Interest Rates

If The U.S. Government Keeps Spending Money Like This We Are Doomed And If The U.S. Government Stops Spending Money Like This We Are Doomed

If you increased your credit card spending by a couple thousand dollars per month would your lifestyle improve?  Of course it would.  By going into large amounts of debt, it is possible to live a lifestyle that you can’t really afford, at least for a while.  But if you keep racking up huge amounts of credit card debt every single month, eventually it gets to a point where it is extremely difficult to even keep up with the minimum monthly payments and the credit card companies will not lend you any more money.  Well, on a larger scale it is the same thing with government debt.  Right now, the U.S. government is spending more than a trillion dollars more than it takes in every year.  Even if the U.S. government spends all of that money on incredibly stupid stuff, it still gets into the pockets of ordinary Americans.  In turn, those ordinary Americans use that money to pay the mortgage, buy food, shop at the mall, etc.  All of this borrowing and spending by the U.S. government has created a “false prosperity” bubble that is not real.  It may feel real to you right now, but it is unsustainable by definition.  If the U.S. government suddenly started spending only the money that it actually brought in every year, our economy would be doomed and all of this “false prosperity” would rapidly disappear.  But if the U.S. government continues to rack up debt at this pace we are doomed as well.  In fact, every dollar that gets borrowed makes our eventual collapse ever worse.  We are heading down the exact same road that Greece has gone.  Eventually the rest of the world is not going to lend us gigantic mountains of super cheap money anymore.  When the flow of cheap money stops, it can be extremely painful.  Anyone that has ever seen the interest rates on their credit cards go above 20 percent knows how this feels.  If we had addressed these problems as a nation a decade or two ago, perhaps we could have found a solution.  But now there is no way out under our current financial system and a devastating economic collapse is on the horizon no matter what we do.

If there was a Hollywood movie where some crooks successfully stole 150 million dollars, what would you think of those crooks?

Would you have admiration for them?

Would you be disgusted with them?

Would you feel like your intelligence was insulted because nobody could ever steal 150 million dollars and get away with it?

Well, right now the federal government is stealing approximately 150 million dollars from our children and our grandchildren every single hour.

That’s right – the U.S. government is borrowing an astounding 150 million dollars an hour that our children and our grandchildren will be expected to deal with.

It is a theft so vast that it is almost unimaginable.

So what should be done?

A lot of people out there think that our problems would be solved if the government would just quit borrowing so much money.

Well, it is just not that simple.

Look at Greece.  They were forced by the EU and the IMF to dramatically reduce government spending.  But when Greece reduced government spending, that caused the economy to shrink rapidly and it caused tax receipts to go down more than expected.  So Greek budget deficits were even larger than anticipated and so Greece was forced to cut spending even more.  But that created even more economic problems.

A recent article by John Mauldin described the nightmarish effect that this cycle has had on Greece….

And as Greece began shake and bake its way to “austerity,” the very act of cutting deficits pushed the country into recession, which lowered tax revenues and increased expenses, putting the elusive goal of a balanced budget even further off. We should quickly note that this is not just a Greek problem. Spain’s “draconian” cuts have meant that its 6% deficit target for the year has this week been raised to a more likely 8%, making it harder to get back to even.

For country after country, this is the Endgame. It is the end of the Debt Supercycle. Debt has grown to the size that it cannot be sustained. The market will not lend any more money on terms that can be afforded, and any efforts to cut spending and raise taxes will result in an even worse economy, in various degrees of recession, with falling revenues and rising costs.

This is what happens when a country that has been spending far beyond its means is forced to dramatically cut back.

Those that are convinced that balancing the federal budget in the United States will be relatively painless should take a close look at what is happening in Greece.

As I have written about previously, the Greek economy has been plunged into a 21st century “Great Depression”.  In Greece, 20 percent of all retail stores have already shut down, the unemployment rate for those under the age of 24 is sitting at 39 percent, and one third of the entire nation is living in poverty.

And this is only just the beginning for Greece.

Things are going to get even worse.

Unfortunately, many believe that the United States is destined to experience far worse pain than Greece is currently experiencing.

For example, Peter Schiff insists that the United States is in worse financial shape than Europe at this point.  Just check out this video….

Anyone that attempts to downplay the U.S. debt problem is making a serious mistake.  Yes, we are still able to borrow trillions of dollars for next to nothing, but that is going to come to an end.

Remember all of those “suckers” that signed up for mortgages at “teaser rates” that later got jacked up dramatically?

Of course you do.

So what happened to them?

When the rates went up many of them ended up losing everything.

Well, we have gotten ourselves into the exact same kind of a position.  All of this cheap money has enabled us to live very nicely for now, but when the cheap money ends the nightmare will begin.

Right now, our debt is growing much, much faster than our economy is.  Between 2007 and 2010, U.S. GDP grew by only 4.26%, but the U.S. national debt soared by 61% during that same time period.

What would your household finances look like if your total debt grew by 61 percent next year but your income only grew by 4 percent?

When I was a little boy, the U.S. national debt was considered to be a huge national crisis.  Politicians from both major political parties were promising that they would fix things.

But what has happened since then?

Well, when Ronald Reagan took office the U.S. national debt was less than 1 trillion dollars.  Today, the U.S. national debt is over 15.2 trillion dollars.

During 2011, the federal government went into more debt than the U.S. government accumulated from the time that George Washington became president to the time that Ronald Reagan became president.

That may be hard to believe, but it is true.

During fiscal year 2011, the U.S. government spent 3.7 trillion dollars but it only brought in 2.4 trillion dollars.

That is utter insanity, and yet most Americans have become convinced that this is “normal” and that there is nothing to worry about.

It is hard to grasp how much money a trillion dollars is.

If right this moment you went out and started spending one dollar every single second, it would take you more than 31,000 years to spend one trillion dollars.

That is how much money a trillion dollars is.

And things look even worse when you look at the balance sheet of the U.S. government.

The U.S. government has total assets of 2.7 trillion dollars and has total liabilities of 17.5 trillion dollars.  Those liabilities do not even count 4.7 trillion dollars of intragovernmental debt that is currently outstanding.

But it is not just the federal government that has been living a fantasy.

The chart posted below shows the growth of total debt in America over the past several decades.  Consumers, businesses and government officials have been on a debt binge that is absolutely unprecedented….

The scary thing is that even with all of this borrowed money, our economy is still in the dumps.

So what in the world is it going to look like when the debt bubble totally bursts?

Even with all of this “borrowed prosperity”, anger at the government is rapidly growing.  A recent Gallup poll found that “satisfaction with government” in the United States is now at an all-time record low of 29 percent.

