U.S. Debt is a "Fiscal Cancer"

Gee, ya think?

Do Churches Get Foreclosed?

Yes. I have wondered in the past how churches who took on debt—like overstretched homeowners did—would fare in a down economy. The answer is in: not very well. Yet another cautionary tale in taking on debt...

How the Fed Monetizes Debt

This is an excellent summary of how the Fed is monetizing debt, or in other words, printing money. It works really well...until it doesn't anymore. Then we'll be in trouble.

The shell game that the Fed is currently playing does not change the basic equation: Money is being printed out of thin air so that it can be used to buy US government debt.

Out of Airspeed, Out of Ideas

It seems to be that we are rapidly approaching the endgame in our handling of the financial crisis, the endgame being buying our own debt (which simply means printing the money we need). Ben Bernanke, erstwhile head of the Fed, seems to think we can do that with no dire consequences. We shall see. Any situation in which one gets a quote like that appended below, cannot end well.

We just have to hope that G20 creditors agree to put a clothes peg on their nose and keep buying Western debt until the crisis passes, for the sake of the world.

Alrighty then. Sounds like a good plan to me.

How the Fed Bypasses Congress

Interesting short article from Bloomberg explaining exactly how the Fed is doing an end run around democracy. This will not end well.

AIG Vaporizes More Money

Wow! Even I didn't have an imagination for the amount of cash that AIG is vaporizing. It has gone back to the government for another 21 billion bringing it's "loan" (which will never be repayed, I suspect) to a total of $143 billion in just over a month! This is all to pay off bad bets on Credit Default Swaps. Way to go, AIG! Sounds like they were the sole counter-party to every CDS.

Of course this is NOTHING to worry about because the U. S. only has to borrow $2 trillion next year. Let me see, we owe $11 trillion, so basically we have to take our total government debt built up over 50 years and add another 18% in 1 year. Sounds like we are fiscally insane....oops, I meant slightly over-extended. This would mean that in the conservative, Republican years, we will have increased the government debt by oh, 60% or so! Now that is what I call, conservative, fiscally responsible government, baby! Congratulations George Bush!

One Snapshot of the Debt Bubble

The NYT has a pretty good snapshot of the impact of the Debt Bubble on one family in Michigan. You can juggle things for awhile, but eventually this will catch up with you. Multiply it by several million times and who knows how it all ends, other than somehow it will end badly. This is the direct result of Greenspan's monetary policies.