"Our presidential campaign ignited a revolution," said Congressman Ron Paul as he announced the launch of Campaign for Liberty. Dr. Paul had a vision for an organization that would harness the enthusiasm surrounding his presidential campaign while maintaining an unwavering resolve to carry the torch of liberty far into the future. Just over 2 years later, C4L membership has flourished nationwide, and activism courses consistently fill to capacity. Already, Campaign for Liberty is on its way to becoming the most influential political organization not only in the country but also in the world. Hello C4L from the other part of the world.
C4L Rising
Tuesday, August 31, 2010
Monday, August 30, 2010
Overdose - The Next Financial Crisis
In times of crisis people seek strong leaders and simple solutions. But what if their solutions are identical to the mistakes that caused the very crisis? This is the story of the greatest economic crisis of our age, the one that awaits us.
Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis
Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis
Monday, August 23, 2010
Even Tony Robbins Is Warning That An Economic Collapse Is Coming
It seems like almost everyone is warning of a coming economic collapse these days. Do you remember Tony Robbins? He is probably the world's best known "motivational speaker" and his infomercials dominated late night television during the 80s and 90s. He was always urging all of us to "unleash the power within" and to take charge of our lives. Well guess what? Now Tony Robbins is warning that an economic collapse is coming. In fact, he has issued a special video warning about what he believes is about to happen. Considering the incredible connections that he has at the highest levels of the financial world, it makes a lot of sense to consider what he is trying to warn us about. Robbins says that a "major retracement" is coming to financial markets and that the coming collapse is going to be a "painful process" as we go through it. Those familiar with Tony Robbins know that he always goes out of his way to stress the positive, so if even he is openly warning the public about a coming economic nightmare than you know that things are starting to get really, really bad out there.
The video that Tony Robbins published where he gives his economic warning is posted in two parts below. This is unlike any Tony Robbins video that you have ever seen before and it is absolutely jaw dropping....
Tony Robbins Economic Warning 1-2
Tony Robbins Economic Warning 2-2
Saturday, August 21, 2010
Wall Street's Big Win
Cue the credits: the era of financial thuggery is officially over. Three hellish years of panic, all done and gone – the mass bankruptcies, midnight bailouts, shotgun mergers of dying megabanks, high-stakes SEC investigations, all capped by a legislative orgy in which industry lobbyists hurled more than $600 million at Congress. It all supposedly came to an end one Wednesday morning a few weeks back, when President Obama, flanked by hundreds of party flacks and congressional bigwigs, stepped up to the lectern at an extravagant ceremony to sign into law his sweeping new bill to clean up Wall Street.
Obama's speech introducing the massive law brimmed with celebratory finality. He threw around lofty phrases like "never again" and "no more." He proclaimed the end of unfair credit-card-rate hikes and issued a fatwa on abusive mortgage practices and the shady loans that helped fuel the debt bubble. The message was clear: The sheriff was padlocking the Wall Street casino, and the government was taking decisive steps to unfuck our hopelessly broken economy.
But is the nightmare really over, or is this just another Inception-style trick ending? It's hard to figure, given all the absurd rhetoric emanating from the leadership of both parties. Obama and the Democrats boasted that the bill is the "toughest financial reform since the ones we created in the aftermath of the Great Depression" – a claim that would maybe be more impressive if Congress had passed any financial reforms since the Great Depression, or at least any that didn't specifically involve radically undoing the Depression-era laws.
he Republicans, meanwhile, were predictably hysterical. They described the new law – officially known as the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act – as something not far from a full-blown Marxist seizure of the means of production. House Minority Leader John Boehner shrieked that it was like "killing an ant with a nuclear weapon," apparently forgetting that the ant crisis in question wiped out about 40 percent of the world's wealth in a little over a year, making its smallness highly debatable.
