How It Begins?

For those of you who know my outlook on the country, you might recognize this story as one of the indicators of the beginning of the national dissolution. The problem is not the imposition of Federal troops on state jurisdiction, but rather the fiscal failure of a locality to defend itself from its own citizens. Meanwhile, we fight two foreign wars, occupy bases all around the world to protect our trading partners from the Soviets, and pay our citizens to shop. It would be nice to blame someone, but we're all in it now.

Obama Reading Roubini?

I guess the President was reading Roubini's NYTimes Op-Ed.

President Barack Obama, calling current deficit spending “unsustainable,” warned of skyrocketing interest rates for consumers if the U.S. continues to finance government by borrowing from other countries.

“We can’t keep on just borrowing from China,” Obama said at a town-hall meeting in Rio Rancho, New Mexico, outside Albuquerque. “We have to pay interest on that debt, and that means we are mortgaging our children’s future with more and more debt.”

Holders of U.S. debt will eventually “get tired” of buying it, causing interest rates on everything from auto loans to home mortgages to increase, Obama said. “It will have a dampening effect on our economy.”

Thankfully, he doesn't make the mistake of saying the sky is falling on the dollar and instead places the emphasis on the fiscal component -- too much borrowing.

I sometimes wonder if it would make more sense for the US to default now rather than try to pay back all the obligations. Chapter 11, national style. If we had the national will to accept a lower standard of living and become an exporter nation, defaulting would be feasible. As it is, though, it would just be chaos.

So, everyone, rally around a reduction in spending. Or a sizeable increase in taxes. It comes down to a simple couple of questions: do you want less, or do you want to pay for what you're getting?