Debt Bomb

We all know that one sad day in the future our debt bomb will explode ... and America will have a very painful period digging our way out of the unsustainable national debt we have been accumulating over the last half century. (Zero or negative interest rates are now just too tempting for pols to resist.) The pain might be another period of crippling inflation ... or maybe even a debt default which would also destroy the wealth of most retired people ... and turn the American dollar into un-Sani-wipes. Circumstances might even force us into a kinetic war with our hegemonic rivals ... which would likely devastate much of what we enjoy today.

Why are we doing this to ourselves ... flying like a moth to the flame? Simple ... because we can. The rest of the world is also printing money like there will be no accounting ... so why shouldn’t we? President Trump suffers from this same tropism ... saying that zero interest rates allow us to nonstop borrowing. Just wait till rates go negative! And most politicians of both stripes of course stand and cheer.

If we can just postpone this day of reckoning until we, dear readers, will no longer be around ... just kidding. Our issue don’t need this issue too!

Obama’s Piss Poor Presidency

A commenter asked on Presidential what I meant by Obama’s “piss poor” presidency. I gave it short shrift and it deserves better ... so here is more — the urine that the “chosen one” managed to spread around during his pampered eight years:

- His initial apology tour ... disparaging his country
- Gutting our military
- Significantly deepening the domestic racial divide
- Doubling our notional debt burden by $10 trillion
- Spending $1 trillion on [non] “shovel-ready jobs”
- Cash for clunkers
- Attempting to destroy our coal and oil industries
- Relying on monetary and not fiscal levers for economic recovery
- Tens of billions lost on Solyndra and other crony  “investments”
- The stupid Paris Climate Accord
- Oblivious to huge trade deficits with China, Mexico and the EU
- Frequently disrespecting Israel
- The Benghazi debacle
- Allowing Hillary’s private email server
- Politicizing our intelligence agencies
- Obamacare which is slowly being fixed by Congress and the courts
- The Iranian nuclear deal giving it $150 billion and  $1.6B in hard cash
- Giving lip service to defeating ISIS ... possibly even arming them
- Reneging US commitment to put missiles in Poland
- Colluding with the Muslim Brotherhood and Black Lives Matter
- Unconstitutional DACA executive order
- Pardoning spy Chelsea Manning
- Swapping deserter Bowe Bergdahl for five senior Taliban bad guys
- “Fast and Furious” gun running to Mexico cartels
- IRS discrimination against Tea Party groups
- Spying on political opponents and the media
- Selling 20% of US uranium to the Russians
- Russian reset including allowing them to annex Crimea
- Not arming the Ukraine with anti-tank missiles against Russia
- Not making NATO countries meet their committed military spending
- The very expensive Afghanistan “surge” producing nothing
- Not confronting North Korea’s for its bad behavior

Enough? And I’m sure I forgot quite a few!

Shorter Days

As the year progresses into fall and winter, I am becoming increasingly annoyed with the lesser amount of our daylight. Whereas a few months ago, daybreak would be before 5 AM, now it is after 6 AM. Why can’t our government and the EPA do something about this? If we can send a man to the moon, we should be able to remedy this simple problem. Can we put a tax on darkness so that there is less of it? Perhaps we can convene a Paris conference to bring all nations together to decide how the United States is going to save our daylight? What does Daddy Barack Obama, Uncle Joe Biden and Auntie Elizabeth have to say about this scourge?

We need to educate our children about the penalties derived from shorter days! Less play time.... more meager crops. We need our kids to march on Washington with their teachers to demand that Trump do something about things. He has promised other stuff, so why is he conspiring to make us have less daylight? Can’t he use some of his billions to make to sun come up and go down when we want it to? Any reasonable cost-benefit analysis would suggest that, if it even sends our nation trillions of dollars further into debt, it would be worth it. It would treat us and the rest of the world to benefits beyond the debt we incurred.

Those opposed to increasing our daylight claim that is is due to the tilt of the Earth causing our seasons. Balderdash! This is all conservative propaganda! 98% of scientists say that, if this were  man-made ... it can be man-corrected. It is well beyond time we need to save all the birds who die flying south in the fall to stay warm. SAVE THE BIRDS!

Are you listening Al Gore? Time to step up again and save personkind!

Headlines

Michael Bloomberg’s $500 million anti-Trump moonshot

Mortgage applications drop 3.7% as home buyers pull back

Lawyer: Mueller will say nothing! Will not issue report ...