But Dodd-Frank was neither an FDR-style, paradigm-shifting reform, nor a historic assault on free enterprise. What it was, ultimately, was a cop-out, a Band-Aid on a severed artery. If it marks the end of anything at all, it represents the end of the best opportunity we had to do something real about the criminal hijacking of America's financial-services industry. During the yearlong legislative battle that forged this bill, Congress took a long, hard look at the shape of the modern American economy – and then decided that it didn't have the stones to wipe out our country's one dependably thriving profit center: theft.
Continue reading - Wall Street's Big Win
Wednesday, August 18, 2010
Malaysian Province Moves To Gold And Silver-Based Currency In "Main Islamic Event Of The Last 100 Years"
More world governments are "just saying no" to the ponzi. Last week, the Malaysian government of Kelantan "said it was introducing a new monetary system featuring standardised gold and silver coins based on the traditional dinar and dirham coins once used by the Ottoman Empire." And as everyone who has taken game theory 101 knows, the first defector wins the most, while the last one is left with nothing. A small province in Malaysia just made the critical first defection. The question now is who will be next... and next...and next.
The FT reports:
Nik Abdul Aziz, the state’s chief minister, spoke in visionary terms of an economy in which state civil servants would be paid in the new sharia currency, and the poor would be protected against inflation by the intrinsic value of the precious metals used to produce it.
About 1,000 shops and restaurants in the state have said they will accept the new currency, which follows an earlier issue of gold dinars in 2006. The coins comply with traditional Islamic teaching on the use of coins with intrinsic value as a medium of exchange, rather than paper money.
And for those who think that the move is a regional hoax that is not being taken seriously by anyone, the Malaysian National News Agency Bernama notes that the repercussions of the "move to gold-standard" decision has reached the very top:
Only Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) can issue currency that is legal tender, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Unlike the US, where the Coinage Act of 1965 gives citizens the right to use refuse the usage of cash in transactions (and thus opt in for a different form of currency), Malaysia is not quite as liberal:
Commenting on the Kelantan government's introduction of gold dinar and silver dirham as an alternative currency in the state, Najib said BNM would be looking into the matter to see if any laws had been broken.
"Follow the laws of the country, only Bank Negara is authorised to issue currency that is legal tender," he told reporters after handing over Ramadan aid to mosque and surau from the Pekan parliamentary constituency here Saturday.
On Thursday, when launching the Syariah currency, Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat had said the state would strive to expand the use of the gold dinar and silver dirham in all transactions, including paying civil servants' remuneration.
However, he said there were still many technicalities that had to be addressed by the state government over the use of the currency.
The New Straits Times in its front page today said BNM had stated that only it had the right under the law to issue currency in Malaysia.
If there is one thing we are sure about, is that any time the government steps in before a decision that has been taken by a clear majority, with the purpose of making life easier, the outcome is usually lethal, especially in volatile Islamic countries. Whether the transition from paper to a hard-backed currency will be the first spark in social upheavals as government slowly realize all their printer-induced leverage is slipping away, is still unknown. What is, however, is that many more will soon follow Kelantan's lead to abolish an endlessly dilutable thought experiment, which has no intrinsic value, and whose purchasing power is decimated by the minute, as hundreds of billions in new money are printed every month by the world's central banks. Yet perhaps, this is precisely the example that is needed for the world to realize that someone is actually willing to do more than just talk pointlessly about the transition to a gold standard, and actually is willing to risk enough by following through with it. What happens next is Ben Bernanke's worst nightmare.
Continue reading - Malaysian Province Moves To Gold And Silver-Based Currency In "Main Islamic Event Of The Last 100 Years"
The FT reports:
Nik Abdul Aziz, the state’s chief minister, spoke in visionary terms of an economy in which state civil servants would be paid in the new sharia currency, and the poor would be protected against inflation by the intrinsic value of the precious metals used to produce it.
About 1,000 shops and restaurants in the state have said they will accept the new currency, which follows an earlier issue of gold dinars in 2006. The coins comply with traditional Islamic teaching on the use of coins with intrinsic value as a medium of exchange, rather than paper money.
