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Bill Gross: The US Is A Debt Meth Addict - Unless The Fiscal Gap Is Closed Soon "The Damage Will Be Beyond Repair"
The highlights from Bill Gross' latest monthly piece:
- Armageddon is not around the corner. I don’t believe in the imminent demise of the U.S. economy and its financial markets. But I’m afraid for them.
- The U.S. is no “clean dirty shirt.” The U.S., in fact, is a serial offender, an addict whose habit extends beyond weed or cocaine and who frequently pleasures itself with budgetary crystal meth. Uncle Sam’s habit, say these respected agencies, will be a hard (and dangerous) one to break.
- What the updated IMF, CBO and BIS “Ring” concludes is that the U.S. balance sheet, its deficit (y-axis) and its “fiscal gap” (x-axis), is in flames and that its fire department is apparently asleep at the station house.
- To keep our debt/GDP ratio below the metaphorical combustion point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, these studies (when averaged) suggest that we need to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP and rather quickly over the next five to 10 years. An 11% “fiscal gap” in terms of today’s economy speaks to a combination of spending cuts and taxes of $1.6 trillion per year!
- To put that into perspective, CBO has calculated that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other provisions would only reduce the deficit by a little more than $200 million.
- We owe, in other words, not only $16 trillion in outstanding, Treasury bonds and bills, but $60 trillion more. It just so happens that the $60 trillion comes not in the form of promises to pay bonds or bills at maturity, but the present value of future Social Security benefits, Medicaid expenses and expected costs for Medicare. Altogether, that’s a whopping total of 500% of GDP, dear reader, and I’m not making it up. Kindly consult the IMF and the CBO for verification. Kindly wonder, as well, how we’re going to get out of this mess.
- Unless we begin to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that our debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow and the dollar would inevitably decline. Bonds would be burned to a crisp and stocks would certainly be singed; only gold and real assets would thrive within the “Ring of Fire.”
- If the fiscal gap isn’t closed even ever so gradually over the next few years, then rating services, dollar reserve holding nations and bond managers embarrassed into being reborn as vigilantes may together force a resolution that ends in tears. The damage would likely be beyond repair.
- The U.S. and its fellow serial abusers have been inhaling debt’s methamphetamine crystals for some time now, and kicking the habit looks incredibly difficult.
Damages
From Bill Gross
- The U.S. has federal debt/GDP less than 100%, Aaa/AA+ credit ratings, and the benefit of being the world’s reserve currency.
- Studies by the CBO, IMF and BIS (when averaged) suggest that we need to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP and rather quickly over the next five to 10 years.
- Unless we begin to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that our debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow, and the dollar would inevitably decline.
I have an amnesia of sorts. I remember almost nothing of my distant past – a condition which at the brink of my 69th year is neither fatal nor debilitating, but which leaves me anchorless without a direction home. Actually, I do recall some things, but they are hazy almost fairytale fantasies, filled with a lack of detail and usually bereft of emotional connections. I recall nothing specific of what parents, teachers or mentors said; no piece of advice; no life’s lessons. I’m sure there must have been some – I just can’t remember them. My life, therefore, reads like a storybook filled with innumerable déjà vu chapters, but ones which I can’t recall having read.
I had a family reunion of sorts a few weeks ago when my sister and I traveled to Sacramento to visit my failing brother – merely 18 months my senior. After his health issues had been discussed we drifted onto memory lane – talking about old times. Hadn’t I known that Dad had never been home, that he had spent months at a time overseas on business in Africa and South America? “Sort of, but not really,” I answered – a strange retort for a near adolescent child who should have remembered missing an absent father. Didn’t I know that our parents were drinkers; that Mom’s “gin-fizzes” usually began in the early afternoon and ended as our high school homework was being put to bed? “I guess not,” I replied, “but perhaps after the Depression and WWII, they had a reason to have a highball or two, or three.”
My lack of personal memory, I’ve decided, may reflect minor damage, much like a series of concussions suffered by a football athlete to his brain. Somewhere inside of my still intact protective helmet or skull, a physical or emotional collision may have occurred rendering a scar which prohibited proper healing. Too bad. And yet we all suffer damage in one way or another, do we not? How could it be otherwise in an imperfect world filled with parents, siblings and friends with concerns of their own for a majority of the day’s 24 hours? Sometimes the damage manifests itself in memory “loss” or repression, sometimes in self-flagellation or destructive behavior towards others. Sometimes it can be constructive as when those with damaged goods try to help others even more damaged. Whatever the reason, there are seven billion damaged human beings walking this earth.