So how angry will the American people be when all of this “borrowed prosperity” disappears?

When this whole thing comes tumbling down, a lot of people are going to blame our problems on “capitalism”.

In fact, it is already happening.  Just check out what the founder of the World Economic Forum is saying….

“We have a general morality gap, we are over-leveraged, we have neglected to invest in the future, we have undermined social coherence, and we are in danger of completely losing the confidence of future generations,” said Klaus Schwab, host and founder of the annual World Economic Forum.

“Solving problems in the context of outdated and crumbling models will only dig us deeper into the hole.

“We are in an era of profound change that urgently requires new ways of thinking instead of more business-as-usual,” the 73-year-old said, adding that “capitalism in its current form, has no place in the world around us.”

But capitalism is not the problem.  Capitalism has produced the greatest eras of prosperity that the world has ever seen.

No, the real problem is our debt-based financial system that is managed and run by the central banks of the world.

You see, debt-based central banking is not capitalism.  But way too many people equate the two.

A lot of people cannot even imagine this, but theoretically you could have capitalism without any debt whatsoever.

But what we have today is a financial system that has debt as the very foundation.  And such a system is inevitably going to fail someday.

As I have written about so many times before, the Federal Reserve is at the very heart of our economic problems here in the United States.

The Federal Reserve was designed to be a perpetual debt machine.  And it has performed that task very well.  The U.S. national debt is now more than 5000 times larger than it was when the Federal Reserve was first created.

So yes, even though things seem somewhat “stable” for the moment, there are all kinds of reasons to be concerned about the viability of our economy and our financial system in the years ahead.

The other day, I was quoted in a Reuters article about our coming economic problems….

“Most people have a gut feeling that something has gone terribly wrong, but that doesn’t mean that they understand what is happening,” he said. “A lot of Americans sense that a massive economic storm is coming and they want to be prepared for it.”

Of course the Reuters reporter did not even bother to spell my name correctly, but at least he got the quote right.

A great economic storm is coming.

Don’t let this false prosperity and this “calm before the storm” fool you.

We are living in the greatest debt bubble the world has ever seen, and no matter how it plays out there is going to be a massive amount of pain.

You might want to get yourself and your family prepared for that.

Bam! Bam! Bam! Huge Financial Bombs Just Got Dropped All Over Europe

The European debt crisis has just gone to an entirely new level.  Just when it seemed like things may be stabilizing somewhat, we get news of huge financial bombs being dropped all over Europe.  Very shortly after U.S. financial markets closed on Friday, S&P announced credit downgrades for nine European nations.  This included both France and Austria losing their cherished AAA credit ratings.  When the credit rating of a country gets slashed, that is a signal to investors that they should start demanding higher interest rates when they invest in the debt of that nation.  Over the past year it has become significantly more expensive for many European nations to borrow money, and these new credit downgrades certainly are certainly not going to help matters.  Quite a few financially troubled nations in Europe are very dependent on the ability to borrow huge piles of cheap money, and as debt becomes more expensive that is going to push many of them over the edge.    Yesterday I wrote about 22 signs that we are on the verge of a devastating global recession, and unfortunately that list just got a whole lot longer.

Over the past several months we have seen quite a few credit downgrades all over Europe, but we have never seen anything quite like what S&P just did.  Standard & Poor’s unleashed a barrage of credit downgrades on Friday….

-France was downgraded from AAA to AA+

-Austria was downgraded from AAA to AA+

-Italy was downgraded two more levels from A to BBB+

-Spain was downgraded two more levels

-Portugal was downgraded two more levels

-Cyprus was downgraded two more levels

-Malta was downgraded one level

-Slovakia was downgraded one level

-Slovenia was downgraded one level

This is really bad news for anyone that was hoping that things in Europe would start to get better.  Borrowing costs for many of these financially troubled nations are going to go even higher.

In addition, there was another really, really troubling piece of news that came out of Europe on Friday.

It was announced that negotiations between the Greek government and private holders of Greek debt have broken down.

The Institute of International Finance has been representing private bondholders in negotiations with the Greek government about the terms of a “voluntary haircut” that is supposed to be a key component of the “rescue plan” for Greece.

Greece desperately needs private bondholders to agree to accept a “voluntary haircut” of 50% or more.  Without some sort of an agreement, the finances of the Greek government will collapse very quickly.

For now, negotiations have failed.  There is hope that negotiations will resume soon, but Greece is rapidly running out of time.

The Institute of International Finance issued a statement on Friday which said the following….

“Unfortunately, despite the efforts of Greece’s leadership, the proposal put forward … which involves an unprecedented 50% nominal reduction of Greece’s sovereign bonds in private investors’ hands and up to €100 billion of debt forgiveness — has not produced a constructive consolidated response by all parties, consistent with a voluntary exchange of Greek sovereign debt”

The IIF says that negotiations are “paused for reflection” right now, but they are hoping that they will be able to resume before too long….

“Under the circumstances, discussions with Greece and the official sector are paused for reflection on the benefits of a voluntary approach”

Something needs to be done, because Greece is experiencing a complete and total financial meltdown.

Back at the end of July, the yield on one year Greek bonds was sitting at about 40 percent.  Today, the yield on one year Greek bonds is up to an astounding 396 percent.

That is how fast these things can move when confidence disappears.

Those living in the United States should keep that in mind.

Unfortunately, Greece is not the only European nation that is completely falling apart financially.

We aren’t hearing much about it in the U.S. media, but Hungary is a total basket case right now.  The credit rating of Hungary was reduced to junk status some time ago, and now the IMF and the EU are threatening to withhold financial aid from Hungary if the Hungarians do not run their country exactly as they are being told to do.

In particular, the IMF and the EU are absolutely furious that Hungary is trying to take more political control over the central bank in Hungary.  The following is from an article in the Daily Mail….

The European Union has stepped up pressure on Hungary over the country’s refusal to implement austerity policies and threatened legal action over its new constitution.

The warnings escalated the standoff between Budapest and the EU, as Hungary negotiates fresh financial aid from Europe and the International Monetary Fund.

Over the past months, the country’s credit rating has been cut to junk by all three major rating agencies, unemployment is 10.6 percent and the country may be facing a recession.

But bailout negotiations broke down after Budapest refused to cut public spending and implemented a new constitution reasserting political control over its central bank.

Slovenia is a total mess right now as well.  The following comes from a recent article posted on EUObserver.com….

Slovenia’s borrowing costs have reached ‘bail-out territory’ after lawmakers rejected the premier-designate, putting the euro-country on the line for further downgrades by ratings agencies.

