"The most significant threat to our national security is our debt," Admiral Michael Mullen, Chairman, Joint Chiefs of Staff, August 27, 2010


Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Does the Constitution Empower Congress to Monetize the Mess?

If we could all just print money when we needed some. Paradise. Garden of Eden. Surely the Founders must have understood this simple concept.  So, why didn't they empower Congress to specifically do it?

America's treasury has been borrowing from anyone with investible funds. As of today the total borrowed is $12,086,172,114,368.23. The treasury separates the total into two categories – public and intragovernmental . The public amount is $7,709,786,826,316.90 and the intragovernmental amount is 4,376,385,288,051.33. The Debt Held by the Public is all federal debt held by individuals, corporations, state or local governments, foreign governments, and other entities outside the United States Government. Intragovernmental Holdings are Government Account Series securities held by Government trust funds, revolving funds, and special funds. The latter category is mostly monies involuntarily paid into social security by US workers for their retirement and then spent by the government on all their countless programs and plans. Don’t kid yourself. The government collects money for “social security” purposes and spends it on current programs, bureaucrats and their massive spending programs. When they spend this money for reasons for which is was not forced out of your and my paycheck, they issue a security and add it to this debt category. More recently the government has just taken to issuing securities and printing currency in order to avoid going into the public market and asking for more and more money from Americans, Chinese and others around the globe. This is what TheFundamentals calls “monetizing” the mess.  It is not an "enumerated power" granted in the US Constitution.

All economics are based on wealth creation. Money is worthless paper if not supported by wealth creation. Wealth creation is growing/extracting something from the earth and/or making something out of what is grown/extracted. When there is wealth creation; paper money has value. When paper money is created without underlying wealth creation there is a house of cards, a hall of mirrors. TheFundamentals calls this a “mess.”

Total debt of $12 trillion has now approached the actual annual total output of the nation’s goods and services. No one really knows when it becomes so much that the pile of debt collapses and no one will lend any more money and those who did lend want their money back (this is the usual collapse sequence in so-called Ponzi schemes.) Mr. Bernard Madoff, TheFundamentals choice for USTreasury Secretary, can and should write a book about the mechanics of his collapse and call it – “I told you so.” When it happens; it happens fast. This current government is thinking that they can always just print more currency to pay back the claims if it ever comes to this collapse situation. This viewpoint only means that they have selectively read history. The damage to a large country, with over 300 million non homogenous citizens, is going to be making some new news.

In comes the new administration with no wealth creation experience. They have no real life experience. They don’t even grasp the situation other than to blame the predecessors. Then they promptly rehire the gang that caused the mess and spend even more money they don’t have for their wars and entitlements and bureaucracies and employees and pensioners. Borrow/Print/Spend/No Debt Repayment. They say they must do this to prevent a collapse. So they pursue fiscal and monetary policies that are proven to produce a collapse with the rationale that they need to do it to avoid a collapse.

Follow the growing debt at http://www.treasurydirect.gov/NP/BPDLogin?application=np  This is the official USTreasury debt website. They call it “the debt to the penny...” They should call it “Monetizing the Mess.”

TheFundamentals published its first posting on Wednesday, February 4, 2009. On that day, the total debt was $10,669,192,308,562.45. Since then, 309 days have passed and the debt has increased by $1,416,980,000,000.00. TheFundamentals asks YOU, the taxpayer, these simple questions – “What do YOU have to show for the $1.4 trillion in debt accumulated in 309 days that YOU have passed along to yourselves and your children and their children?” Would you be willing to forgo any of the things YOU identified above? Are you satisfied with the choice that YOU have made in selecting the government officials and the spending activities they enact? Are YOU willing to replace them with prudent individuals who will enact programs of sacrifice and frugality and start repaying the debt?  Can WE find these individuals who read and understand the Constitution and who will abide by its words and meanings?

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