The combination of $trillion bond fraud, dependence on inflating home equity for economic development, oversized cars, oil dependence, constant market intervention, insolvent banks, insolvent homes, outsourced industry, endless war, budget deadlock amidst runaway deficits, raided US gold treasury, mammoth future benefit obligations, and handing over the keys at USDept Treasury to Goldman Sachs has left the United States to fend off systemic failure. The creeping price inflation that stems from USFed hyper monetary inflation and total ignorance on basics of capitalism like business formation have left the US vulnerable to disorder and chaos. The chaos in fact grows with the passage of time and the ruin of money, against a background of a cruel middle class squeeze. With one citizen in seven on food stamps and over 22% of the population jobless, the sunset of the American Empire is well along. The banker oligarchs are gradually killing the nation, its democracy, and its wealth engines during a sustained strangulation process.
UNDERWATER NATION THAT CANNOT SWIM
Comments by economists continue to center on consumer spending and desired job growth, without any mention of business investment and reduced regulatory impediments. The nation has no clue among leaders to engineer a recovery. Tragically, it is not possible unless the housing market rebounds convincingly, and unless the big US banks are liquidated. The negative momentum is so grotesque. It is like a man sliding backwards on a steep icy street with no objects nearby to grab. The remarkable fact in my view is that so many trained economists and market mavens are shocked that the USEconomy is entering another recession. They must have considered Clunker Car program, New Homebuyer Tax Credit initiative, and the General Motors bailout all to be genius concepts. They seem poorly trained in capitalism, and well trained in asset inflation management laced with public indoctrination. To the sound money crowd, the degradation was obvious. The landscape is taking on the same look at mid-2008 when all hell broke loose on the financial and economic fronts. It should not be so surprising, since nothing has been fixed.
Innovation remains prevalent among technology and telecommunication firms. Too bad so much of the product output is done by US subsidiaries in Asia. The USGovt leadership thought a green revolution would make for a solid initiative until it realized that most of the purchases would come from Asia. The high speed rail projects almost all involve Chinese equipment. The US is so badly on a slippery slope, that a simple debt default might be the best of outcomes to hope for, given the nasty added ramifications that could come from chaos. The main location for innovation within the USEconomy seems to be in financial fraud and military weapons. Former USFed Chairman Volcker once accused the financial industry of having only one productive innovation in three decades, the automatic teller machine (ATM), a scurrilous accusation indeed.
The American people, having been exposed to a powerful cost surge, futile compromises to address the USGovt budget deficits, profound mortgage fraud, a series of fixes without solution that are disguised elite banker redemptions, tremendous waste of over $2.5 trillion in various policy initiatives, exemption from Wall Street prosecution, chronic housing market decline, and phony economic statistics, areawakening to the reality of a systemic failure USEconomy, punctuated by a USTreasury Bond default. The preliminary signal is full isolation by the USFed as sole buyer of USTreasurys at USGovt debt auctions. They are currently buying about 80% of USGovt debt at official auctions. Many dopey analysts have put forth the notion, even within the gold community, that a debt default is impossible given the control of the global reserve currency to cover the debt. This is shallow thinking in my view. Once the USFed and its monetary engines are exposed on the world stage to rely upon hyper monetary inflation to sustain the broken USGovt financial contraption where fraud and war and insolvency are the three passengers without a driver, the USDollar will be punished, avoided, and become the object of even more profound revolt. The leaders can swim only if they push others in the pool underwater. Most debt default starts with a nasty run on the currency.
The underwater nation suffers from massive insolvency in the banking sector. Three bad jokes are played upon the US public. 1) They are told that the banks hold large Excess Reserve accounts at the USFed, earning interest income. Lie! The funds are Loan Loss Reserves moved from the banks to the USFed, where the central bank is hiding its own insolvency. The banks will need those funds to cover losses. The USFed by loose calculations is between $1.4 trillion and $1.8 trillion in the red, mainly from purchasing overpriced mortgage assets, some of whose leveraged items are totally worthless. The housing market is not coming back. The USFed itself is starging at the abyss, and might resign its commission. 2) The big US banks claim also that they have tightened their lending standards. Lie! They are insolvent and therefore must reduce their lending on a grand scale. The big US banks are in possession of far less capital than they claim, thanks to the FASB accounting rule change put into effect in April 2009. Their plight worsens. They cannot dump REO bank owned homes on a depressed market. The big US banks are trapped in an extreme and worsening condition, insolvent to the tune of $3 trillion. The FDIC pretends to have funds to support over $7 trillion in banking deposits, but their insurance fund has long been depleted. The MyBudget360 outfit does great work in analysis of the housing market and mortgage finance. See their chart below on bank balance sheet over-statement. 3) Lastly, US corporations we are told own huge cash balances. Lie! Their foreign subsidiaries command the cash, and it will not be put to work on US soil, even with handsome benefits to repatriate the funds. Business prospects look horrible in the United States, the land of fraud, insolvency, and war.