Zoran Jankovic, the mayor of Slovenia’s capital Ljubljana, fell four votes short of the 46 needed to be approved as prime minister by the parliament, with the country’s president set to re-cast his name or propose someone new within two weeks.

Some time ago, I warned that 2012 was going to be a more difficult year for the global economy than 2011 was.

Well, things are certainly starting to shape up that way.

Europe is heading for some really hard times.  What is about to happen in Europe is going to shake the entire global financial system.

Those that live in the United States should take notice, because the U.S. financial system is far more fragile than most people believe.

Our banking system is a gigantic mountain of debt, leverage and risk and it could fall again at any time.

In addition, the U.S. debt problem is bigger than it has ever been before.

For example, did you know that the federal government is on a pace to borrow 6.2 trillion dollars by the end of Obama’s first term in office?

That is more debt than the U.S. government accumulated from the time that George Washington became president to the time that George W. Bush became president.

For now the U.S. government is still able to borrow giant piles of super cheap money, but such a situation does not last forever.

Just ask Greece.

Already there are indications that foreigners are starting to dump large amounts of U.S. debt.  If this trickle becomes a flood things could become very bad for the United States very quickly.

We are on the verge of some very bad things.  The kinds of “financial bombs” that we saw dropped today are going to become much more frequent.  As governments, banks and investors scramble to survive, we are going to see extreme amounts of volatility in the financial marketplace.

Things are not going to be “normal” again for a really, really long time.

Hold on tight, because 2012 is going to be a very interesting year.

What Have The Central Banks Of The World Done Now?

The central banks of the world are acting as if it is 2008 all over again.  Desperate times call for desperate measures, and right now the central bankers are pulling out all the stops.  The Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, the Bank of England, the Bank of Canada, the Bank of Japan and the Swiss National Bank have announced a coordinated plan to provide liquidity support to the global financial system.  According to the plan, the Federal Reserve is going to substantially reduce the interest rate that it charges the European Central Bank to borrow dollars.  In turn, that will enable the ECB to lend dollars to European banks at a much cheaper rate.  The hope is that this will alleviate the credit crunch which has gripped the European financial system by the throat.  So where is the Federal Reserve going to get all of these dollars that it will be loaning out at very low interest rates?  You guessed it – the Fed is just going to create them out of thin air.  Our currency is being debased so that Europe can be helped out.  Unfortunately, the impact of this move will be mostly “psychological” because it really does nothing to address the fundamental problems that Europe is facing.  It is up to Europe to solve those problems, and so far Europe has shown no signs of being able to do that.

The major central banks of the world say that they want to “enhance their capacity to provide liquidity support to the global financial system.”  But essentially what is happening is that the Federal Reserve is going to be zapping large amounts of dollars into existence and loaning them out to the ECB very, very cheaply.  Think of it as a type of “quantitative easing” on a global scale.

The decision to do this was reportedly made by the Federal Reserve on Monday morning.  For the moment, this move seems to have stabilized the European financial system.  It is quite unlikely that any major European banks will fail this weekend now.

But as mentioned above, this move does nothing to solve the very serious financial problems that Europe is facing.  This intervention by the central banks is merely just a speed bump on the road to financial oblivion.

Most Americans are not going to understand what the central banks of the world just did, but it really is not that complicated.

The following is how CNN chief business correspondent Ali Velshi broke down what the central banks have done….

In an attempt to stave off the consequences of a global credit freeze, the Federal Reserve, in coordination with major central banks, has created a credit line available to those central banks, whereby they can borrow dollars at reduced interest rates for periods of three months. The central banks, in turn, can lend to commercial banks in their respective countries. This is meant to reduce the cost of short-term borrowing for troubled European banks and to give them immediate access to dollars.

This was done immediately after the collapse of Lehman Brothers as well, to alleviate the consequences of banks being largely unwilling to lend to other banks, even for short periods, for fear that the borrowing banks could fail.

Okay – so the Federal Reserve is loaning giant piles of cheap money to the European Central Bank.

So where in the world does all of that money come from?

As a CNBC article recently explained, all of this money is created right out of thin air by the Federal Reserve….

Neither the dollars nor the Euros come from anywhere. They aren’t moved or debited from anywhere. They are invented right on the spot with a few taps on the key pad. And that’s all. There’s no printing press fired up to make new dollars or euros.

This is sometimes called “fiat money.” But that makes it sound as if some command from a sovereign created the money. It’s really closer to “keyboard money,” since it is created by data entry in a computer.

Does that sound bizarre to you?

It should.

But that is how the global financial system really works.

We live in a crazy world.

So what did the financial markets of the world think of this move by the Federal Reserve?

It turns out that they absolutely loved it.

The Dow was up 490 points, and that was the biggest gain of the year so far.

Unfortunately, this stock market rally is not going to last indefinitely.  If you are still in the market, enjoy this while you can because eventually a whole lot of pain is going to be coming.

Again, nothing has been solved.  Europe is still in a massive amount of trouble.  But the announcement did make everyone feel all “warm and fuzzy” for at least a day.

Michelle Girard, a senior economist at RBS Securities, said the following about this move….

“The impact is more psychological than anything else”

Just think of it as “comfort food” for the financial markets.

It was also a very desperate move.

In fact, some even believe that this move happened because a major European bank was in danger of failing.

Just check out some of the things that Jim Cramer of CNBC has been saying on Twitter….

If the Fed didn’t act we would have had the largest bank failure ever this weekend, i believe.

The actions the governments took today shows that there was without a doubt a major bank about to fall this weekend.  That’s very dire….

I believe a major European bank would have gone under this weekend…. That’s why they did this….

An article in Forbes has also speculated that this move was made because a major European bank was in imminent danger of failing….

Did a big European bank come close to failing last night?  European banks, especially French banks, rely heavily on funding in the wholesale money markets.  Given the actions of the world’s largest central banks last night, it raises the question of whether a major bank was having difficulty funding its immediate liquidity needs.

Perhaps we will never know the truth, but the reality is that the Federal Reserve and the European Central Bank would have never taken coordinated action like this if they did not believe that there was some sort of imminent threat to the global financial system.

Sadly, this latest move is also going to have some side effects.

Pimco senior vice president Tony Crescenzi says that all of this “liquidity” is going to dramatically increase the size of the U.S. monetary base….