And for those who think that the move is a regional hoax that is not being taken seriously by anyone, the Malaysian National News Agency Bernama notes that the repercussions of the "move to gold-standard" decision has reached the very top:
Only Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) can issue currency that is legal tender, said Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Tun Razak.
Unlike the US, where the Coinage Act of 1965 gives citizens the right to use refuse the usage of cash in transactions (and thus opt in for a different form of currency), Malaysia is not quite as liberal:
Commenting on the Kelantan government's introduction of gold dinar and silver dirham as an alternative currency in the state, Najib said BNM would be looking into the matter to see if any laws had been broken.
"Follow the laws of the country, only Bank Negara is authorised to issue currency that is legal tender," he told reporters after handing over Ramadan aid to mosque and surau from the Pekan parliamentary constituency here Saturday.
On Thursday, when launching the Syariah currency, Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat had said the state would strive to expand the use of the gold dinar and silver dirham in all transactions, including paying civil servants' remuneration.
However, he said there were still many technicalities that had to be addressed by the state government over the use of the currency.
The New Straits Times in its front page today said BNM had stated that only it had the right under the law to issue currency in Malaysia.
If there is one thing we are sure about, is that any time the government steps in before a decision that has been taken by a clear majority, with the purpose of making life easier, the outcome is usually lethal, especially in volatile Islamic countries. Whether the transition from paper to a hard-backed currency will be the first spark in social upheavals as government slowly realize all their printer-induced leverage is slipping away, is still unknown. What is, however, is that many more will soon follow Kelantan's lead to abolish an endlessly dilutable thought experiment, which has no intrinsic value, and whose purchasing power is decimated by the minute, as hundreds of billions in new money are printed every month by the world's central banks. Yet perhaps, this is precisely the example that is needed for the world to realize that someone is actually willing to do more than just talk pointlessly about the transition to a gold standard, and actually is willing to risk enough by following through with it. What happens next is Ben Bernanke's worst nightmare.
Continue reading - Malaysian Province Moves To Gold And Silver-Based Currency In "Main Islamic Event Of The Last 100 Years"
Saturday, August 14, 2010
BREAKING! Kelantan Wants To Have The Gold Standard Restored!
Alhamdulillah, we are happy to announce the news all of us have been waiting for – the official launch of Dinar and Dirham in the state of Kelantan will be held in its capital, Kota Bharu, on 12 August 2010.
The upcoming event in Kelantan is history in making as it marks the beginning of both, the rise of Islam and demise of Capitalism for the two can’t co-exist: when the light comes darkness disappears.
This is the first time in the last 100 years, since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, when a Muslim government introduces Shariah Currency. Indeed there has been four generations of Muslims who have not seen Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham; four generations of Muslims who have been divided into little national reservations and sentenced to permanent robbery first by local, then by international Masters of Riba; four generations of Muslims who haven’t known what is their Deen. The introduction of Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham in the state of Kelantan is not a new idea or experiment, it is the return to the medium of exchange that has been known for 1400 years throughout Dar al-Islam as Money of Shariah taking its legislation from Allah’s Revelation and Rasul’s Sunnah.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan are going to say “NO” to the insane world order created by bankers after WWII not by blasting offices and embassies nor by deciphering bloodlines and agendas of occult societies but by putting Halal money in their pockets.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan are going to say: “One Dinar – One Ummah”.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan will uplift dignity of Malays not through nationalistic UMNO-type policies of Bumiputra privileges but through restoration of Muamalat.
On the 12th August the government of Kelantan will start moving with the current, Divine Current, and every stroke in the direction of the current would bring Kelantan 10 times farther than a stroke against it; the first stroke will be the payment of 25% of salaries to public servants in Dinar and Dirham; all state companies will be accepting payments in Dinar and Dirham is another stroke; 600 shops will receive stickers “We Accept Dinar and Dirham” – yet another stroke.