For me, though, instead of losing my mind, I’ve simply lost my long-term memory. It’s a damnable state of affairs for sure – losing a chance to write your autobiography and any semblance of recalling what seems to have been a rather productive life. But I must tell you – it has its benefits. Each and every day starts with a relatively clean page, a “magic slate” of sorts where you can just lift the cellophane cover and completely erase minor transgressions, slights or perceived sins of others upon a somewhat fragile humanity. I get over most things and move on rather quickly. The French writer Jules Renard once speculated that “perhaps people with a detailed memory cannot have general ideas.” If so, I may be fortunate. So there are pluses and minuses to this memory thing, and like most of us, I add them up and move on. If that be the only disadvantage on my life’s scorecard – and there cannot be many – I am a lucky man indeed.
The ring of fire
In last month’s Investment Outlook I promised to write about damage of a financial kind – the potential debt peril – the long-term fiscal cliff that waits in the shadows of a New Normal U.S. economy which many claim is not doing that badly. After all, despite approaching the edge of 2012’s fiscal cliff with our 8% of GDP deficit, the U.S. is still considered the world’s “cleanest dirty shirt.” It has federal debt/GDP less than 100%, Aaa/AA+ credit ratings, and the benefit of being the world’s reserve currency – which means that most global financial transactions are denominated in dollars and that our interest rates are structurally lower than other Aaa countries because of it. We have world-class universities, a still relatively mobile labor force and apparently remain the beacon of technology – just witness the never-ending saga of Microsoft, Google and now Apple. Obviously there are concerns, especially during election years, but are we still not sitting in the global economy’s catbird seat? How could the U.S. still not be the first destination of global capital in search of safe (although historically low) prospective returns?
Well, Armageddon is not around the corner. I don’t believe in the imminent demise of the U.S. economy and its financial markets. But I’m afraid for them. Apparently so are many others, among them the IMF (International Monetary Fund), the CBO (Congressional Budget Office) and the BIS (Bank of International Settlements). I hold on my lap as I write this September afternoon the recently published annual reports for each of these authoritative and mainly non-political organizations which describe the financial balance sheets and prospective budgets of a plethora of developed and developing nations. The CBO of course is perhaps closest to our domestic ground in heralding the possibility of a fiscal train wreck over the next decade, but the IMF and BIS are no amateur oracles – they lend money and monitor financial transactions in the trillions. When all of them speak, we should listen and in the latest year they’re all speaking in unison. What they’re saying is that when it comes to debt and to the prospects for future debt, the U.S. is no “clean dirty shirt.” The U.S., in fact, is a serial offender, an addict whose habit extends beyond weed or cocaine and who frequently pleasures itself with budgetary crystal meth. Uncle Sam’s habit, say these respected agencies, will be a hard (and dangerous) one to break.
What standards or guidelines do their reports use and how best to explain them? Well, the three of them all try to compute what is called a “fiscal gap,” a deficit that must be closed either with spending cuts, tax hikes or a combination of both which keeps a country’s debt/GDP ratio under control. The fiscal gap differs from the “deficit” in that it includes future estimated entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid which may not show up in current expenditures. Each of the three reports target different debt/GDP ratios over varying periods of time and each has different assumptions as to a country’s real growth rate and real interest rate in future years. A reader can get confused trying to conflate the three of them into a homogeneous “fiscal gap” number. The important thing, though, from the standpoint of assessing the fiscal “damage” and a country’s relative addiction, is to view the U.S. in comparison to other countries, to view its apparently clean dirty shirt in the absence of its reserve currency status and its current financial advantages, and to point to a more distant future 10-20 years down the road at which time its debt addiction may be life, or certainly debt, threatening.
I’ve compiled all three studies into a picture chart perhaps familiar to many Investment Outlook readers. Several years ago I compared and contrasted countries from the standpoint of PIMCO’s “Ring of Fire.” It was a well-received Outlook if only because of the red flames and a reference to an old Johnny Cash song – “I fell into a burning ring of fire –I went down, down, down and the flames went higher.” Melodramatic, of course, but instructive nonetheless – perhaps prophetic. What the updated IMF, CBO and BIS “Ring” concludes is that the U.S. balance sheet, its deficit (y-axis) and its “fiscal gap” (x-axis), is in flames and that its fire department is apparently asleep at the station house.