Keep in mind that any use of the Fed’s swap facility expands the Fed’s monetary base: all dollars, no matter where they are deposited, whether it be Kazakhstan, Japan, or Mexico, wind up back in an American bank. This means that any time a foreign central bank engages in a swap with the Federal Reserve, the Fed will create new money in order to make the swap. Use of the Fed’s liquidity swap line in late 2008 was the main cause of a surge in the Fed’s monetary base at that time. The peak for the swap line was about $600 billion in December 2008. Some observers will therefore say that the swap line is a backdoor way to engage in more quantitative easing.

When there is more money floating around out there but the same amount of goods and services, prices go up.

So will we eventually see more inflation in the United States because of all this?

That is what some are fearing.

Meanwhile, politicians in Europe have failed to come up with a plan to address the European financial crisis once again.

They are calling it a “delay”, but the truth is that it should be called a “failure”.  The following comes from an article in USA Today….

The ministers delayed action on major financial issues — such as the concept of a closer fiscal union that would guarantee more budgetary discipline — until the heads of state meet next week in Brussels.

So will European politicians come up with a real plan next week in Brussels?

That seems unlikely.

The reality is that this latest move by the major central banks of the world does not change the fact that Europe is in a huge amount of trouble and is most likely headed for a very painful financial collapse.

One more thing that this latest move by the central banks of the world highlights is the fact that we do not have any control over what they do.

All of these central banks are run by unelected bureaucrats that answer to nobody.  The decisions that these central bankers make affect all of our lives in a very significant way, and yet we have zero input into these decisions.

Most of the decisions that these central bankers make seem to benefit big banks and big financial institutions.  They always claim that the benefits will “filter down” to the rest of us.  But most of the time what ends up filtering down to us is the economic pain that comes from their bad decisions.

As I have written about so many times before, these central banks need to be abolished.  The American people need to tell Congress to shut down the Federal Reserve and to start issuing debt-free United States currency.

We do not want a bunch of unelected central bankers to “centrally plan” the U.S. economy or to “centrally plan” the global economy.

The more these central bankers monkey with things, the more they mess things up.

Yes, this latest move has stabilized things for the moment, but big trouble is on the horizon for the global financial system.

Count on it.

The Federal Reserve Saves The Stock Market?

The Federal Reserve has saved the stock market!  Well, at least for a day.  That was one heck of a “dead cat bounce” that we saw on Tuesday.  Normally, after the kind of dramatic decline that we saw on Monday there is some sort of a rebound, but on Tuesday the market did not begin to soar until the Federal Reserve pledged to leave interest rates near zero until mid-2013.  Once the Fed made their announcement, the market went haywire.  At one point the Dow was down more than 200 points, but by the end of the day it was up 430 points.  It was a desperate move for the Federal Reserve to pledge not to raise interest rates for the next two years, and it has stabilized financial markets for the moment.  But what is the Fed going to do to save the stock market when it starts crashing next week or next month?  The underlying financial fundamentals continue to get worse and worse.  Europe is a mess, Japan is a mess and the United States is a mess.  The Federal Reserve can try to keep all of the balls in the air for as long as possible, but at some point the juggling act is going to end and the house of cards is going to come crashing down.

This move may calm nerves for a day or two, but there is still a tremendous amount of fear out there at the moment.  Many investors are pouring money into “safe havens” right now.  Huge amounts of cash are being poured into U.S. Treasuries and the price of gold is absolutely soaring.  The price of gold is up about $220 in just the last 30 days alone.

So how high could the price of gold go in the coming months?  Well, analysts at JP Morgan are forecasting that the price of gold could hit $2,500 by the end of this year.

Yes, that is how wild things are becoming.  The Federal Reserve is painting itself into a corner.  Never before has the Fed pledged to leave interest rates near zero for the next two years.  The following is an excerpt from the statement that the Fed released earlier today….

To promote the ongoing economic recovery and to help ensure that inflation, over time, is at levels consistent with its mandate, the Committee decided today to keep the target range for the federal funds rate at 0 to 1/4 percent.  The Committee currently anticipates that economic conditions–including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run–are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through mid-2013.  The Committee also will maintain its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its securities holdings.  The Committee will regularly review the size and composition of its securities holdings and is prepared to adjust those holdings as appropriate.

Needless to say, the rest of the world is not pleased by this nonsense from the Fed.  Yes, the Fed has stabilized financial markets for the moment, but a lot of ill will is being created with the rest of the globe.  The following is what Bruce Krasting had to say about how the rest of the world is going to react to this latest Fed move….

Brazil, Argentina, Korea, Indonesia are going to scream bloody murder over perpetual ZIRP. Russia is likely to get downright ugly with their rhetoric. I wouldn’t be surprised if they took this opportunity to vote with their feet and just abandon the dollar as a reserve holding. China will also make noise. They will make more calls for a new international currency to replace the dollar. The Central bankers in Japan and Switzerland are puking in the trashcan over this. Bernanke is exporting US deflation to them. Shame on the Fed for pursuing Beggar my neighbor policies. They deserve all the global criticism they are about to get.

The Federal Reserve is using up all of the ammunition it has available and the game has barely even begun.

Things are going to get a lot worse.  The U.S national debt continues to pile up at lightning speed.  The debt ceiling deal essentially does nothing to fix our debt problems.  Thousands of businesses and millions of jobs continue to leave the United States.  As a nation, we are constantly becoming poorer and we are constantly getting into more debt.

Meanwhile, Europe is on the verge of a financial meltdown and Japan has a “zombie economy” at this point.

Many fear that we could be on the verge of another major global recession.  The following is how a recent Der Spiegel article described the current global financial situation….

Many economists have been pointing out that last week’s panic resembled the fear that swept financial markets after the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008.

Then as now, banks stopped lending each money. Then as now, banks’ cash deposits at the central bank doubled within days. The European Central Bank reacted by assuring banks of unlimited liquidity in the coming months. It was an emergency measure that led to short-term relief but sparked anxious questions among bankers and stock market players. How long can the central bank keep up its market-soothing liquidity operations before it finally loses its credibility, the most important asset of a central bank? Is the financial crisis about to escalate?

In the old days, the U.S. and Europe could just borrow gigantic stacks of cash in order to solve any problems.  But now things are dramatically changing.

China’s official news agency recently stated that the U.S. needs to understand that things are different now….

“The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone”

Not that the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve are going to suddenly give up their old habits.  The U.S. government is addicted to debt and the Fed is addicted to printing money.  When push comes to shove, they are going to resort to their favorite tricks.

But at some point the rest of the world is not going to play along anymore.  When that moment arrives, it is going to be very interesting to see what happens.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy continues to slowly unravel, and people in this country are getting very angry.  Millions of Americans families are barely scraping by right now.  Most Americans just want someone to “fix” things, but unfortunately there are no easy “fixes” to our financial problems.

