retiring any electronic payment made on credit cards, second is to remove the funds through higher taxes taking the money directly from the supply, and lastly one could raise the interest rates and siphon off a percentage of each loan to pay the Piper so to speak. The problem is that each of these methods actually hurt the consumer the most; it is the public that pays the price for the economic and financial misdeeds and ill-advised policies.

 

There are but a few redeeming features out of all of this and one serious and potentially unavoidable problem, and it is a big one. So, we will leave the bad news for last and the good news which will cause doom’s day to come and come quickly first. The best of news is that the meltdown in China is most likely to be relatively unfelt even amongst their Asian markets as China does not purchase many goods from outside and the few major needs she has will continue even if slightly abated, things essential like coal and petroleum. Further, the only nation carrying a trade deficit of any note is the United States and even should quotas be placed on any goods currently purchased from China will very likely have ten other sources with some popping up due to China cutting production. The European crisis is more likely to hit the United States harder than anything else on the economic horizon. Should the Eurozone break apart due to the collapse of several of their nations having financial difficulties and teetering at the edge of financial Armageddon plus one, Greece, which has in all honesty gone beyond the cusp and is currently running with his feet well away from solid ground just hanging there for that brief Wiley Coyote moment before collapsing into the darkness below only to make a small puff of dust rising depicting his hitting bottom. Even should the entire Eurozone collapse it may actually serve to keep a lid on inflation and allow for low interests rates, a necessity for the United States. That brings us back to the one thing that at first everyone would be glad to see, a real recovery with rising workforce participation which in the United States is down to approximately 63%, one of the lowest figures since the mid-1970s. This would also bring jobs, especially higher end job market opening up once again which would allow for a ripple effect. As the overqualified people working at menial or minimum wage jobs would leave those as jobs in their field became available and they gain employment thus making room for these other positions to employ more of the nations’ work force and soon inflation will return, something there has been no worry about as even the few months where such measurements showed a possibility for inflation to develop only for indicators to slide back the next couple of months with it often seeming like one big step forward and all promise breaking out only to be followed by three or four months of small to moderate steps backwards and everything gained to be lost and often more. When inflation does finally return for real then there will be a really bad situation. Once inflation starts to threaten then the interest rates will rise as a counter to inflation. Rising inflation takes a bigger bite out of people’s pockets all but actual theft. Inflation also helps with making the national debt somewhat more manageable by deflating the value of the currency taking the currency to new lows and the lessening to of the value of the debt and the purchasing power of that coinage. This was where Greece and the other nations in the Eurozone faced; they no longer had control over their coinage, their monetary worth so they were unable to simply lessen the value in order to get a handle on their debts and also make their nation more attractive to investors and new businesses. Perhaps leaving the Eurozone for a set period of possibly not less than two years and no longer than a decade or quarter century at which point they can reapply at the short end or must face a permanent decision at the longer end. Granted, this will possibly make some nations more reckless but the consequence is the only alternative to having the Eurozone nations turn their entire control of monetary and fiscal planning over to Brussels, they already control the monetary which is part of the problem, and most nations will refuse to be relieved of the power of the purse even if they are no longer able to control the coinage of said purse. Perhaps even a rotating schedule where every nation has to spend a decade using their own coinage would be another compromise. Until the Eurozone finds the answer they will be facing little impossible challenges as is Greece right now and others down the line. Let’s just hope their mistakes don’t become global economic-mines blowing the world markets haywire.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

The Hate Israel Anti-Semites Boycott Israel Club

 

We all have read about the supposed evils of Israel because the media lists them almost daily. We have the leader of the musicians recently gathering the signatures of numerous British artists all swearing they will never play a concert in Israel simply because Roger Waters says Israel is hateful. How Mr. Waters knows this is beyond any first hand evidence, he just woke up one morning and joined the well-financed and well-organized boycott Israel club. He never bothered to verify any of the charges against Israel, he simply bought the propaganda that Israel hates the Arabs and refuses to allow them to vote. He took the bait that the Arabs living under the semi-autonomous self-rule in areas of Judea, Samaria and Gaza are not permitted to vote in Israeli elections. That is absolutely true, as is the fact that Israelis are not permitted to vote in elections for the Palestinian Arab Authority. Oddly enough, Israeli Arabs are not permitted to vote in Palestinian Arab Authority elections so should Mr. Waters also protest the Palestinian Arab Authority, who refuses to allow Israeli Arabs from voting in their elections, making them just as guilty of Apartheid. Perhaps we need to find some example closer to home for Mr. Waters and see if perhaps he can become enlightened.