GOP/Dem border deal, $1.3 billion for wall, less than 60 miles of new barrier

Howard Schultz: ‘I should be paying more taxes’

Growing number of Californians considering fleeing state and blame sky-high costs, survey finds

Explosive new book lifts lid on gay priests in Vatican ... Four in five homosexual?

National debt surpasses $22 trillion

Poll: Voters don’t want another shutdown, are split on border wall

China is going to need more foreign money as its trade surplus dries up, Morgan Stanley says

Senate uncovered no direct evidence of conspiracy between Trump campaign, Russia ...

1.4 million households drop off food stamps

Headlines

Trump threatens national emergency as negotiations at standstill

Fed Chairman Powell says he is 'very concerned' about growing amount of U.S. debt

White House readies for Ginsburg departure ...

Reporters mock Beto O'Rourke for live-streaming dental cleaning

Michael Cohen to testify to Congress

Powell says Fed's balance sheet will be 'substantially smaller' indicating more tightening ahead

Poll: Bernie biggest approval in Senate ...

Yellow Vests have destroy 60% of France's speed cameras

Trump on Jeff Bozos' divorce: 'It's going to be a beauty'

U.S. weekly jobless claims smaller than expected

Steel prototype for border wał sawed through ...

Donald Trump cancels trip to Devos as shutdown continues ...

Results

But he did call Stormy Daniels "horseface."

A Few Observations

- Obama's spooks, Brennam, Comey and Clapper, were so focused on undermining Trump's bid for the White House; I wonder how many real intelligence jobs went undone or underdone?

- Back in the day when salt was as valuable as gold, a bag of potato chips might have cost as much as $100

- If the Clinton Foundation and Global Initiative were not money laundering operations, how come they have gone quiescent after Hillary is no longer a shoe-in for the presidency.

- How does the DOJ's Rod Rosenstein still have a job since it has been revealed that he illegally back-dated by weeks the authorization to break down Manafort's  door at 3 AM to search his home and arrest him?

- Why is Turkey still in MATO?

- When the Federal Reserve Bank's primary missions of full employment and a 2% inflation rate are met, as they are now, it would seem that the Fed could swing to helping our balance of payments strategies and lowering the cost of financing our national debt.

Headlines

Brussels publishes U.S. tariff retaliations lists totaling billions

Exclusive: GOP leadership going to fund sanctuary cities

Trump atty demands $20M from Stormy

U.S. Army looking toward land combat robots in 2019

Stormy Daniels' attorney says she has been threatened with physical harm

British court orders Christopher Steele to appear for deposition in dossier suit

JUSTICE: Sessions fires McCabe before he can retire ...

Texts reveal Strzok relationship with Flynn case judge

Democrats' civil war flavors after Lamb's upset win

Students trash Walmart during anti-gun walkout in Chicago

National debt hits $21 trillion ...

Limbaugh theory: Mueller wants to nullify Trump's $900 million tax deduction - from 1995 - to ruin him

Suggestion

Suggestion: Never-Trumpers ... particularly virulent never-Trumpers ... in order not to appear as hypocrites ... should take all of the financial gains that they have enjoyed in their IRAs, 401Ks, stock portfolios, etc. since Trump was elected ... and donate these monies toward reducing our national debt ...

No!?

Inflation

Inflation is a damnedable thing. It is both the devil and an angel simultaneously. It clearly damages the poor without a cushion of interest-earning  savings, the elders living on a fixed income and companies without pricing power. But it benefits those with large debts at a fixed rate of interest ... like mortgage holders and governments burdened with big debts with long maturities at relatively low rates.

Like today, a surfeit of money in the United States does not necessarily create inflation ... particularly if labor is not in short supply. Although it appears on the surface that we currently have a low unemployment rate, this number is misleading due to a very large number of those not looking for work. And the influx of H1-b immigrants also keeps high tech salary growth down. Therefore employment cost pressure is currently low. However, if President Trump can cause an economic boom for middle America and slow down H1-b immigration, there well could be a shortage of blue-collar and white-collar workers ... resulting real wage pressure ... and overall inflation well beyond the Federal Reserve Bank's goal of 2%.

Once this beast inflation is set loose, vicious feedback will kick in and it won't want to stop at 2%.

