Arbitrary Rule

On the Borderline reminds us of this extremely disturbing point. 

With the announcement this morning of another $800 billion in credit guarantees and the purchase of Fannie and Freddie debt, the current tally of all Treasury, Federal Reserve, and other government agency obligations or guarantees associated with the financial crisis stands at a staggering $8.3 trillion. This amount is equivalent to over 50% of the nation’s GDP. If the American people were taxed for the money, then the bill due from every person would exceed $25,000.

Surprising to some, only $700 billion of the $8.3 trillion was ever voted on by our representatives in Congress. The balance was conjured up by the Federal Reserve Chairman and Treasury Secretary; and it all happened behind closed doors.

Our government has just put the taxpayers on the hook for TRILLIONS of dollars and none of us ever had a say in it.  Our system is seriously flawed. 

1. in about 12 months or so, you’ll begin to see the effects in the inflation numbers.

   They’ll call it the “Zimbabwe-fication” of the USA.

   Posted by dad29 on November 25, 2008 at 2139 hrs




2. This is the magic of Fiat money.  Fiat money created the bubble and all this false wealth to keep people pre-occupied while all our manufacturing jobs went overseas as we decided it was a good idea to let 2 billion Chinese and Indian people into our labor force. 

   So the Fed is starting up the printing presses.  As the balance sheets of private sector and residential America collapse, the Fed balance sheet has to expand to prevent a crash.  Fiat money is our only way out of this without a major depression.

   Now whether the printing press mess we are creating is worse than a depression, only time will tell.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 25, 2008 at 2212 hrs




3. I would gladly write a check for $25,000 to know that I paid my part and owed no more.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 25, 2008 at 2252 hrs




4. Surprising to some,

   Why are people surprised?!?

   What part of without limitation, and on such terms and conditions as determined by the Secretary, and The Secretary will have the discretion do people and legislators not understand?  Without limitation means mercurial.  And Wisconsin own Paul Ryan approved of and championed this state of affairs.

   Paul Ryan bragged on WISN that he WROTE the 110 page version of the bailout legislation which created the post of Emperor of the Treasury.

   But, RINO’s like Paul Ryan claim confiscating money from the productive and giving it to the imprudent under a TARP of secrecy is “free market” economics.

   Benito Mussolini’s own definition of fascism was:
   Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.

   But, I guess fascism isn’t fascism when we (Republicans) do it.  After all Paul Ryan clearly believes legislation should set thing so that
   All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

   Posted by John Washburn on November 26, 2008 at 0008 hrs




5. Fiat money created the bubble and all this false wealth to keep people pre-occupied while all our manufacturing jobs went overseas as we decided it was a good idea to let 2 billion Chinese and Indian people into our labor force.

   Worse still, before we took all those folks into our economy the rest of the world economy was relatively unaffected when the US had a correction. But now that we’ve outsourced much of our manufacturing and even the white collar jobs in support and back office functions a recession in the US hits major areas of the world.

   You can see that in what’s going on Korea, Hungary, and Russia where there are serious bank runs on dollar denominations as money flows out of that economy and to the US as foreign investment starts to dry up.

   And my friend who consults for Latvia and some other Baltic nations tells me that the governments there are terrified of the results of US outsourcing starting to tell as the new middle class there start disappearing and less outsourcing is done. So much of the EU is based on exporting to the US that the effects of the US credit crunch are hammering them.

   As bad as it is here, note that we’ve taken on obligations of 50% of GDP so far. The EU is in far worse shape. Their banks were leveraged far more than ours (Barclays at a ratio of roughly 50) and their obligations are far higher in economic terms (Barclays alone is more than 120% of UK GDP).

   Inflation? Oh, yes, and a huge blast of it as our economy decouples from the BRIC countries and the artificially strong dollar. We will be poorer but we may actually begin producing more locally as local manufacture becomes relatively cheaper and energy costs go up due to a weakened dollar. The upper classes will be hit the most, and the lower classes may actually do better than they’ve been doing in the last two decades.

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2008 at 0109 hrs




6. Fiat money is our only way out of this without a major depression.

   Wow, you must really like Obama’s pick’s so far

   http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/JK25Dj06.html

   Are you sure you don’t want to rethink that?

   Washburn is exactly right and nerdbert makes a good point.

   We will be poorer

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2008 at 0808 hrs




7. I would gladly write a check for $25,000 to know that I paid my part and owed no more.

   Ha!  If it were only that simple!

   Posted by (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address) on November 26, 2008 at 1010 hrs




8. Actually I was unfair to Congressman Ryan.  He is not a RINO (Republican in name only).  He is a true-blue, neo-conservative Republican.  It has even been noted as the future of the Republican party.

   But, Ryan highlights the fact that the intersection between Republican and Constitution-loving conservative is becoming an increasing thin intersection.  Ron Paul proves the two sets are not yet disjoint, but an intersection of one is about as thin as it gets.

   Congressman Ryan is more accurately a CINO (conservative in name only).

   Posted by John Washburn on November 26, 2008 at 1021 hrs