As our economic problems grow even worse, frustration inside the United States is going to continue to escalate.  A brand new Rasmussen survey found that only 17 percent of Americans now believe that the U.S. government has the consent of the governed.

That was a brand new all-time low.

Faith in the major institutions of our society is already dangerously low and the economy is not even that bad yet.

As horrible as things are now, the truth is that this is rip-roaring prosperity compared to what is coming.

In the months and years ahead, America is going to be greatly tested.  As the recent London riots have shown, things can spiral out of control very quickly.

When the economy completely collapses will America be able to handle it?

Without Low Interest Rates, The U.S. Financial System Dies

Right now, interest rates are near historic lows.  The U.S. government is able to borrow gigantic mountains of money for next to nothing.  U.S. consumers are still able to get home loans, car loans and student loans at ridiculously low interest rates.  When this low interest rate environment changes (and it will), it is going to absolutely devastate the U.S. economy.  Without low interest rates, the U.S. financial system dies.  When it comes to borrowing money, it is the rate of interest that causes the pain.  If you could borrow as much money as you wanted at a zero rate of interest for the rest of your life you would never, ever have a debt problem.  But when there is a cost to borrowing money that changes things.  The higher the rate of interest goes, the more painful debt becomes.

The only reason that U.S. government finances have not fallen apart completely already is because the federal government is still able to borrow huge amounts of money very cheaply.  If interest rates on U.S. government debt even return just to “average” levels, it is going to be absolutely catastrophic.

So what happens if rates go above “average”?

The reality is that if there is a major crisis that causes interest rates on U.S. Treasuries to go well beyond “normal” levels it is going to cause a complete and total collapse.

In 2010, the U.S. government paid out just $413 billion in interest even though the national debt soared to 14 trillion dollars by the end of the year.

That means that the U.S. government paid somewhere in the neighborhood of 3 percent interest for the year.

Considering how rapidly the U.S. dollar has been declining and how much money printing the Federal Reserve has been doing, a rate of interest that low is absolutely ridiculous.

The shorter the term, the more ridiculous the rates of interest on U.S. Treasuries are.

For example, the rate of interest on 3 month U.S. Treasuries right now is just barely above zero.

The Federal Reserve has been playing all kinds of games in an attempt to keep interest rates on U.S. government debt low, and so far they have been pretty successful at it.

But they aren’t going to be able to do it forever.

Up until now, other nations and investors around the world have continued to participate in the system even though they know that the Federal Reserve is cheating.

However, there are signs that a lot of investors are finally getting fed up and are ready to walk away from U.S. government debt.

China has been dumping short-term U.S. government debt.  Russia has been dumping U.S. government debt. Pimco has been dumping U.S. government debt.

Others are taking things even farther.

In fact, there are some investors that plan on cashing in on the loss of confidence in U.S. Treasuries.  Renowned investor Jim Rogers says that he is now going to be shorting 30 year U.S. government bonds.

Just check out what Rogers recently told CNBC….

“I cannot imagine or conceive lending money to the United States government for 30-years at 3, 4, 5 or 6 percent —you pick a number — in U.S. dollars”

And he is right.  Who in the world would be stupid enough to loan the U.S. government money at a 4 or 5 percent rate of interest for the next 30 years?

Actually, most U.S. government debt is financed in the short-term these days.  In fact, the U.S. government issues a higher percentage of short-term debt than any other industrialized nation.

This trend really got started during the Clinton administration.  Back then they figured out that the U.S. could reduce its borrowing costs substantially by relying much more heavily on short-term debt.  The Bush and Obama administrations have continued this trend.

So these days the U.S. government constantly has huge amounts of debt that are maturing and that need to be rolled over.

This is great as long as interest rates stay very, very low.

But when interest rates rise the whole game will change.

In a recent article, Pat Buchanan explained that the Obama administration is being completely unrealistic when it assumes that interest rates on U.S. government debt will stay incredibly low over the next decade….

“The average rate of interest the Fed has had to pay to borrow for the last two decades has been 5.7 percent. However, President Obama is projecting the cost of money at only 2.5 percent.

A return to the normal Fed rate would, by 2020, add $4.9 trillion to the cumulative deficit”

Most Americans really cannot grasp how incredibly low interest rates are right now.

Sometimes a picture is worth a thousand words.

The following chart shows how interest rates on 10 year U.S. Treasury bonds have declined over the last several decades.

As confidence in the U.S. dollar and in U.S. government debt declines, interest rates will go up.

In fact, there are troubling signs that we are starting to see a move in that direction right now.  Last week, the yield on 5 year U.S. Treasuries experienced the biggest one week percentage jump ever recorded.

The big danger is that the political wrangling in Washington D.C. will start to cause a panic.  The managing director of Standard & Poor’s recently told Reuters that if the U.S. government starts defaulting on debt at the beginning of August, the credit rating on U.S. Treasury bonds that are supposed to mature on August 4th will go from AAA all the way down to D….

Chambers, who is also the chairman of S&P’s sovereign ratings committee, told Reuters on Tuesday that U.S. Treasury bills maturing on August 4 would be rated ‘D’ if the government fails to honor them. Unaffected Treasuries would be downgraded as well, but not as sharply, he said.

“If the U.S. government misses a payment, it goes to D,” Chambers said. “That would happen right after August 4, when the bills mature, because they don’t have a grace period.”

When a credit rating gets slashed, interest rates on that debt can go up dramatically.

Just ask the citizens of Greece.

Today, the interest rate on 2 year Greek bonds is over 26 percent.

You are delusional if you believe that something like that can never happen here.

Right now the U.S. national debt is completely and totally out of control.  If the U.S. government had to start paying interest rates of 10, 15 or 20 percent to borrow money it would be a total nightmare.

This year the U.S. government will have income of about 2.2 trillion dollars.

If in future years the U.S. government is spending a trillion or a trillion and a half dollars just on interest on the national debt, then how in the world is it going to be possible to even run the government, much less balance the budget?

But rising interest rates would not just devastate the federal government.

It would become much more expensive for state and local governments to borrow money.

Student loans would become much more expensive.

Car loans would become much more expensive.

Home loans would become out of reach for everyone except the very wealthy.

As we saw during the housing crash of a few years ago, rising interest rates can absolutely wipe homeowners out.

On a standard home loan, if you change the rate of interest from 5 percent to 10 percent you increase the mortgage payment by approximately 50 percent.

If you change the rate of interest from 5 percent to 15 percent, you roughly double the mortgage payment.