Add to this a trillion dollars of infrastructure spending certainly will increase our national debt and inflation. If Trump follows through with his pledge to lengthen the maturity of our national indebtedness, we might be able to inflate our way out of our current fiscal insanity ... like we did after World War II when we let inflation cure our huge debt burden,

So here are my current inflation predictions under Trump.... particularly if he serves two terms:

- Spend like mad on infrastructure, health care and rebuilding our military
- Extend the maturities of our then fast-growing national debt ..  maybe even longer than thirty years ... hopefully at relatively low rates
- Put pressure on the Fed to let inflation run ... possibly into the high single digits which will monetize this debt
- But still, longer term, try to bring government spending more in line with increased tax revenues generated by a booming economy

Is this all good? What other choices do we have?

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites.

Schumer: Dems will work with Trump only if he moves completely in our direction

Schumer flips: Now says he will fight to keep Supreme Court seat vacant

Moving truck arrives at White House ...

Japanese sushi chain buys a single bluefin tuna for $632,000

Dan Rather teaching 'Truth in the News' course ...

Obama sends forces to Russian border ...

House passes legislation to negate last-minute Obama admin regulations

'Audit the Fed' bill gets new push ...

California hires Eric Holder to lead legal fight against Trump

Debt climbs $1,054,647,941,626.91 in '16 ...

Tesla misses deliveries by 12%; stock plunges ...

LG [Corp.] 'wallpaper' TV -- just 0.1 inches thick!

Whopper

In the Las Vegas presidential debate last night a question was asked about how the two candidates would grow the U.S. economy. In the ensuing give and take the following whopper caught my ear:

"I will not add a penny to our national debt" -- Hillary Clinton (thrice said)

Clearly, if this woman can make this impossible claim ... it is difficult to place a scintilla of credence in any of her other campaign promises.

Obummer's Legacy

Obummer may not be the worst president in American history, but he still has six more months to sew up the title. He promised us hope and change ... and he certainly changed most things for the worse ... to the point where many of us are willing to take a flyer on a loud-mouth self promoter who just might repair enough things to save our nation's bacon. To reprise Obummer's last 7 1/2 years, here is the legacy he has left us with:

- More than a doubling of our national debt to an unsustainable level

- Race relations at an all-time low

- Corruption tainting almost every cabinet department

- Growing income inequality squeezing the middle class

- Urban crime rates back on the rise

- Economic and wage growth in the toilet

- Negative balance of payment at an all-time high

- Number of people dropping out of the workforce at an all-time high

- Swarms of illegal immigrants from Latin America countries

- An open door policy for unvetted Muslim immigrants

- A doubling of families receiving food stamps

- Zero tax reform

- Zero entitlement reform

- Huge increase in burdensome government regulations

- A gutting of our military

- Disastrous remaking of our health-care system

- The Middle East in smoking ruins

- Much more belligerent Russia, China, North Korea and Iran

- An alienated and abandoned Israel

- Deteriorating national infrastructure

- Serious loss of our international hegemony


And Hellery Clinton has promised to continue us down Obummer's primrose path!

!

Headlines

These headlines are real ... they have all been discovered on Internet news sites:

Robot-powered burger joint threatens fast-food workers

July 4 message from Putin to Obama: Let's have better ties

Tim, the Kenyan elephant, seeks human help after being hurt by spear

Divided Poland mulls total abortion ban ...

Scientists FlipFlop back to Global Cooling?

Fido forever: dog cloning clinic

Those [in Dhaka mass killings] who could recite the Quran, spared

Huma admits Clinton burned daily schedules

U.S. Surpasses Saudi [Arabia] in oil reserves

Dems drop platform requirement that illegals learn English for amnesty

[National] debt jumps $100 billion ... in one day!

About 1.6 million people didn't make their Obamacare payments

Why Not Hillary?

Unfortunately Donald Trump is a coarse and vulgar man who too often says what is on his mind before it is processed by his gray cells. This has and will, unless he mends his ways, cause many problems for him and the United States if he were to be elected president. Nevertheless, I am still going to vote for him for no other reason than the alternative, presumably Hellery Clinton, is far far worse. For, although she is often more careful with what she says, what she will do will certainly be more onerous. She will continue the downhill slide instigated by Obummer and dictated by her bible, "Rules for Radicals" by Saul Alinsky.

So here comes another of my tiresome lists ... noting what I think would likely occur were this vixen elected:

- Our Supreme Court would be packed with loyal liberals who would destroy our Constitution in a few short years ... first to go would be much of our Bill of Rights.

- Globalism would replace nationalism. Our foreign policy would still tilt ... nay tumble toward the Muslim world at the certain expense of our relationship with Israel ... but to the applause of most of our U.N. antagonists. Israel may not even exist at the end of her term(s).