To keep our debt/GDP ratio below the metaphorical combustion point of 212 degrees Fahrenheit, these studies (when averaged) suggest that we need to cut spending or raise taxes by 11% of GDP and rather quickly over the next five to 10 years. An 11% “fiscal gap” in terms of today’s economy speaks to a combination of spending cuts and taxes of $1.6 trillion per year! To put that into perspective, CBO has calculated that the expiration of the Bush tax cuts and other provisions would only reduce the deficit by a little more than $200 million. As well, the failed attempt at a budget compromise by Congress and the President – the so-called Super Committee “Grand Bargain”– was a $4 trillion battle plan over 10 years worth $400 billion a year. These studies, and the updated chart “Ring of Fire – Part 2!” suggests close to four times that amount in order to douse the inferno.
And to draw, dear reader, what I think are critical relative comparisons, look at who’s in that ring of fire alongside the U.S. There’s Japan, Greece, the U.K., Spain and France, sort of a rogues’ gallery of debtors. Look as well at which countries have their budgets and fiscal gaps under relative control – Canada, Italy, Brazil, Mexico, China and a host of other developing (many not shown) as opposed to developed countries. As a rule of thumb, developing countries have less debt and more underdeveloped financial systems. The U.S. and its fellow serial abusers have been inhaling debt’s methamphetamine crystals for some time now, and kicking the habit looks incredibly difficult.

As one of the “Ring” leaders, America’s abusive tendencies can be described in more ways than an 11% fiscal gap and a $1.6 trillion current dollar hole which needs to be filled. It’s well publicized that the U.S. has $16 trillion of outstanding debt, but its future liabilities in terms of Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid are less tangible and therefore more difficult to comprehend. Suppose, though, that when paying payroll or income taxes for any of the above benefits, American citizens were issued a bond that they could cash in when required to pay those future bills. The bond would be worth more than the taxes paid because the benefits are increasing faster than inflation. The fact is that those bonds today would total nearly $60 trillion, a disparity that is four times our publicized number of outstanding debt. We owe, in other words, not only $16 trillion in outstanding, Treasury bonds and bills, but $60 trillion more. In my example, it just so happens that the $60 trillion comes not in the form of promises to pay bonds or bills at maturity, but the present value of future Social Security benefits, Medicaid expenses and expected costs for Medicare. Altogether, that’s a whopping total of 500% of GDP, dear reader, and I’m not making it up. Kindly consult the IMF and the CBO for verification. Kindly wonder, as well, how we’re going to get out of this mess.
Investment conclusions
So I posed the question earlier: How can the U.S. not be considered the first destination of global capital in search of safe (although historically low) returns? Easy answer: It will not be if we continue down the current road and don’t address our “fiscal gap.” IF we continue to close our eyes to existing 8% of GDP deficits, which when including Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare liabilities compose an average estimated 11% annual “fiscal gap,” then we will begin to resemble Greece before the turn of the next decade. Unless we begin to close this gap, then the inevitable result will be that our debt/GDP ratio will continue to rise, the Fed would print money to pay for the deficiency, inflation would follow and the dollar would inevitably decline. Bonds would be burned to a crisp and stocks would certainly be singed; only gold and real assets would thrive within the “Ring of Fire.”
If that be the case, the U.S. would no longer be in the catbird’s seat of global finance and there would be damage aplenty, not just to the U.S. but to the global financial system itself, a system which for 40 years has depended on the U.S. economy as the world’s consummate consumer and the dollar as the global medium of exchange. If the fiscal gap isn’t closed even ever so gradually over the next few years, then rating services, dollar reserve holding nations and bond managers embarrassed into being reborn as vigilantes may together force a resolution that ends in tears. It would be a scenario for the storybooks, that’s for sure, but one which in this instance, investors would want to forget. The damage would likely be beyond repair.
William H. Gross
Managing Director
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Too
fucking
late
D
bag.
"Where were ya three blocks ago? We coulda used ya?"