As the 30 year fixed rate mortgage chart below shows, interest rates are near historic lows right now….

Keep in mind that even with such ridiculously low interest rates the U.S. real estate market has been deader than a doornail.

So what would a significant spike in interest rates do to it?

When all of these low interest rates go away the entire financial system is going to change dramatically.

A significant spike in interest rates would wipe out U.S. government finances, it would push state and local governments all over the country to the brink of bankruptcy, it would bring economic activity to a standstill and it would destroy any hopes for a housing recovery.

This country, and in particular the federal government, is enslaved to debt but right now we are not feeling the full pain of that debt because interest rates are so low.

If you want to know when things are really going to start coming apart, just keep an eye on interest rates.  When they really start spiking you can start sounding the alarm.

The truth is that the state of the economy is going to continue to get worse.  Our debt is growing every single day and our country is getting poorer every single day.  When interest rates start surging it is going to start knocking over a lot of dominoes.

I hope you are getting prepared for when that happens.

Good Economic Numbers? Don’t Be Fooled By The Financial Sugar High

The U.S. financial system is like a junkie that needs continually increasing amounts of “junk” to get the same “buzz”.  So what is the U.S. financial system addicted to?  It is addicted to money and debt.  For many years, whenever the Federal Reserve would lower interest rates or the U.S government would borrow and spend more money, the U.S. economy would respond positively.  But just like with any other kind of artificial stimulation, over time it has taken greater and greater amounts of debt and cheap money to get a response from our economic system.  So yes, the fact that the official unemployment rate went down 0.1%  last month is good news, but considering the massive amount of spending that the U.S. government is doing and considering the gigantic quantity of money that the Federal Reserve is injecting into the financial system, the truth is that the unemployment rate should be falling much faster than that.  So don’t be fooled by the good economic numbers and don’t be fooled by the financial “sugar rush”.  The U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have been pulling out all the stops to stimulate the economy, and the fact that all of their efforts are barely moving the unemployment rate at all is an indication of just how far our economic situation has degenerated.

Many in the mainstream media were extremely excited when the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics announced that the U.S. unemployment rate declined to 8.8% in March.  U.S. stocks soared as investors enthusiastically welcomed the news.  But should we all really be jumping up and down over this?

The truth is that some other measures show that the unemployment situation in the United States is becoming worse.

According to Gallup, the number of Americans that are either unemployed or working part-time but desiring full-time work actually rose from 19.8 percent in February to 20.3 percent in March.

So let us not get too excited about the employment situation.  Yes, unemployment is not spinning wildly out of control at the moment and that is good news.

However, when you look at the larger picture things look rather grim.

What the U.S. government and the Federal Reserve have been doing is that they have been mortgaging our future big time for short-term economic gain.

This year alone, the U.S. government is going to run an all-time record budget deficit of approximately 1.6 trillion dollars.  By borrowing 1.6 trillion dollars that we do not have and spending it into the system, it does stimulate the economy.

There are some members of Congress that would like to implement substantial budget cuts, but most members of Congress fear doing too much budget cutting right now because it would “harm the economy”.

And you know what?  They are right – budget cuts would harm our economy in the short-term.

But continuing to pile up all of this debt is setting the stage for an absolute economic nightmare in the mid to long term.

We have lived far, far beyond our means for decades, and most of our politicians are acting like this can go forever.

But tell me, does anyone out there actually believe that we can keep expanding the national debt like this indefinitely?….

Yes, government spending does stimulate the economy.  The Keynesians are right about that.

However, by accumulating a national debt that is spinning wildly out of control, we have completely destroyed the economic future of this nation.

The Federal Reserve has been very busy trying to stimulate the U.S. economy as well.

Over the past couple of years, the Fed has been injecting massive amounts of money into the financial system.  The theory is that the financial system will loan this money out to the American people and that will stimulate the economy and create more jobs.

Well, that may very well be true to a certain extent in the short-term, but as I wrote about yesterday, in the long-term this is going to create a substantial amount of inflation.

The chart posted below cannot be emphasized enough.  It shows how the Fed has dramatically increased the size of the adjusted monetary base since mid-2008….

Yes, all of this new money will stimulate economic activity, but it is completely and totally ludicrous for Ben Bernanke to attempt to deny that this is also going to cause significant inflation.

So when taking a look at the economic numbers, it is absolutely critical to keep in mind that our “authorities” have pushed all the chips to the middle of the table in an all-out attempt to stimulate the economy in the short-term.

The small economic “sugar rush” that we are experiencing right now is all we have gotten out of it so far.

Sadly, this is about the best that the U.S. economy is going to do from now on.  Things really are not going to get much better than this.

Yes, unemployment numbers might come down a little more, but pretty soon inflation is going to really kick in and that is going to have a really negative impact on tens of millions of Americans.

First of all, when inflation really starts taking off it is going to be absolutely devastating for those on fixed incomes.  Many of them will be completely wiped out.

Secondly, those that do have jobs are going to find that their incomes are not nearly keeping up with inflation.

In fact, we are seeing this starting to happen already.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, U.S. workers in the private sector only saw their pay increase by 2.1% during 2010.

So did what we are paying for food and gas only go up 2.1% in 2010?

Of course not.

So are things getting better so far in 2011?

No.

One of the depressing things about the new numbers released by U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics was that wages for U.S. workers did not increase in March.

According to the BLS, the average U.S. worker earned $22.87 an hour during the month of March, which is exactly the same number we saw in February.

So inflation is going up and wages are staying flat.

That means that American family budgets are going to be squeezed even more.

In addition, the numbers from the BLS show that it is still incredibly difficult to get a job.  In fact, the average length of unemployment in the U.S. is now an all-time record 39 weeks.

So is anyone doing well right now?

Well, yes – as I have written about previously, those at the very top of the food chain are doing quite well these days.

According to USA Today, median CEO pay soared 27 percent during 2010.  For the year, median CEO pay was a stunning $9.0 million.

Wouldn’t you like to be making 9 million dollars a year?

According a recent report by CNN, the 25 highest-paid hedge fund managers in the United States combined to bring in an astounding $22.07 billion in income during 2010.

Wouldn’t you like to get just a small piece of that?

All of the measures that the government and the Federal Reserve are using to stimulate the economy are causing tremendous distortions in our financial system.

Wall Street is absolutely swimming in cash right now.  There are some people that are making obscene amounts of money.

But ultimately the party is going to end for all of us.

It has been incredibly foolish for the government and the Fed to go “all in” in a desperate attempt to boost short-term economic numbers.