 

We can use the United Kingdom where there are various semi-autonomous nation states of England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. Each of these four nation states has their own governing boards and other functions which are elected from within their regions. A citizen of Northern Ireland cannot vote in Scotland and a citizen from Scotland cannot vote in Wales and so forth. Does this make each of the nations which make up the United Kingdom apartheid states because they have independent elections within each nation? We have all read that Scotland held a recent vote to remove themselves once again from under the British Crown and return to complete independence. They did not decide to do so in a close election which very well may have hinged on the threats coming from others within the United Kingdom and some of the scare tactics coming from London could have been interpreted as threats against the Scottish should they decide to return to being independent. Does this mean that the rest of the United Kingdom is using their vast influence and power to intimidate the Scottish from complete independence thus acting in a manner of racial hate towards the Scottish for their self-identity as a separate peoples? This could be twisted to show all kinds of reasons to boycott goods, academics and musicians from playing anywhere within the United Kingdom outside of Scotland with whom we the citizens of the world feel a need to unify behind in their quest to return to independence from under the colonial power of the United Kingdom and its British colonial oppressive tactics to continue their rule over what is left of their once mighty empire upon which they used to brag that the sun never set on all of the British Empire. The mighty may have fallen but they still rule with complete control and arrogance from London. After all, did the United Kingdom allow Mr. Waters to vote in the Scottish vote for independence, of course not?

 

A similar example could be made for the separate nations within the European Union who each elect their own governments which in turn make their own policies as long as they do not interfere with each other’s internal affairs. As part of the European Union each nation must accept the Euro coinage for payment of goods making travel between the several nations of the European Union much easier. This facilitates the freedom of movement within the European Union as there are no requirements for passport and visas to travel and the Euro is universally accepted. But then there are the British with their Pound Sterling which the Iron Lady former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher refused to give up and replace with the Euro. I believe her argument was that the British were better served to be in charge of their own monetary policies and their economic and other independent actions required Britain not to accept the Euro as the coin of the Realm. Could this British self-glorification, self-admiration and stubborn egoism not bring upon them the wrath of the rest of the European Union? Currently there are a few little budgetary and economic troubles within the European union of which this British elitism prevents the British Isles from being fully able and responsible to aid Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal and other struggling nations leaving the burden to be pressed almost entirely on Germany with some lesser assistance from France and others, but the British remain outside the ill effects of this on the Euro as the British refuse to surrender the coin of the Realm, probably one of the most egregious symbols of British colonialism and conquest which spread the world over, the Pound Sterling. Perhaps the rest of the European Union should demand that the British give up their separate and unequal currency and accept the Euro completely and without any further reservations thus truly incorporating themselves within the European Union, after all that English Channel no longer separated you from the rest of Europe, there is the Chunnel connecting you directly to France and the Continent. If the British would just use the Euro it would better enable the European Union in assisting those members in need of a hand up which the Euro is supposed to supply.