However the 12th August is not the moment of celebration but rather the moment of Tauba, Tauba for all of us without exception, for we all have allowed the Deen of Islam, the most precious gift we were given, to slip away from our lives and replace it with primitive puritanical monotheism centered around sexuality, woman’s dress code and halal chicken, a religion which Umar Pasha Vadillo calls Islamic Protestantism.
Yes, before and especially on the 12 of August we have to put our foreheads on prayer mat in a long sajdah and ask forgiveness from Allah Subhanahu for letting Riba, the most heinous crime, become part of our daily existence, for our great Ulama in the past would not tolerate even one bank in their lands, let alone declare it Halal, because they really believed that “dirham of Riba is worse than adultery 36 times”. And there are Ulama today too who are not compromising the Deen, Umar Pasha Vadillo said in one of his lectures in Kazakhstan last year: “One bank on your street is worse than prostitution in your own family!”.
So this is the moment of realization of how far we have gone out of the Deen and how urgently we need to go back.
August 12 is not the end but the beginning of our affair as the Shariah currency is the first element to be put in place then to be followed by the second, Souq (Islamic market) which in turn will require all other elements of Islamic Muamalat to come into picture thus bringing an entire paradigm shift of what is money, trade, wealth, investment, - and what is not.
The ceremony will be attended by many guests: besides Chief Ministers of several Malaysian states, there will be government officials from Sulu Sultanate, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, as well as leaders of various jama’as and organizations from Germany, Spain, Kazakhstan and other countries. The event will undoubtly signify the emergence of the new centre of the Islamic world in the 21st century: NUSANTARA.
Muslim leaders, activists and especially media are most welcome to Kota Bharu, Kelantan to witness the main Islamic event of the last 100 years.
As the historic day of 12th August approaches Muamalah Council Malaysia and its chairman, Hajj Umar Azmon, wish to express thankfulness to Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz and Datuk Husam Musa of Kelantan state government; may Allah grant Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz and Datuk Husam Musa, their families and their people total success in this world and, most importantly, in the next. Amin.
Continue reading -
KELANTAN LAUNCHES DINAR AND DIRHAM ON 12TH AUGUST 2010
Kelantan Government Reminded To Comply With The Law On Dinar
The Kelantan government is reminded against making new regulations indiscriminately such as using the gold dinar and silver dirham without referring to the federal government as it could be against the national regulation.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the statement by Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat that the dinar and dirham would be used as alternative currencies clearly breached Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) regulations.
"I advise the Kelantan government not to do so (introduce regulations) as it likes. Whatever it wants to do must be discussed, otherwise members of the public will be confused over the jurisdiction of the Federal and State governments.
"Matters concerning currency comes under the jurisdiction of the Federal government, and not the state government, and what had been done clearly breached the country's law. We have the constitution and regulations," he told reporters after chairing the meeting of the Kelantan Umno Liaison Body, here Saturday.
Two days ago, Nik Abdul Aziz had launched the dinar and dirham syariah currencies which would be used in day-to-day transactions including salary payments to civil servants.
About 1,000 entrepreneurs in the state were reported to have agreed to accept the gold dinar and silver dirham in their business transactions.
The Dinar and dirham are produced by a subsidiary of Perbadanan Menteri Besar Kelantan (PMBK), Kelantan Golden Trade.
Yesterday, the BNM pointed out that only the ringgit is the valid currency for payment for goods and services in the country and rejected the use of the dinar and dirham introduced in Kelantan.
Continue reading - Kelantan Government Reminded To Comply With The Law On Dinar
Go Go Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, you have my full support. May all the heroism spirit of the Malaysians be with you. Restore the Gold Standard!
The upcoming event in Kelantan is history in making as it marks the beginning of both, the rise of Islam and demise of Capitalism for the two can’t co-exist: when the light comes darkness disappears.