Our long-term economic future is completely gone.  Our financial system is heading for a horrible collapse.  It is not a matter of “if” it will happen, but rather “when” it will happen.

You better buckle up and get ready.

Debt Problem: Who In The World Is Going To Buy The Billions Of Dollars Of Debt The U.S. Government Is Constantly Pumping Out Now?

Is the U.S. government on the verge of a massive debt problem?  For years, the U.S. government has been able to borrow all the money that it has wanted to at extremely low interest rates.  But now many of the lending sources that the U.S. government has been depending on are drying up.  Even before this recent crisis in Japan, a number of big players were moving away from U.S. Treasuries and the U.S. Federal Reserve was having to step in to pick up the slack.  But now this debt crunch is about to get a whole lot worse.  For years, many had feared that it would be China that would start dumping U.S. government debt, but now it turns out that Japan is going to be the real problem.  Right now, Japan is the second largest foreign holder of U.S. government debt.  Japan currently holds about $882 billion in U.S. Treasury bonds and they are likely going to have to liquidate much of that in order to fund the rebuilding of their nation.  So needless to say they won’t be accumulating any more U.S. government debt.  But the U.S. government still needs to borrow a trillion and a half dollars from someone every single year.  So where in the world are they going to get it?

This is called a debt problem.  Have you ever gotten to the point where you are in debt up to your eyeballs and nobody wants to lend you any more money?

Well, the U.S. government is rapidly reaching that point.

Even before the crisis in Japan, several of the big boys had starting moving away from U.S. government debt.

PIMCO, the biggest bond fund on the entire globe, recently acknowledged that they are dumping all of their U.S. Treasuries.

So if foreign nations like Japan are not gobbling up U.S. government debt and big bond funds like PIMCO are not buying any of it, then who in the world is going to be purchasing the massive amounts of debt that the U.S. government is constantly pumping out?

Well, many of you already know that answer.

The Federal Reserve is going to step in of course.  The Federal Reserve knows that if the U.S. government cannot borrow gigantic quantities of money at super low interest rates it will go broke.  So the Federal Reserve is just going to keep buying up most new U.S. government debt.  It is just that simple.

But isn’t that a Ponzi scheme?

Of course it is.  Let’s not mince words here.  It is a total scam.

And it is a scam that cannot go on indefinitely.

The truth is that the Ponzi Scheme of the U.S. Treasury issuing bonds and the Federal Reserve buying them up cannot last forever as PIMCO’s Bill Gross noted in his March newsletter….

“Basically, the recent game plan is as simple as the Ohio State Buckeyes’ “three yards and a cloud of dust” in the 1960s. When applied to the Treasury market it translates to this: The Treasury issues bonds and the Fed buys them. What could be simpler, and who’s to worry? This Sammy Scheme as I’ve described it in recent Outlooks is as foolproof as Ponzi and Madoff until… until… well, until it isn’t.”

Gross also noted in his recent newsletter that the Federal Reserve is currently buying up about 70 percent of all new U.S. government debt.

So now that Japan is out of the picture, how high will that figure go now?

80 percent?

90 percent?

Over the past several weeks there has been all kinds of speculation about whether “quantitative easing” will be extended past June or not.

Well, whether they call it “quantitative easing” or not, the truth is that the Federal Reserve is going to have to continue to “buy” most new U.S. government debt or the system will crash.

We have gotten to the point where the U.S. federal government cannot continue to function without Federal Reserve monetization of the debt.

This is a sign that we are rapidly approaching the financial endgame.

So why doesn’t the U.S. government just stop spending so much stinking money and stop getting us all into so much debt?

Well, because there isn’t enough political will in Washington D.C. to do any real budget cuts, and if our politicians did balance the budget at this point it would crash the economy.

Just the other day, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the federal government that would cut 6 billion dollars from U.S. government spending.

On that exact same day, the official U.S. national debt figure rose by 72 billion dollars.

Now the debt normally does not go up that much on a typical day.  But what this example does show is the losing battle that our politicians are fighting.

On Wednesday, U.S. Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner warned a House of Representatives appropriations subcommittee that they should not even think about not raising the debt ceiling….

“Congress has to do it. There’s no alternative.”

The truth is that the U.S. government has to keep going into more debt.  Under the current system the alternative would be to collapse the economy.

But the debt that we have already piled on to the backs of future generations is absolutely criminal.

How mad do you think future generations are going to be with us for heaping 14 trillion dollars of debt on to their shoulders?

Talk about a debt problem!

But this is what we get for allowing a private central bank to run our financial system.  This debt-based system was designed to fail from its very inception.

The man supposedly “in charge” over at the Federal Reserve, Ben Bernanke, has a track of record of incompetence that is absolutely staggering.  It is a mystery why our representatives in Washington D.C. are not howling for his resignation.

Instead, most of our politicians continue to express blind faith in our current financial system and they continue to insist that everything is going to be okay.

Well, everything is not going to be okay.  The Obama administration is projecting that the federal budget deficit for this fiscal year will be an all-time record 1.65 trillion dollars.

Of course they are also trying to convince us that budget deficits will go down in future years, but by now we should all know not to trust the rosy future projections of government officials.

After all, it was only a few short years ago that Bush administration officials were promising that we would be swimming in huge budget surpluses by now.

The truth is that the government has been lying about all of this for a long time.  For now, the Federal Reserve is just going to keep monetizing U.S. government debt for as long as it can.

This Ponzi scheme will keep on working and working and working until someday it simply doesn’t anymore.

When that day arrives, the U.S. government debt problem is going to unleash hell on world financial markets.

Is Ben Bernanke A Liar, A Lunatic Or Is He Just Completely And Totally Incompetent?

Did you see Ben Bernanke’s testimony before the House Budget Committee on Wednesday? It was quite a show. Bernanke seems to believe that if he just keeps on repeating the same mantras over and over that somehow they will become true. Bernanke insists that the economy is getting much better, that quantitative easing will lower long-term interest rates, that all of this money printing by the Federal Reserve is not causing inflation and that the Fed knows exactly what needs to be done to dramatically reduce unemployment inside the United States.  So is anyone out there still actually buying what Bernanke is selling?  Sure, a handful of people in the mainstream media still have complete faith in Bernanke.  But for the rest of us, it is becoming increasingly clear that there is something really “off” about Bernanke.  So just what is going on with him?  Is he lying to all of us on purpose?  Could he be insane?  Is he just completely and totally incompetent?

Bernanke’s track record of failure is absolutely stunning.  Before discussing some of his most recent comments, let’s review some of the pearls of wisdom that Bernanke has shared with us in recent years….