 

Needless to point out, but the Lady Thatcher was dead on correct to not place Britain into the European cauldron of troubles by acceding to use the Euro and instead to remain in direct control of the coinage of the Realm and to be economically self-dependent and self-reliant using the Pound Sterling. Yes, I realize it is actually referred to a simply the Pound or ₤. The entire disaster which is the Euro derives from exactly the argument that Lady Thatcher made in her argument to retain the Pound and simply accept the Euro at its rate against the Pound at the time of the transaction. The threats that by retaining the Pound the British would be forever forced to check the going exchange rates of the Euro against the Pound or the € against the ₤. She flat stated, and was pilloried for it, that the Euro was untenable as long as each nation retained their ability to set their own economic policies, their own productivity targets and just about anything linked to their economy, work force policies, guaranteed employee benefits or anything else which would affect their use of the Euro. The sole manner that would make the Euro truly the coinage of the European Union would be a central planner who was responsible for setting all rules of the entirety of the European Union pertaining to the economy in any fashion, form or obligations. Every country would need to require their employees to have identical work weeks, vacation and sick leave, salary structure and economic targets. This would require the European Union to merge virtually every government function into the central authority of the European Union and it was this eventuality which the Lady Thatcher wished most to avoid.

 

So, do we now boycott all of the European Union who are insisting that the government of Greece accept to having their economic and other policies dictated to them from Brussels or possible Berlin as these are the origins of the Euros being loaned to Greece to keep the nation solvent and from economic collapse as their economic engines do not achieve a similar RPMs (Real Productivity per Man-hour) to the German and other economic engines within the European Union. Thus, because the Greeks use the Euro their government is being persuaded to adopt austerity measures which the people are so reluctant to implement after experiencing such restriction that they elected a government which will return them to their former economic policies and should the European Union object or demand further austerity measures, they promise a return to the Drachma, the ₯, the original Greek coinage which is one of the oldest coins in all of Europe and the world. Sitting on the cusp and watching as Greece is the first to actually fall beyond the cusp and become insolvent solely due to using the Euro and thus not being allowed to set their own monetary value which would better represent the economic productivity of Greece instead of accepting the Euro whose unified monetary policy in nonexistent and instead attempts to straddle an all inclusive area, an area which Greece did not quite attain, nor did Spain, Italy, Portugal and others potentially even France. So, Roger Waters, tell me, who do we protest by boycott now, Greece or Germany and Britain? Somebody is forcing the Greek governance how to write their economic policy and how to set their pension plans and everything else and the Greek people are refusing to elect any government which will bow to the central planners in Brussels. Who are the bad guys so I know whether to purchase a German vehicle, a French vehicle, an Italian vehicle (my first choice), or a Greek vehicle?

 

I figure who else should I ask other than Roger Waters who claims to be such an authority on who is acceptable amongst the nations of the world, so where do I spend my money, who do you approve as I would hate to get any bad social media attention because I did not do my civic duty and check to see if my purchases pass Roger Waters’s approved list of nations which qualify as politically acceptable. I mean, after all, with all the tours with Pink Floyd he must have full and first-hand knowledge which nations are kosher, if I can use that term or is it also too Israeli or too Jewish, please let me know on that one too while we are at it. What other words might be too supportive of the only nation thus far worldwide you have decided deserves our ire, which is correct Mr. Waters, just Israel deserves out boycott. Just to make sure, Russia is fine or the Ukraine, which one is righteous among the nations as judged by Roger Waters? Then do we not purchase anything made in China until they end their occupation of Tibet where they have also forced many Tibetans to be relocated in other far removed provinces and have replaced these native Tibetans with Chinese people who were mostly homeless and extremely poor and were bussed into Tibet and given the homes of the Tibetans who had been forced to leave. So, what about China and their subjugation of Tibet, a nation which never in recent history attacked or even bothered anybody but China just swallowed up Tibet. So, boycott China as well or just Israel Mr. Waters? What about the United States which swallowed up all of the Native American nations, do we demand that the United States return all the lands they did not legally purchase to their original Native American nations or just boycott Israel? What about Iran which sponsors the most terrorist actions and groups worldwide or Saudi Arabia which denies women of equality before the law or in society, or Australia which still has not returned the lands to the Aborigines from whom they stole it by force, or just Israel, which Mr. Waters?