- Any semblance of our U.S. borders or our border security would continue to vanish and we would be inundated with immigrants of all stripes and undesirables ... all of whom would be registered Democrat just as they were signed up for welfare benefits. We would become a sanctuary country.

- As a consequence domestic terrorist attacks would certainly increase as our country would spawn many more E.U.-like "no-go" hellholes and petitions for the imposition of localized Sharia law

- Our welfare system would be expanded beyond imagination with universal free health care, expanded SSI, freeloader payoffs, free higher education, food stamps, etc., etc. to insure that its recipients were obliging to the government for their forever subsistence. The nanny state would become permanent.

- As a consequence our national debt would balloon beyond our ability to pay it back without crippling inflation or default ... both unacceptable alternatives.

- The Clinton Foundation would compromise many American values, national secrets, and prerogatives for disguised payoffs in order to insure the comfortable future for its many posse members ... basically a corrupt criminal enterprise.

- With Bill Clinton as an avatar, our traditional social contracts of hard work, piety and morality would deteriorate into nothingness. The family unit would be replaced by the communal "village." Diversity and inclusion, those diametrically opposed watchwords would continue to oppressively rule our lives. Racial tensions would mount even further.

Enough? Maybe not all these penalties would occur exactly as I have predicted, but pooh-pooh them at your peril.

Of course, take heed you suburban housewives ... Bernie, as president, would be still worse on most counts.

Verklempt

I am verklempt ... how can the United States' national debt remain at slightly more than $18.1 trillion for 150 days? ... see: CNS News Story ... just under the official debt limit as established by Congress? And how can our treasury secretary, Jack Lew, say that it will remain so until the end of October? This assertion by the Obama administration that our official national debt has not increased for five months is beyond credibility.

This is clearly financial skulduggery. As such then how can we trust any of the "official" numbers that this Washington bunch of bunco bozos publishes ... unemployment rates, number of illegal immigrants, tax receipts, number of Ebola victims, Obama's vacation costs, etc.? I guess we need seriously to reassess our reliance on all the statistics that our government publishes ... an unnerving revelation.

Does anyone believe that the United States is not spending substantially more than it is taking in? Of course not. So how are these illusory numbers being manipulated at our Treasury Department? I herein offer the prize of a bagel with a schmear of chived cream cheese for the first person to unravel the smarmy secret behind this government financial slight of hand.

The Liberal Vortex

You sense that something is seriously wrong … most things seem to be out of sorts. You are worried about having enough money to pay your bills, whether your job is secure, how to prepare this year’s tax returns, more global warming, the meagerness of your life savings, what happens if you get seriously sick, and for the safety of your neighborhood. The only thing that relieves this angst is when you watch the nightly news and see President Obama assuring you … against a backdrop of nodding and applauding Americans … that he has your back. He sounds so confident.  He will crush those rascally Republicans and make sure that all of your worries are dealt with by his folks.

Suddenly all your troubles seem far away as you tuck in for the night … until you see the news the next morning and things have gotten worse. The United States is losing on the world stage and many countries are laughing at us. The economy sucks and our national debt seems to be skyrocketing … people are dropping out of the workforce in droves … and no one is proposing a serious cure. Random violence seems to be spreading on our streets and many of our cities are facing bankruptcy. So you fret and sweat through another day … waiting for your President to reassure you on nightly TV that things are getting better. His dulcet tones do it once again as he proposes two new government programs to fix things ... for just a small increase in taxes.  And you feel better anew.

This scenario is repeated daily for five years and, by now, you have gotten use to these mood swings.  In fact you have learned to enjoy them … and love that man who brings up your disposition every day. Finally, in resignation, you turn to the government to solve all your problems … to provide your housing … to feed your children … to entertain you … to give you healthcare and birth control … to insure your retirement … and to satisfy all your other wants.  But be careful … for you have been sucked into the Liberal vortex … and there is no escape. You have sold your soul and you must worship those who now nurture you.

Small price to pay.

Rose-Colored Glasses

Yesterday President Obama released his budget … over two months late, but who’s counting?  The Senate and the House have already passed their budgets.  And, in typical Obama fashion, he is “leading from behind” or, maybe better phrased, “leading from his behind.”  Much of the left-leaning media is so impressed with the mere fact that he has done this rare feat … that they have given this document the benefit of the doubt on most of its lame assumptions. But this financial flight of fancy still grows our nation’s debt into the stratosphere … by almost $9 trillion over ten years (see: Breitbart Story).  And, in his patented “I don’t give a spit.” fashion, Obama even said that this budget doesn’t contain “a lot of smoke and mirrors” (see: Another Breitbart Story). Not a lot of smoke and mirrors?!? Wow!  Does anyone believe that it should contain any smoke and mirrors?

