August 17, 2009
(By G. Simmons)
The Federal Reserve desperately needs your help. They need your undying belief that the “dollars” in your pocket are “money” you best think again. Those are Federal Reserve Notes my friend. And that means they’re not yours. They are the property of the Federal Reserve to do with as they see fit. The Fed can render your dollars worthless. They can and do confiscate your dollars via the IRS. The Fed and U.S. Government can print unlimited dollars to pay for anything they want. And for each new dollar they print your share in the good old USA gets diluted a bit more. That’s the funny thing about money. Most Americans have no idea that holding a dollar is like holding a share of stock in America where the Fed is the CEO. And as the Fed issues more stock to pay for their every want and desire your share-value diminishes bit-by-bit until there is nothing left but the misplaced belief we had in the religion known as fiat money.
All things now point to a fiat monetary system in collapse. The question then becomes what defines collapse? Does the value of the money in question become so worthless? Perhaps. Or does is it mean that all commerce grinds to a halt as the credit money that fuels such commerce is discredited, and hence not tradable? Or worse yet does it mean that the thin layer of men who control the issuance of money and their constituents that distribute it into the world, do they make their final stand, do they horde all that they have stolen on the backs of other men leaving the men homeless and destitute with nothing to show for their labor but unpaid interest and taxes?
When George Bush took office the national debt was $5.7 trillion dollars. When he left office it was $10.6 trillion. As of August 17, 2009 the national debt approaches $11.7 trillion dollars. CNN’s Bailout Tracker maintains a running tab of the money already spent on bailouts and stimulus by the U.S. Government and Fed along with total commitments pledged by both institutions. Officially the government and Fed have spent $2.8 trillion as of August 10, 2009 with pledged commitments topping $11.0 trillion. Neil Barofsky recently reported to Congress that the total bailout and stimulus costs could reach $23.7 trillion dollars. The scale of this crisis has now reached the point where the numbers are cartoonish - like Wile E. Coyote plummeting over the edge of a cliff with a load of debt-ignited dynamite strapped around his neck, falling, falling, until finally exploding on the canyon floor. So goes the U.S. Dollar.
Congress has voted to raise the national debt ceiling at virtually every juncture in modern history when our debt was about to exceed its prior limit. To claim that there is even a debt ceiling is a lie/joke. Congress should just admit they will never vote to stop deficit spending but this would be an admission of truth - a feat of which they are obviously incapable.
I read other writers like James Kunstler and Peter Schiff, who if you read between their lines you will hear a subtle disdain for those Americans who cannot afford the lifestyle that the moneyed elite has dangled in the public’s face but placed just out of reach of these wanting masses. I do not mean to disparage Mr. Kunstler or Mr. Schiff as I believe their hearts are in the right place. But like many others in the media we hear from these oracles that average Americans by virtue of their inability to contain their desires for iPods, flat-screens, and SUV’s are somehow at the root of, or at the very least the fertilizer to our economic malaise. I believe the exact opposite. I believe the American consumer were low lying fruit ripe for the picking by those who knew when to harvest. While personal responsibility should be a pillar in every American household when the game in which we must play to survive in this society is rigged against the masses, when every rule is in the favor of those who make the rules, where does responsibility fit at any level?
We were told to go out and buy homes. We were told to spend. We were told that it was a brave new world, that we had entered into a new era of globalization where the world was flat and exotic mortgages were mana from heaven. Well it turns out the world is not flat. And it turns out that the illusion known as the American dream will ultimately prove to be the American nightmare.
Global economic fundamentals are the worst in all history. We are staring at a manmade global cataclysm the impact of which when fully absorbed will mean a lower standard of living for every American - the likes of which is nearly incomprehensible. That our government and their enabler the Federal Reserve has thrown trillions of dollars onto the fire has rekindled the flame once more, briefly, but only until the flame dies out. The hardest thing to explain is the glaringly evident which everybody has decided not to see.
-G
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
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I didn’t understand the concluding part of your article, could you please explain it more?
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