The solution Bill is simple, but doesn't involve talking your book. End legal tender laws. Let the markets decide what is money. Expose real counterparty risk for what it is and free the people from the tyranny of forced trade in currencies that are abused by bankers and governments- knowing that taxes, enforced from the barrel of a gun will cover their largess.
The percentage of GDP argument whether it be debt or spending or cash deficit is a gigantic error in economic thinking. It assumes that the government is somehow additive to the productive output. It has never been and never will be. So to make a talking about point about what should be the optimum level of parasitic resource capture from an unproductive portion of society is a waste of time. The optimum level is zero. And every movement toward zero is better off than before.
There also is no tipping point or "fiscal cliff". It's just a panic inside the beltway that there's some limit to which they can feed off of productive society. Live around DC... every person in the city justifies the existence of their job as if it's critical to the working order of society no matter how mundane. It's really funny. So is the traffic around DC at 3pm.
Yep. And traffic is getting worse. Which means that more idiots are arriving daily.
One does need to protect ones assets however. That's what the military is for. Years ago, had a friend who was jag officer on an aircraft carrier. Asked him how many sailors it took to run the ship. He said -- "well it holds about 3,000 and we need about 500 to run the ship. So, in effect, we hire 3000 to get 500 that can actually do the job." That's about the right metric for gov't waste.
This D bag has been the premier bond investor for how many years?? and he waits until now to say this? F him and F this rigged bullshit market.
Here are the numbers, it doesn't look good - As Porky Pig would say, "Thaaaat's All, Folks."
http://www.garynorth.com/public/10076.cfm
How the hell do you take 70Trillion of Austerity without a Social meltdown.
How do you print 70Trillion without collapsing the currency..... both rhetorical, but I think Bill gets it.
Unfortunately if he admits reality and says there is no hope then all he gets is redemptions (which would be very bad for his cash flow).
So, bottom line he is no better than the politicians and will continue to lie about the mathematical facts of the situation.
Ayn said it best; "You can ignore reality, but you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality."
I thought he has been saying for years that the U.S is the cleanest dirty shirt, I guess he finally found all the shit stains on the back.
If every nation is a crack (fiat) addict, then there is really only one currency and the notion of "safe-haven relativism" is nothing more than a lie. Gross's thought that the collapse of the USD and the US economy is not immineny may (or may not) be right, but he will go on saying that until the one time he is wrong - which he won't expect. He ought to re-read Taleb's discussion of the thanksgiving turkey.
Hmmm... $1.6 Trillion Meth Heads
Which is approximately the cost of Wall Street Bankster Welfare Payments and the Black Hole of US military and Security Morons waste payments...
Because all of the above ARE the real terrorists...
It is my understanding that Tomahawk missiles cost around $1,000,000 (One Million Dollars) apiece.
Do you mean to tell me we can 'make it rain up in heah' (tomahawks on Iran), but Granny has to eat cat food?
Oh boy! Granny's not gonna be happy. Especially after having money extorted from her paychecks all her life.
I hope she's not one of those millions of gun owners. She might want to retaliate.
After all, when you have nothing left to lose, you lose it, or so I've heard.
If they taxed everyone 100% the goverment would still be broke. I don't know what other mental exercise is required. We are fucked until they exist no more.
+1 for succinctness.
True. It can't be said in fewer words.
We are fucked until they are gone.
How about taxing them 120%? That might work...
Deleted
Good call.
THE SKY IS FALLING!
THE SKY IS FALLING!
duplicate post by accident - deleted
It's worse than Gross states: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-08-08/blink-u-s-debt-just-grew-by-11-...
Bill "the Bond Tard" Gross
When he says collapse crisis is not around the corner, it means "I need more time to dump my billions of printed toilet paper."
In order to "close the fiscal gap", many things would have to occur, one of which is shutting down the industrial military complex. Good luck with that.
The moral hazard remains, fraud is the status quo, no surprise that possession is the fucking law.
As several others point out we are fucked no matter what. Know the real value of your labor? Time to find out bitchez.
It's the Fed, stupid!
Ron Holland of the Daily Bell calls it:
“One hundred years ago the American republic was overthrown and captured by financial elites and money power during the Taft and Wilson administrations, the first Republican and the second Democrat. Both the Federal Reserve and federal income tax were born and you know the rest of the story consisting of two world wars, the Great Depression and stock market crash, the rise of communism and fascism and the Cold War. Since that time directed current events, history and financial markets have ruled at the expense of free markets and free people…
“Since these acts Americans have increasingly lost control of their federal government, the value of the dollar has depreciated by more than 95 percent and now all Americans suffer under a two-party monopoly that can be neither controlled nor even impacted by productive Americans.
