When your country called on you to defend our freedom, you were there,
When we asked you to leave your family behind, you were there,
Although your life was threatened, you were there,
When your country turned its back on you, you were there,
When no one else would make the ultimate sacrifice, you were there,
While we enjoy our freedom,
Celebrate every liberty,
And take our lives for granted,
There is one thing we should never forget,
That after the dust settles,
And the sun sets,
At the end of the day,
When we could count on nothing else,
No matter what we asked you to do,
You were always there.
Thank you.
Thursday, April 1, 2010
Monday, March 29, 2010
It was the worst of times...
I'm pretty frustrated with the overall competence of the average American citizen. That's a given. Most Americans are consciously sedated in their lives; they choose to be ignorant in order to avoid facing the realities of life. I don't blame them for cowering from what's going on in the world. The world can be a scary place. I used to find comfort in denying that this country is headed towards financial ruin, until I realized that there was no way to avoid the inevitable. To those of you that haven't already figured it out, I am alluding to the impending collapse of our economy and the failure of the dollar. Do you think the dollar will crash, or do you believe the manipulators of the mainstream media that say the problems we are facing are temporary? The things I am about to share with you won't be easy to digest. This is, of course, my personal opinion - based on fact and my own observations.
The United States is riddled with debt. The only thing that keeps this economy moving is the creation of more debt. We have to constantly borrow more and more money in order to operate. Notice that I didn't say print money but instead said borrow money. In order for the dollar to have any value, it has to be backed by something. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, the dollar was backed by gold. The amount of gold we had on hand determined the amount of money that circulated in our economy. If gold reserves were high, then this would justify the creation of dollars. At any point in time, we could bring dollars into a bank and exchange the dollar for it's value in gold. This gold could, in turn, be brought to a bank and exchanged for dollars, which you could use for your everyday purchases. The system was set up to regulate the value of our currency and to eliminate the hidden tax of inflation, because the dollar would have some kind of value.
With the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, the US switched from gold backed currency to a fractional reserve banking system. Instead of guaranteeing the value of each dollar with its corresponding amount of gold, we began to back it with debt. The Fed started selling treasury bonds, or T-bills, to finance the creation of more money. The more T-bills we sold to other governments, the more money we were able to create. T-bills essentially are glorified IOU's, where the government promises to pay back a loan at a predetermined interest rate. This interest rate is similar to the interest you would pay for buying a home or a car, just at a much larger scale. What kept the gears of the debt machine lubricated in the financial system is the fact that countries wanted to purchase our T-bills, because like any other investment, it was loaned in the hopes of earning a return at some point in the future. The key to this whole situation is that countries have to WANT to buy our treasury bonds; the whole premise behind this is explained with the concept of supply and demand. We have to be willing to supply the bonds and there has to be a demand for them. With no demand for T-bills they would be worthless. The more they are demanded, the more they are worth, and vice versa.
Now we start hearing in the news that China is beginning to sell off US treasury bonds, in the attempts to begin diversifying their investments. At the end of 2009, China owned about $755 billion of US government debt, while Japan owned about $768 billion of our debt. That's almost 2 trillion dollars of debt just between those two countries! We have reached the point in this country where it is now mathematically impossible to pay off all of our debt. At the current rate of spending, 100 percent of the revenue that the government earns will go towards paying the interest on our debt by 2020. China has been keeping the value of it's currency down in order to make us keep buying their cheaply manufactured goods. I am confident that this country is about to hit a period of hyperinflation which will be devastating. Your elected officials are continuing to rack up debt like a 13 year old with a platinum credit card. And now with this new socialized medical bill, we are adding at least 1 trillion dollars of debt on top of our enormous pile of IOU's. Yet, everyone in this country is so brain dead that they don't have a clue of what is about to happen.