2005:  “House prices have risen by nearly 25 percent over the past two years. Although speculative activity has increased in some areas, at a national level these price increases largely reflect strong economic fundamentals.”

2005: “We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s gonna drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.”

2006: “Housing markets are cooling a bit. Our expectation is that the decline in activity or the slowing in activity will be moderate, that house prices will probably continue to rise.”

2007: “At this juncture, however, the impact on the broader economy and financial markets of the problems in the subprime market seems likely to be contained. In particular, mortgages to prime borrowers and fixed-rate mortgages to all classes of borrowers continue to perform well, with low rates of delinquency.”

2007: “It is not the responsibility of the Federal Reserve – nor would it be appropriate – to protect lenders and investors from the consequences of their financial decisions.”

2008: “The Federal Reserve is not currently forecasting a recession.”

So should we believe anything that Bernanke is saying now?

Of course not.

Obviously Bernanke has been feeding us all a whole bunch of nonsense for a very long time.

So what conclusion should we come to about Bernanke at this point?

Well, as I see it, there are three primary alternatives….

1 – Bernanke knows that what he is telling us is wrong and he is purposely trying to deceive us.  That would make him a liar.

2 – Bernanke actually believes what he is saying because he is completely delusional.  That would make him a lunatic.

3– Bernanke actually believes what he is saying because he simply does not understand economics.  This would make him completely and totally incompetent.

In any event, someone with Bernanke’s track record should not still have such a high level job.  He should have been asked to resign long, long ago.

But instead, Obama nominated him for another term and he was approved by our incompetent Congress.

It is a crazy world in which we live.

So what is Bernanke saying now?

Let’s take a look at some of his main points…..

Bernanke Says That One Of The Main Goals Of Quantitative Easing Is To Reduce Long-Term Interest Rates

During one interview about QE2, Bernanke made the following statement….

“The money supply is not changing in any significant way. What we’re doing is lowering interest rates by buying Treasury securities.”

In fact, Bernanke elaborated on that point during his remarks on Wednesday….

Conventional monetary policy easing works by lowering market expectations for the future path of short-term interest rates … By comparison, the Federal Reserve’s purchases of longer-term securities do not affect very short-term interest rates, which remain close to zero, but instead put downward pressure directly on longer-term interest rates.  With the Fed funds rate at the zero bound, the Fed had to resort to unconventional policy to provide further accommodation.

So how is all that working out?

Terribly.

The yield on 10-year U.S. Treasury notes has risen from 2.49 percent back in November to 3.65 percent at the close of business on Wednesday.

Oops.

Long-term interest rates were supposed to go down as a result of quantitative easing, but instead they have increased substantially.

Looks like Bernanke was wrong about another one.

Bernanke Says That Quantitative Easing Is Not Going To Cause Inflation

The price of wheat has roughly doubled since last summer, the price of corn has roughly doubled since last summer and the price of oil is marching up towards $100 a barrel.

But oh, there is no inflation so there is no need to worry according to Bernanke.

Food riots are breaking out around the globe, but Bernanke says that the inflation in those countries is being caused by their own central banks.

Bernanke says that the Federal Reserve has nothing to do with international inflation even though the U.S. dollar is the primary reserve currency of the world.

Bernanke says that even though consumers are seeing huge price increases in the supermarket and at the gas pump that we aren’t really seeing any real inflation because the fraudulent U.S. consumer price index says so.

It is a wonder that anyone still considers this guy to be credible.

Bernanke Says That Quantitative Easing Is Helping The Economy Recover And Is Reducing Unemployment

During his remarks on Wednesday, Bernanke said that the recent decline in the U.S. unemployment rate was “grounds for optimism”.

And, of course, he is glad to take part of the credit for the “recovery”.

Oh really?

Things are getting better?

As I wrote about a few days ago, the “decline” in the U.S. unemployment rate during January to 9.0% is no reason to celebrate.

First of all, the U.S. economy must add 150,000 jobs each month just to keep up with population growth.

During January, the U.S. economy only added 36,000 jobs.

So why did the unemployment rate go down?

Well, the U.S. government said that 504,000 American workers “dropped out of the labor force” in January.

Well, isn’t that convenient.

Let’s just pretend a half million unemployed workers are not even there.

Yeah, that will make the numbers look better!

Sadly, the number of Americans that are “not in the labor force” but that would like a job right now has hit an all-time record high.  If you add all of those people into the official unemployment figure it would jump to 12.8%.

The truth is that the employment situation in America is not getting any better.  In fact, according to Gallup, the unemployment rate actually increased to 9.8% at the end of January.

Perhaps Bernanke should reconsider how much “better” things are really getting.

Bernanke Says That Now Is Not The Time To Reduce The Deficit

When it comes to the national debt, Ben Bernanke is constantly talking out of both sides of his mouth.

Bernanke is constantly saying that the exploding U.S. national debt is very dangerous (and he is very right about that point), but Bernanke also says that now is definitely not the time to do anything about it.

In fact, recently Bernanke has been purposely stepping into the partisan debate about whether to raise the debt ceiling or not.

Bernanke says that Republicans should stand down and that now is not the time to be playing political games with the debt ceiling.  Bernanke has been warning that the consequences for not raising the debt ceiling could be catastrophic….

“We do not want to default on our debts. It would be very destructive.”

Over and over Bernanke has been saying that the economic recovery is still fragile and that now is not the time be cutting deeply into the federal budget.

So when is the right time?

Well, with these central bankers it seems like it is never time to address all of this debt.  It seems like they always want us to “have a long-term plan” to tackle the debt in the future but to keep borrowing and spending in the present.

Well, it looks like that is exactly what the Obama administration plans to keep doing.  This year it is being projected that the U.S. government will have the biggest budget deficit ever recorded – approximately 1.5 trillion dollars.

Keep in mind that the total U.S. national debt did not surpass 1.5 trillion dollars until the mid-1980s.

That means that this year we will accumulate more debt than we did for over the first 200 years that this nation was in existence.

Oh, but according to Bernanke we better not do anything to address our out of control debt because that would “harm the economic recovery”.

In the end, all of this government debt is going to become so monstrous that it is going to swallow us whole.  We can try to keep running from it, but we can’t hide.  Someday the gigantic debt monster that we have created is going to catch up with us.

So, yes, there are a whole lot of reasons to be really upset with Ben Bernanke.

Perhaps he would be a fun guy to sit down and talk to at a backyard barbecue, but he isn’t the type of person that you would want to entrust with any real responsibility, and he most definitely is not someone that should be running the largest economy in the history of the planet.

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