 

Perhaps you should visit Israel and look around. You would be amazed as you would find a nation that is as free of racial afflictions as any I have ever witnessed. Israel, who went to rescue the Jews in Ethiopia who were being herded into a camp, you know what a camp means when you herd the Jews there, right Mr. Waters? They have arranged to bring the Bnei Menashe from India home as they are also of the house of Jacob. Many of the tribes who were scattered throughout the globe are being brought home to Eretz Yisroel. Not all were oppressed at this time but all have faced desperate periods where they were set upon by the other native populations, expelled from their homes and businesses, murdered outright, pogroms, made to pay an additional tax because they were Jews, and worst of, mass slaughter. Mr. Waters, the Jewish People are perhaps the most persecuted race of all time. When Israel was formed she received numerous Jews from Europe, as you are aware. Did you realize that they were prevented from simply coming to live in Israel by the British because the British had signed an agreement with the Arabs to never allow the Jews to become of a sufficient number as to be capable of forming a nation. Once Israel was barely recognized by a very tight vote in the United Nations, the Arab nations evicted approximately 850,000 Jews often with just one suitcase per family member and some with even less. Many Jews around the Arab world and across Europe were dispossessed of their homes and often Jews who survived the Nazi camps returned to their former homes only to find another family residing there, and their former neighbors joining together to force them out of their hamlet or village and then when they attempted to make their way to Israel they were prevented and placed in camps. Some Jews were taken from one Nazi concentration camp and when there was little room in the camps on Cyprus, they were shipped to Germany and placed back into one of the Nazi concentration camps. Read the story about the ship the St. Louis Mr. Waters and tell me who were persecuted. There were many Jews, millions of them, who had an even bigger problem than British making their return to Zion near impossible, these Jews found themselves behind the Iron Curtain, as Winston Churchill referred to Soviet domination. Many face years in the gulags simply for wanting to go to Israel, some just because they were a Jew and their loving neighbors complained to the authorities that they were unpatriotic and not a real member of the society and needed special treatment. Do you understand special treatment Mr. Waters?

 

On another note, did you know that Arabs serve in the Israeli Knesset Mr. Waters? Did you know that Arab Israelis do vote in Israel as do Druze and Bedouins as well as Christians, Buddhists, and every other religion which an Israeli may practice? There has been an Arab who sat and I believe one currently sitting on the bench of the Supreme Court of Israel. Arab doctors and nurses work side-by-side with Jews as both are Israeli citizens and fully incorporated in Israeli society and we would not have it any different way. Look around the Muslim controlled world and tell me how many of these nations allow Jews equal rights? Are there more than four or five out of the fifty-seven Muslim nations Mr. Waters? Why do people seeking a job and a better way of life who leave places such as Somalia, South Sudan, Eretria and others walk through numerous nations and cross Egypt which might simply shoot them on the spot if they were caught and across the Sinai Peninsula which is fraught with danger from terrorist gangs and still the increased possibility to be seen and shot by Egyptian border guards and finally make it to Israel. These are not political refugees but people seeking employment who are in Israel illegally and will end up returned to their homelands as soon as it is possible, but why would they come to Israel if it were such a horrid place as you claim it is? You probably know nothing about Israel. You probably believe the security fence which is over three-quarters fence and the rest wall usually within urban areas, and you call it an Apartheid Wall. Before that fencing was put in place it was impossible to prevent terrorists from entering Israel and thousands of Israelis were blown up simply living their lives, riding buses, eating in a pizzeria, shopping in a mall or just about anything else you could imagine. One such incident was the Passover Bombing of the Park Hotel Seder where a Hamas assassination bomber exploded its bomb murdering thirty mostly elderly Jews who had no family with whom to share their Passover Seder so they joined each other for this potentially joyous occasion turned tragedy. There were an additional almost 150 severely injured and amongst the victims were numerous Holocaust (Shoah) survivors. This was the sort of action the fence was erected to prevent and it was a total success as it decreased bombings and other terrorist acts significantly within the Green Line, the false armistice line which you mistakenly claim is the end of the lands granted Israel and the Jews by international law. Regarding that, simply read the notes from the San Remo Conference for the truth. As to the original claim to the lands of Israel, allow me to direct you to a book you know about but likely believe it is just a bunch of fairy tales, the book is called the Old Testament, and to make it simple so as not to tax you too much, just read Genesis and Exodus and if you still have questions, read Deuteronomy. Within you might see a few promises made and as was the way of the times, yes, we took the land by force, much like Egypt, Greece, Rome, Persia, Babylonia, the Mongols and the Arabs have done since. And just so you do not get confused, the Canaanites were not the Arabs who are claiming their ancestral origins to have been, their ancestral origins were from Saudi Arabia and Yemen of today, not anywhere near the Jordan River and Mediterranean Sea. Then, Mr. Waters, visit Israel and even go to Ramallah and witness that there is an Arab Palestinian Authority government there, the government the Arabs do vote for, providing Mahmoud Abbas ever allows elections, elections which he has postponed since 2006 for his position and for the Parliament he has, they were not all elected, some were appointed and others reside in Gaza which is mostly controlled by Hamas and Abbas is pretty much unwelcomed there. These feuds have nothing at all to do with Israel other than the fact that both Fatah and Hamas as well as Islamic Jihad and the rest of the alphabet terror entities desire all of Israel destroyed and every Jew dead, which is where they claim separate ideas, Fatah just wants the Israeli Jews dead for now, Hamas and friends want every Jew dead worldwide. There is your truth Mr. Waters.