This is the first time in the last 100 years, since the fall of the Ottoman Caliphate, when a Muslim government introduces Shariah Currency. Indeed there has been four generations of Muslims who have not seen Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham; four generations of Muslims who have been divided into little national reservations and sentenced to permanent robbery first by local, then by international Masters of Riba; four generations of Muslims who haven’t known what is their Deen. The introduction of Gold Dinar and Silver Dirham in the state of Kelantan is not a new idea or experiment, it is the return to the medium of exchange that has been known for 1400 years throughout Dar al-Islam as Money of Shariah taking its legislation from Allah’s Revelation and Rasul’s Sunnah.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan are going to say “NO” to the insane world order created by bankers after WWII not by blasting offices and embassies nor by deciphering bloodlines and agendas of occult societies but by putting Halal money in their pockets.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan are going to say: “One Dinar – One Ummah”.
On the 12th August people of Kelantan will uplift dignity of Malays not through nationalistic UMNO-type policies of Bumiputra privileges but through restoration of Muamalat.
On the 12th August the government of Kelantan will start moving with the current, Divine Current, and every stroke in the direction of the current would bring Kelantan 10 times farther than a stroke against it; the first stroke will be the payment of 25% of salaries to public servants in Dinar and Dirham; all state companies will be accepting payments in Dinar and Dirham is another stroke; 600 shops will receive stickers “We Accept Dinar and Dirham” – yet another stroke.
However the 12th August is not the moment of celebration but rather the moment of Tauba, Tauba for all of us without exception, for we all have allowed the Deen of Islam, the most precious gift we were given, to slip away from our lives and replace it with primitive puritanical monotheism centered around sexuality, woman’s dress code and halal chicken, a religion which Umar Pasha Vadillo calls Islamic Protestantism.
Yes, before and especially on the 12 of August we have to put our foreheads on prayer mat in a long sajdah and ask forgiveness from Allah Subhanahu for letting Riba, the most heinous crime, become part of our daily existence, for our great Ulama in the past would not tolerate even one bank in their lands, let alone declare it Halal, because they really believed that “dirham of Riba is worse than adultery 36 times”. And there are Ulama today too who are not compromising the Deen, Umar Pasha Vadillo said in one of his lectures in Kazakhstan last year: “One bank on your street is worse than prostitution in your own family!”.
So this is the moment of realization of how far we have gone out of the Deen and how urgently we need to go back.
August 12 is not the end but the beginning of our affair as the Shariah currency is the first element to be put in place then to be followed by the second, Souq (Islamic market) which in turn will require all other elements of Islamic Muamalat to come into picture thus bringing an entire paradigm shift of what is money, trade, wealth, investment, - and what is not.
The ceremony will be attended by many guests: besides Chief Ministers of several Malaysian states, there will be government officials from Sulu Sultanate, Indonesia, Pakistan, Turkey, as well as leaders of various jama’as and organizations from Germany, Spain, Kazakhstan and other countries. The event will undoubtly signify the emergence of the new centre of the Islamic world in the 21st century: NUSANTARA.
Muslim leaders, activists and especially media are most welcome to Kota Bharu, Kelantan to witness the main Islamic event of the last 100 years.
As the historic day of 12th August approaches Muamalah Council Malaysia and its chairman, Hajj Umar Azmon, wish to express thankfulness to Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz and Datuk Husam Musa of Kelantan state government; may Allah grant Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz and Datuk Husam Musa, their families and their people total success in this world and, most importantly, in the next. Amin.
Continue reading -
KELANTAN LAUNCHES DINAR AND DIRHAM ON 12TH AUGUST 2010
Kelantan Government Reminded To Comply With The Law On Dinar
The Kelantan government is reminded against making new regulations indiscriminately such as using the gold dinar and silver dirham without referring to the federal government as it could be against the national regulation.
International Trade and Industry Minister Datuk Seri Mustapa Mohamed said the statement by Kelantan Menteri Besar Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat that the dinar and dirham would be used as alternative currencies clearly breached Bank Negara Malaysia (BNM) regulations.