So, I have described the problem. What's the solution? How do we fix this? Do we give this flawed political system a try and try to vote out the incumbents when we have our next round of congressional elections? Do you honestly believe that the person on the left or right side of the political aisle is going to be better than the other alternative? Do you run to the bank and withdraw all of your money, or buy silver and gold? Do we go out and buy canned goods and bullets and hope that you never have to use them? I don't have all the answers. While these possible solutions sound like they'll work, there is a chance that they won't. So... are you going to continue to ignore the problem? Are you going to keep hitting the snooze button on your life, and hope that you can continue to sleep for a few more years without waking up? I certainly hope you don't do that. Stop standing in line, waiting for the wool to be shaved off your backs. The time has come to stop being sheep and start being accountable. We don't need anymore wool sweaters...
The United States is riddled with debt. The only thing that keeps this economy moving is the creation of more debt. We have to constantly borrow more and more money in order to operate. Notice that I didn't say print money but instead said borrow money. In order for the dollar to have any value, it has to be backed by something. Before the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank, the dollar was backed by gold. The amount of gold we had on hand determined the amount of money that circulated in our economy. If gold reserves were high, then this would justify the creation of dollars. At any point in time, we could bring dollars into a bank and exchange the dollar for it's value in gold. This gold could, in turn, be brought to a bank and exchanged for dollars, which you could use for your everyday purchases. The system was set up to regulate the value of our currency and to eliminate the hidden tax of inflation, because the dollar would have some kind of value.
With the creation of the Federal Reserve Bank in 1913, the US switched from gold backed currency to a fractional reserve banking system. Instead of guaranteeing the value of each dollar with its corresponding amount of gold, we began to back it with debt. The Fed started selling treasury bonds, or T-bills, to finance the creation of more money. The more T-bills we sold to other governments, the more money we were able to create. T-bills essentially are glorified IOU's, where the government promises to pay back a loan at a predetermined interest rate. This interest rate is similar to the interest you would pay for buying a home or a car, just at a much larger scale. What kept the gears of the debt machine lubricated in the financial system is the fact that countries wanted to purchase our T-bills, because like any other investment, it was loaned in the hopes of earning a return at some point in the future. The key to this whole situation is that countries have to WANT to buy our treasury bonds; the whole premise behind this is explained with the concept of supply and demand. We have to be willing to supply the bonds and there has to be a demand for them. With no demand for T-bills they would be worthless. The more they are demanded, the more they are worth, and vice versa.
Now we start hearing in the news that China is beginning to sell off US treasury bonds, in the attempts to begin diversifying their investments. At the end of 2009, China owned about $755 billion of US government debt, while Japan owned about $768 billion of our debt. That's almost 2 trillion dollars of debt just between those two countries! We have reached the point in this country where it is now mathematically impossible to pay off all of our debt. At the current rate of spending, 100 percent of the revenue that the government earns will go towards paying the interest on our debt by 2020. China has been keeping the value of it's currency down in order to make us keep buying their cheaply manufactured goods. I am confident that this country is about to hit a period of hyperinflation which will be devastating. Your elected officials are continuing to rack up debt like a 13 year old with a platinum credit card. And now with this new socialized medical bill, we are adding at least 1 trillion dollars of debt on top of our enormous pile of IOU's. Yet, everyone in this country is so brain dead that they don't have a clue of what is about to happen.
So, I have described the problem. What's the solution? How do we fix this? Do we give this flawed political system a try and try to vote out the incumbents when we have our next round of congressional elections? Do you honestly believe that the person on the left or right side of the political aisle is going to be better than the other alternative? Do you run to the bank and withdraw all of your money, or buy silver and gold? Do we go out and buy canned goods and bullets and hope that you never have to use them? I don't have all the answers. While these possible solutions sound like they'll work, there is a chance that they won't. So... are you going to continue to ignore the problem? Are you going to keep hitting the snooze button on your life, and hope that you can continue to sleep for a few more years without waking up? I certainly hope you don't do that. Stop standing in line, waiting for the wool to be shaved off your backs. The time has come to stop being sheep and start being accountable. We don't need anymore wool sweaters...
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