Senator Patty Murray was the architect of the Democrat's Senate budget which was seriously flawed by unrealistic GNP growth rate assumptions (see: Pattycake).  And Obama is following suit by also looking at the United States’ economic outlook through rose-colored glasses.  Even Politico points this flaw out in the following passage from its news blog: 

The faster the economy grows, the more taxes will be collected. At the same time, unemployment and low-income spending will decline. So good growth is a key to a better budget outlook. This administration projected growth of 3 percent in 2013, 3.6 percent in 2014 and more than 4 percent in 2015. Reality paints a different picture. Growth in 2012 was 2.2 percent and 2013 looks on track for another disappointing 2 percent. The gap between forecast and reality will not, however, stop another round of rosy assumptions.

To read more of this, see: Politico Story.  But, since the President’s budget was, apparently, not a serious policy document … but was, like most things he does, purely political, such Pollyanna-ish pronouncements were only meant for the Peanut Gallery (apparently the majority of U.S. voters) anyway.

Pattycake

Senator Patty Murray (D, Washington) just submitted the Democrat’s first 10-year budget proposal in the last four years … about a week after Representative Paul Ryan (R, Wisconsin) offered the Republican’s perennial plan … and about a month before President Obama has promised to submit his administration’s fiscal guidelines.  This is topsy-turvy.  The Congress as per the Constitution requires that the President must offer his budget by the first Monday of February to be followed, traditionally, by the Senate and the House reconciliations (see: Redhaired Grrl ).  Needless to say, although Paul Ryan has created a ten-year path to zero deficits, Patty Murray does not even offer a feigned attempt to do so.  And, in his “leading by following” style of (non)-governing, Obama’s budget is expected to even outdo Patty Murray’s profligate taxing-and-spending proposal.

To be specific, Patty Murray’s budget includes about $1.5 trillion of additional tax increases and fire-hose spending that culminate in annual deficits well above $500 billion continuing well after the ten-year view of her document … resulting in a total increase in our national debt by over $7 trillion by 2023 (to $24.4 trillion).   Please explore the details of this budget proposal at: Powerline Blog.  But what is even more maniacally unrealistic is that Patty Murray is using economic (GDP) growth expectations that are obviously science fiction.  Here they are as calculated by a clever reader of the Powerline reference, Mike McNary, and offered therein:

Year    Expected GDP Growth
2014            3.81%
2015            5.92%
2016            6.58%
2017            6.20%
2018            4.93%
2019            4.52%
2020            4.40%
2021            4.32%
2022            4.26%
2023            4.23%

Such robust economic expansion is possible and has happened in the past (like under Ronald Reagan), but Obama’s record for GDP growth shows that a 2% annual increase is the best he has been able to produce … but this was before his recent actual and additional hoped-for tax increases and the impact of Obamacare on our nation’s economy.  So, dear reader, if Patty Murray (and President Obama) have their way with us, there is no possibility that this country can outrun fiscal ruin over the next ten years.

Afterward: It's even worse!  Senator Sessions exposes Democrat double-counting budget mendacity.  See: Breitbart Story

Dope

It’s fortuitous that many states have now legalized marijuana because our nation is now on a drug jag that is bound to destroy our psyche and our future.  Last night the House passed the Senate’s “solution” to our fiscal-cliff crisis which adds $3.9 trillion more to our already-crushing national debt of $16.4 trillion (see: The Hill Story) … and in the process gives additional tax breaks to Hollywood and NASCAR … and extends unemployment insurance for another 12 months.  

Yes, President Obama looks like a hero to the takers in this country in that he tucked it to the millionaires and billionaires (and the Republicans) … but, in truth, he really punished very few people (except the Republican party) since this “compromise” is allowing the carried-interest tax break to survive for hedge-fund managers … and Warren Buffet.

But since, to the majority of Americans, perception is reality, the stock market is poised to soar … and our former dope-smoking jamoke, Barack Obama, is soaring back to Hawaii to finish his vacation on a high.  I think maybe I might just be tempted to take a toke myself … since this could be the only way I can alleviate the crushing angst I now feel for our country’s future.