"I advise the Kelantan government not to do so (introduce regulations) as it likes. Whatever it wants to do must be discussed, otherwise members of the public will be confused over the jurisdiction of the Federal and State governments.
"Matters concerning currency comes under the jurisdiction of the Federal government, and not the state government, and what had been done clearly breached the country's law. We have the constitution and regulations," he told reporters after chairing the meeting of the Kelantan Umno Liaison Body, here Saturday.
Two days ago, Nik Abdul Aziz had launched the dinar and dirham syariah currencies which would be used in day-to-day transactions including salary payments to civil servants.
About 1,000 entrepreneurs in the state were reported to have agreed to accept the gold dinar and silver dirham in their business transactions.
The Dinar and dirham are produced by a subsidiary of Perbadanan Menteri Besar Kelantan (PMBK), Kelantan Golden Trade.
Yesterday, the BNM pointed out that only the ringgit is the valid currency for payment for goods and services in the country and rejected the use of the dinar and dirham introduced in Kelantan.
Continue reading - Kelantan Government Reminded To Comply With The Law On Dinar
Go Go Datuk Nik Abdul Aziz Nik Mat, you have my full support. May all the heroism spirit of the Malaysians be with you. Restore the Gold Standard!
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It
Let’s get real. The U.S. is bankrupt. Neither spending more nor taxing less will help the country pay its bills.
What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.
$4 Trillion Bill
How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?
Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.
This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.
This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.
Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.
My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”
(Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
Continue reading - Bloomberg - U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It
What it can and must do is radically simplify its tax, health-care, retirement and financial systems, each of which is a complete mess. But this is the good news. It means they can each be redesigned to achieve their legitimate purposes at much lower cost and, in the process, revitalize the economy.
$4 Trillion Bill
How can the fiscal gap be so enormous?
Simple. We have 78 million baby boomers who, when fully retired, will collect benefits from Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid that, on average, exceed per-capita GDP. The annual costs of these entitlements will total about $4 trillion in today’s dollars. Yes, our economy will be bigger in 20 years, but not big enough to handle this size load year after year.
This is what happens when you run a massive Ponzi scheme for six decades straight, taking ever larger resources from the young and giving them to the old while promising the young their eventual turn at passing the generational buck.
Herb Stein, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under U.S. President Richard Nixon, coined an oft-repeated phrase: “Something that can’t go on, will stop.” True enough. Uncle Sam’s Ponzi scheme will stop. But it will stop too late.
And it will stop in a very nasty manner. The first possibility is massive benefit cuts visited on the baby boomers in retirement. The second is astronomical tax increases that leave the young with little incentive to work and save. And the third is the government simply printing vast quantities of money to cover its bills.
Worse Than Greece
Most likely we will see a combination of all three responses with dramatic increases in poverty, tax, interest rates and consumer prices. This is an awful, downhill road to follow, but it’s the one we are on. And bond traders will kick us miles down our road once they wake up and realize the U.S. is in worse fiscal shape than Greece.
Some doctrinaire Keynesian economists would say any stimulus over the next few years won’t affect our ability to deal with deficits in the long run.
This is wrong as a simple matter of arithmetic. The fiscal gap is the government’s credit-card bill and each year’s 14 percent of GDP is the interest on that bill. If it doesn’t pay this year’s interest, it will be added to the balance.
Demand-siders say forgoing this year’s 14 percent fiscal tightening, and spending even more, will pay for itself, in present value, by expanding the economy and tax revenue.
My reaction? Get real, or go hang out with equally deluded supply-siders. Our country is broke and can no longer afford no- pain, all-gain “solutions.”
(Laurence J. Kotlikoff is a professor of economics at Boston University and author of “Jimmy Stewart Is Dead: Ending the World’s Ongoing Financial Plague with Limited Purpose Banking.” The opinions expressed are his own.)
Continue reading - Bloomberg - U.S. Is Bankrupt and We Don't Even Know It
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