National Debt

As Americans mindlessly celebrate another Memorial Day with cookouts, beer and burgers, the U.S. war machine keeps churning. As we brutally enforce our will on foreign countries, we create more people that hate us. They don’t hate us for our freedom. They hate us because we have invaded and occupied their countries. They hate us because we kill innocent people with predator drones. They hate us for our hypocrisy regarding democracy and freedom. Just when we had the opportunity to make a sensible decision by leaving Iraq and exiting the Middle East quagmire, Obama made the abysmal choice to casually sacrifice more troops in the Afghan shithole. We have thrown over $1.3 trillion down Middle East rat holes over the last 11 years with no discernible benefit to the citizens of the United States. George Bush and Barack Obama did this to prove  they were true statesmen. The Soviet Union killed over 1 million Afghans, while driving another 5 million out of the country and retreated as a bankrupted and defeated shell after ten years. Young Americans continue to die, for whom and for what? Our foreign policy during the last eleven years can be summed up in one military term, SNAFU – Situation Normal All Fucked Up. These endless foreign interventions under the guise of a War on Terror are a smoke screen for what is really going on in this country. When a government has unsolvable domestic problems, they try to distract the willfully ignorant masses by proactively creating foreign conflicts based upon false pretenses.  General Douglas MacArthur understood this danger to our liberty.

“I am concerned for the security of our great Nation; not so much because of any threat from without, but because of the insidious forces working from within.”

No one likes paying taxes. You’d think.

The reality is that — with the exception of Obama — Americans have again and again opted for a candidate who has paid lip-service to small government. Even Bill Clinton paid lip service to the idea that “the era of big government is over” (yeah, right). And then once in office, they have bucked their promises and massively increased the size and scope of government. Reagan’s administration increased the debt by 190% alone, and successive Presidents — especially George W. Bush and Barack Obama — just went bigger and bigger, in total contradict to voters’ expressed preferences. The choice between the Republicans and Democrats has been one of rhetoric and not policy. Republicans may consistently talk about reducing the size and scope of government, but they don’t follow through.Today Ron Paul, the only Republican candidate who is putting forth a seriously reduced notion of government, has been marginalised and sidelined by the major media and Republican establishment. The establishment candidate — Mitt Romney — as governor of Massachusetts left that state with the biggest per-capita debt of any state. His track record in government and his choice of advisers strongly suggest that he will follow in the George W. Bush school of promising smaller government and delivering massive government and massive debt.

So stepping aside from the biggest aggregator of private data for a few minutes, and focusing on what actually matters, here is Citigroup telling our European readers who have those fancy multi-colored bills in their wallets, that they are in deep trouble.

To summarize from Citi:

• There are many scenarios for a Greek exit;  almost all of them are likely to be EUR negative for an extended period
• Some scenarios could be positive in equilibrium but the run-up to the new equilibrium could be nasty, brutal and long 
• The positive scenarios for the euro involve aggressive reduction of tail risk; none of these seem likely
• It is unlikely that central banks busily substitute EUR for USD in their portfolios during periods of intense political uncertainty.

“Public debt is an enemy for the country”

The dollar was a median step towards a newer and more corrupt ideal.  Its time is nearly over.  This is open, it is admitted, and it is being activated as you read this.  The speed at which this disaster occurs is really dependent on the speed at which our government along with our central bank decides to expedite doubt.  Doubt in a currency is a furious omen, costing not just investors, but an entire society.  America is at the very edge of such a moment.  The naysayers can scratch and bark all they like, but the financial life of a country serves no person’s emphatic hope.  It burns like a fire.  Left unwatched and unchecked, it grows uncontrollable and wild, until finally, there is nothing left to fuel its hunger, and it finally chokes in a haze of confusion and dread…

When Ron Paul stands up in front of a crowd and explains the fictional-reserve banking system's unreality, some listen, many shrug and bury their heads. When ZeroHedge does the same, comments are heavy but change is slow to come. But when a 12-year-old girl, in a little over five minutes can explain the total farce that is our monetary system, surely people have to listen and break free of the matrix. Victoria Grant, 12, explains how "The banks and the government have colluded to financially enslave the people of Canada," and as CTV notes, 'Grant lays out a brief history of the Canadian banking system, referencing obscure historical figures such as former Vancouver mayor Gerald McGeer and explaining that the Bank of Canada held primary control over government lending until the 1970's. Starting then, she says, governments began borrowing from private banks instead at considerably higher interest rates than those available through the central bank. The result, Grant argues, is a rapidly increasing national debt. The pint-sized pundit is quick to offer a solution. "If the Canadian Government needs money, they can borrow it directly from the Bank of Canada," she says. " ... Canadians would again prosper with real money as the foundation of our economic structure." The truth is out there - whether it comes from Alan Simpson, Ron Paul, ZeroHedge, or a 12-year-old Canadian young lady.