“Our nation's ‘mob rule’ style democracy and closed political system guarantees that ultimate control and policies of the power elites will be enacted and carried forward regardless of public support or opposition. Thus, since 1913 it really has not mattered which party or presidential candidate has won the election because both are controlled and act for the interests of the power elite.” …
“It is easy to say Americans should know they are a conquered people but do we really understand the situation? Like conquered peoples during Roman times believing they might still have power and influence over those who ruled over then, the answer is sadly no.
http://lewrockwell.com/holland/holland69.1.html
+ 100
This is a contradiction. He doesn't believe we will have a financial "Armaggedon", but compares the U.S. to a hardcore crystal meth addict. Since when does a cystal meth addict quit his addiction without outside help? First of all, an addict has to want help; I don't see the U.S. government reaching out for help, or doing anything to try and quit "using".
I think hope sells better than fear and negativity in finance. Then again bill cannot change the system, its build to fail, so take as much as you can when you can.
This is about as strong language as I have ever seen in institutional circles. Unthinkable even 5 yrs ago let alone 15.
The original game of "Monopoly" was circular.
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2012/09/deficit-hawks-obama-romney-bo...
Gross is like Buffet. He's aware of people acting on what he says. So he makes statements to benefit his current investment positions/strategy.
Or he makes statements on why he is invested in his current position.
And ?????????????????????????
Thanks for the pro-tip.
I think Bill is off on his timing...Armageddon is at the doorstep.
looks like bill is talking his position again..lol
"...........and the dollar would inevitably decline."
Well isn't that exactly what they want?! Don't we want to win this race to the bottom?! Must be what the Fed's been planning and working on all this time.
I want Obamaphone.
Printing to blow up and pop bubbles in the US is not getting people back to work. Directing the dollars at specific areas of the economy is not doing any good in the US. It is pretty obvious that a new strategy is needed.
The FED needs to print and direct the money through its owner banks off shore subsidiaries and blow up the non ring of fire countries. The BRIC's with Germany and Mexico are struggling, but still in pretty good shape. What Ben needs to do is DESTROY their economies and then the US will not look so bad because other BIG (not a Greece or Ireland) countries have it worse. Confidence will return to the US and people who still have money will want to buy another I5 and possibly hire a part time professional line waiter.
Another solution is to stop putting private debt on public balance sheets and let the dead die.
My vote is that we are already past the point of no return....its print print print from here on out until the collapse....not one politicians can cut expenses...and sure not enough to make a dent in anything...and treasuries..as soon as other countries start dumping....the Fed has to buy or die....we can´t have 12% interest on our debt...we can´t pay that....so I think you can chizel the 1-2% into stone as the interrest rate from here on out....so what is the variable....commodities and PM´s are them....durable assets...land...they will go up in price....but you will be a loser if you put money into a bank or a CD...I think in five years China will have enough gold to play the joker card....and turn the reserve currency to the yuan....
If the reminbi (yuan/rmb) becomes the reserve currency will the Chinese Central Bank stop pegging th rmb to the dollar?
The rmb is, about, 6.3 per USD currently. If the Bank of China stops pegging to the dollar do you think this ratio will go to parity?
If so: Should we be saving in rmb?
I would appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
There are two countries in the world which have yet to be humbled, and those are the United States and China.
You have to remember, in most parts of the world people don't really believe they are all going to be millionaires, they don't believe "we're number 1", they don't believe in endless progress.
So, culturally speaking they will deal with decline, they will learn to live with it like they've lived with it for decades, centuries.
The United States and China are locked into a suicide pact...which one will crash and burn faster is the question.
The US has past redemption point long time ago
Wack the bondholders, no need to cut spending right now, just create inflation and inflate away the debt, PIMCO is the cold loving frog in the warming inflation pot. Farmers love 5-6% inflation for the next ten years. PIMCO will have tons of redemption and people will spend their monied capital, thereby raising nominal GDP and nominal wages. Fuck the bondholders who want permanent cold, boil them up BEN, BOIL THEM UP BEN!