 

Beyond the Cusp

 

What Happens when the Party Ends?

The signs are all around that the party is beginning to wind down and the end is near. The music has slowed and the volume has been lowered, the lights are slowly being brought back to full illumination and the satellite bars have closed. Soon everybody will wander out into the parking lot and realize that while they were partying like it was the middle of the summer, outside it is cold and a blizzard has hit town. The party I am talking about is this false realm we are living in where everything is sunshine and we act like there is no storm brewing just outside the door. We have our fancy hats on and celebrate the low inflation and interest rates at such a level that borrowing is virtually free; and borrow we have. We have borrowed in about every manner that is conceivable to record levels. The National Debt in the United States is at levels never even imagined possible a mere decade ago and much of Europe has reached similar levels though they have been building their debt steadily while the United States seems to have caught up and passed them almost overnight. Personal debt in the Western World is at unprecedented levels and student loan debt is being touted as very likely the next overly inflated bubble to burst taking many banks down with it. This is the real reason that the government has taken over the student loan industry, they can force the payment for this unfunded, collateral free indebtedness onto the American taxpayer when the defaults hit the fan. Add to all of this that many cities, counties and states are at debt levels that they are unable to contain and even keep up on paying the interest. All of this debt is being managed solely because the interest rates have been held down by false pretenses mostly because if it were allowed to rise even slightly the entire house of credit cards would come a tumbling down around our ears. The music slows and sounds even more distant and the lights are coming back on.

Currently the interest rate on much of the national debt is below 2%, much is actually at 1%. We can afford our debt at this level, but even at this bargain rate it takes all we can just to keep up with the interest payments. Eventually there is going to be a real economic recovery. A good thing, right? Well, not entirely. When the recovery takes hold in earnest and that causes prices to start to climb, that is when the Federal Reserve, actually a group of unnamed bankers who have little or nothing to do with the government except they can sway elections with their policies, will have to address the inflationary tendencies. The normal way to nip inflation in the bud is to raise interest rates at the first signs which will act to keep the lid on and force a slower rate of increases in prices as credit becomes more expensive. The reason the inflation is guaranteed to come as soon as a real and true recovery starts in earnest is because of the massive increase to the money supply. Right now, much of that cash is simply sitting in banks and other repositories and not being used to finance or buy goods. When the recovery gets into gear it will cause businesses and individuals to begin to invest more in production and other mediums. This will require more active cash flow which will force all of these funds from lying around and not flowing through the economic picture to begin to be moved into the economic picture giving it what is called velocity. This extra influx of capital will cause an excess of money in the system which will necessitate an increase in prices. Hopefully, it will also be reflected in salaries or we will have additional problems. As soon as the velocity hits a certain point it will cause undesirable levels of inflation to set in which will necessitate higher interest rates. This is done as a method of removing some of the now activated excess cash which we had printed in order to pay for some of the government programs which were intended to stimulate the economy but had thus far failed to produce, actually we do not print new money as much as simply invent it electronically which makes it way too easy to do and thus so tempting. There are only three methods of balancing the economic equations once you have infused trillions upon trillions of dollars into the mix, either you increase interest rates, increase taxes, or inflate prices or some combination of these three. Since the Federal Reserve can control the interest rate and they wish to prevent runaway inflation at virtually any cost, they will necessarily raise interest rates. Government, on the other hand, cannot afford to have the interest rates go up too steeply as that would make the interest payments on the debt unmanageable which would cause default, ask Greece how that works. This gives government, especially the Federal Government, a strong shove to increase taxes across the boards so that the Federal Reserve does not have to raise the interest rates as much as the government is also removing excess monies that had been infused to carry through bad times but are now a threat in good times. The one problem is that both increased taxes and higher interest rates take time to pull the excess money out of the system. So, what that means is that initially, until the increased taxes and interest rates balance the economic equations, everything in this world had its own equations, prices will rise as a reaction to the additional cash flowing in the system.