Preaching from the pulpit of the fiscally most undisciplined country in the world

You just have to admire Ron Paul for his non-flip-flopping tenacity.

Excessive spending has created record levels of debt and deficits, and the worst is yet to come, threatening opportunity and prosperity for younger generations. In these 10 charts, via The Heritage Foundation, we highlight the third (and arguably most frightening) in our four-part series on the Federal Budget - Debt & Deficits.

It is three and a half years since the Great Recession hit in 2008 with the collapse of our financial system caused by the Wall Street banks and their captured politician cronies in Washington D.C. Their mouthpieces in the mainstream media have been telling the American sheeple that we have been out of recession and in recovery since the 4th quarter of 2009. It truly has been a recovery for the Wall Street bankers and the mega-corporations that have laid off millions and opened new factories in the Far East while generating record profits and rewarding their executives with millions in bonuses. The stock market has doubled from its 2009 lows. All is well on Wall Street – not so much on Main Street. The compliant non-questioning MSM reported that GDP in the 1st quarter rose 2.2%, less than expected. This pitiful government manipulated result confirms that we are back in recession. The first quarter had the huge benefit of fantastic weather, an extra day, and a supposed surge in jobs. And this is all we got? Take a good long hard look at this chart.

I was approached recently by a member of our Sovereign Man community who filed the paperwork to relinquish US citizenship some time ago. Long story short, after an incomprehensibly long wait, the US government finally sent him a reply: Application DENIED. Absolutely shocking. That you even have to ‘apply’ to relinquish what you never signed up for is intellectually insulting. That you cannot do so freely, and immediately, is nothing short of totalitarian. It’s still an embryonic movement, though more and more US citizens are being driven to divorce their country. Last year nearly 1,600 people gave up US citizenship, up from 1,485 in 2010, 731 in 2009, and 226 in 2008. While some renunciants have philosophical misgivings about being American, most do it for tax reasons. There’s a growing number of expats who, despite living abroad for years, are still paying huge portions of their income to Uncle Sam.

H.L. Mencken was a renowned newspaper columnist for the Baltimore Sun from 1906 until 1948. His biting sarcasm seems to fit perfectly in today’s world. His acerbic satirical writings on government, democracy, politicians and the ignorant masses are as true today as they were then. I believe the reason his words hit home is because he was writing during the last Unraveling and Crisis periods in America. The similarities cannot be denied. There are no journalists of his stature working in the mainstream media today. His acerbic wit is nowhere to be found among the lightweight shills that parrot their corporate masters’ propaganda on a daily basis and unquestioningly report the fabrications spewed by our government. Mencken’s skepticism of all institutions is an unknown quality in the vapid world of present day journalism.

H.L. Mencken understood the false promises of democracy 80 years ago:

“Democracy is also a form of worship. It is the worship of Jackals by Jackasses. It is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard.”

We deserve to get it good and hard, and we will.

I don’t understand the furore around Obama’s secret service handlers being (ahem) secretly serviced by Colombian hookers. To writers like myself who specialise in salacious analogies, the incident was a gift. To the rest of the press, who don’t normally get to write about such matters, it was an excuse to shoot off pent-up sexual frustration. So I can understand the press pushing the story just the way Bill Clinton pushes expensive cigar cases (enthusiastically, by all accounts). The worry, apparently, is the potential to compromise the President’s security. Rep. Peter King, chairman of the House committee that oversees the Secret Service, says the key question is whether the prostitutes could have accessed “any data or information that could have compromised the president of the United States or made an enemy force aware of the practices and procedures of the Secret Service.” But surely this applies to all sexual relationships, not strictly ones for money? Surely prostitutes are absolutely the safest kind of liaisons? After all, why would a foreign agent trying to sequester intelligence information try and charge the American agent for sex? If you were setting a honey trap, why would you create some barrier to entry, such as a fee? There’s playing hard to get, and then there’s playing easy to brush off, and that would be the latter.

Buckle Up