The U.S. Is Just About Bankrupt, Yet No One Seems To Care

April 18, 2007

By Jim Kingsland
jimkingsland@gmail.com

While I am greatly appreciative of the blogosphere for the wide selection of thought - whether left, or right - it is getting to be quite redundant. The mantra of "Democrats evil, Republicans good" and vice versa gets a bit old. I find it to be constant and tiresome sniping while the world flies by and problems all around us become worse and remain uncorrected and literally unattended. Beyond politics there's a nascent but snowballing financial collapse in the making. It should be rooted in the core of political discussion, but ends up being widely ignored because of the complexities involved.

There's no shortage of coverage for our biggest national disaster: The War in Iraq. Every day lives are being wasted with no solution, or end in sight. I'm not here to discuss my opposition to the war which is a subject that has been well covered by pretty much anyone with functional brain cells. We're losing, or have lost and if the stars become aligned in the wrong direction we'll likely go after Iran and probably see our first aircraft carrier sunk since 1945. But I'm not going to get into the war and politics since it's so well covered already.

What concerns me, because of lack of coverage, is the growing financial storm that's occuring in this county with so many (unless they've lost their house) unaware. While subprime meltdown has made the nightly news, something that doesn't make the news to give widescale sense of appreciation and urgency is the sagging fortunes of the U.S. dollar and the near insolvency of our county.

That's why I and this diary will be here. Folks need to be jolted out of the mindless, partisan bickering to understand that great structural problems threaten to tear the country apart from the inside. The question needs to be asked - "Why are we letting this happen to ourselves, and Why are we allowing our politicians to perpetuate the problems by allowing them to do nothing?"

The dollar this year has tumbled vs major currencies with the exception of the Yen where the Yen has also slumped. The Treasury and even Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke have warned of future liabilities from social security, medicare, pensions, etc in excess of $50 TRILLION dollars. The country is pretty much bankrupt, yet all I hear on the radio whether its Rush or Air America, or read on the web is that one side is evil vs the other side.

It goes even deeper. The U.S. has lost its edge in many ways - China, for example, is on the verge of becoming the top exporter in the world and already is to Europe. European markets have overtaken our markets in value, etc. The U.S. has suffered a major fade economically just since the turn of the century - yet we're led to think that the Bush economy is "best ever".

I have a blog where I chronicle events in the markets:

http://buttonwood1792.blogspot.com/

I hope you will take a look. You will see that the chart of the dollar looks like a bankruptcy chart.

The next 3 to 6 months will be crucial. In all likelihood, we're headed for recession. How many realize that?? Most are so overly complacent, really clueless, and thus feel they have the luxury or being able to engage in the usual partisan discourse when they should be removing the wool from their eyes provided by liars like Bernanke and Paulson that all is well. All is not well. Will the body politic do something?

Half the battle is to recognize there's a problem. The present power base - both dems and repubs - don't want you to know what can hurt you. But there's a lot out there that can hurt you financially. I hope to shed some light and keep you informed.