Inflation yes...but what is the number...5% or 500,000%....that is the question....inflation kills the little guy.....and hyperinflation kills it all....and do you think the rest of the world will just play along with our "dollar game" like we want them too.....hell no...they will dump it and/or not accept it...we are not used to a depression...the people in China have lived it for 4,000 years...they like beans and rice...
Mexicans like beans and rice. my wife is from the PRC and she don't like Rice or beans.
.... he said mind you after he front ran the latest QE. Bill Gross is just as addicted. Does he ever go on CNBC and ask for Bernanke's resignation? Jerk
There is a very simple solution to all the problems the US faces.
Step 1. Produce $60 trillion in currency.
Step 2. Pay off all bills.
Step 3. Let someone else deal with the fallout.
The fed will continue to print "money" until the game is over. Bernanke has orders to destroy what is left; onward to UN/IMF Special Drawing Rights.
Where things go from here is anybody's guess. Do no risk QE dollars given so readily to bankers and cronies these past several years convert to SDR's?
When the US loses its reserve currency status and us dummies have to take our lumps like any other third world country; knowing full well the kleptocrats, i.e... cronies,politicos, banksters have stashed away massive quantities of hard assets and are living on vast guarded estates; do we just look through the fence and stare vacantly as we do now?
We are a nation of gutless faggots, unable and unwilling to face the difficult choices; while our future was stolen right before our eyes!
Bill is nuts if he thinks things can be repaired. Special interest has to much money and power at stake to allow a repair to begin. Its not a matter of if, its a matter of when?
Youngman,
You said: "I think in five years China will have enough gold to play the joker card....and turn the reserve currency to the yuan...."
If the reminbi (yuan/rmb) becomes the reserve currency will the Chinese Central Bank stop pegging the rmb to the dollar?
The rmb is, about, 6.3 per USD currently. If the Bank of China stops pegging to the dollar do you think this ratio will go to parity?
If so: Should we be saving in rmb?
I would appreciate your thoughts.
Thanks in advance.
On the "Timing IT" big fat question. (BIG FAT COLLAPSE)
Thinking of a guage like a barometer here, we have (my family personally) experienced a lot of little "it's" along the way to the great unveiling (mass awakening) of the major IT.
I think long before the image penetrates even the densest sheep's head, me envisioning the front page of the NY Times with the headlines "Major Collapse is HERE", that the current invisible soup line EBT people will have already been way more involved with "Occupy Every Damn City" and this could be happening fairly soon.
Makes me glad to be a country boy.
"Americans can always be counted on to do the right thing...after they have exhausted all other possibilities."
-- Winston Churchill
The correct analogy for the FED printing behavior is that of a child abuser. A child, when young, is dependent on his parents to take care, act morally, and raise him to be a good citizen and is pretty much helpless if the parents don't perform their duty and instead abuse him through the years.
Similary, citizens of a country, largely ignorant about sound money and finance, are dependent on FED to follow sound money policies so that they can live a reasonable life of their choice depending on their capabilities. However, when FED abuses this power through inflation, crony behavior that hope is gone, more so when they do this indirectly and secretly such that the citizens can't even see it much less understand it or implications...
He makes one big mistake though.He's influenced by DEA propaganda.Cannabis Sativa is non-addictive.At least leave weed out of it,we've seen the bullshit from "the war on drugs" and the cost of jailing 1 in 5 Americans by a criminal drug dealing federal government run by crooks in Washington.They make billions off of coke and heroin and nothing is reported through the general accounting office.No reporting to the American people.The monies are used in financing the overthrow of foreign governments.Keep up on the news at Kitco,GlobalResearch.ca and Cannabis Culture Magazine.Just a few good sites that show you insight into corrupt governments worldwide.By the way,SATIVEX is now legal in Canada,Cheers! Bayer and GW from England have the rights.Used for chronic back pain,eliminating "the shakes" from various diseases,depression,various other mind problems,even relief from nausea and menstral cramping that women suffer from.Ongoing trials are now taking place that are looking at it's t ability to kill cancer cells.All non-addictive therapy by SATIVEX with a very high percentage of addicts on heroin and alcohol able to use it in order to beat their bad self destructive behavior.Government and politicians in the U.S. don't like it because it destroys existing corrupt administrative departments already in place.My prediction:Big pharma will win out.