Oddly enough, the inflation will prove to be the least of the problems initially. In the end the inflation will necessarily run rampant as there is one huge elephant in the living-room that everybody is doing their best to ignore. What is going to happen when the interest rates go from ranging between 1% and 2% to the 4% to 7% range? This will cause the interest payments on government debt to necessarily double. And what happens if government faces a shortfall and finds itself unable to pay the interest on the outstanding loans? Well, they will do exactly what they did to “invest” in stimulating the economy which got us all into this mess; they will wind up the old computers and electronically invent the needed monies to pay the increased debt interest payments. Once the government, in this case it would be the Federal Government as the States are forbidden by the constitution from making money out of the thin air, once again resorts to increasing the money supply it will cause the same conditions that forced the interest payments to rise in the first place. Soon we will face interest rates between 9% and 15% which will redouble the interest payments if not triple them. If you want to see where this all ends, simply find a book or research the Weimar Republic of Germany from 1919 to 1923 and then continue your research until you find references to Adolph Hitler and the Nazis and you will be at the end result of the Weimar Republic and its fiscal mismanagement. Pay particular attention to their wonderful cure-all for fiscal insolvency and you might see some similarities to the United States under Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama.

If you wish to see an adult approach to facing such a problem, read about the years under President Jimmy Carter to see how we faced a similar predicament in the late 1970s and then read about the first term of President Ronald Reagan. Today everybody tends to remember the last five years under President Reagan, which were particularly nice and comfortable economically. In order to get our economic scales balanced and everything running as it is hoped for by every person in a position responsible for the economic wellbeing of the United States or any other country or entity, President Reagan faced all resistance to taking our lumps as they came in order to allow the situation to work itself through to a balanced and proper end. President Reagan did the most difficult thing any leader can do in a situation of dire fiscal troubles, he set the course that would eventually even everything into balance and then did absolutely nothing and waited for it to reach equilibrium. Sometimes doing nothing is both the correct solution and also likely the most difficult solution. The problem with waiting out the storm is that the public is often not that lenient so as to allow you the moment’s peace to take such an approach. The worst thing that government can do when facing fiscal difficulties is to try something new every few weeks expecting immediate results as this makes for an uncertainty in the rules of the game which forces those who invest or run large or small companies to shore up, store whatever cash they can, and wait until the madness ends and somebody sets the rules and promises not to further adjust them. Those constant and repeated changes in policy as a reaction to the public’s demands to do something, anything, are what I call Panic Policies.

Well, looks like the party is almost at an end and it is almost time to go out into that blizzard. Let us hope that whomever takes control as the next President has enough sense or his advisors have the sense to set a path forward, announce it and promise all will be well if we all have faith and stick to the plan, and really mean that and then just keep reassuring those who may panic and wait for balance to return which is almost always followed by a period of wealth and optimism. In the meantime, button up as it is going to get nasty for quite a while.

Beyond the Cusp