How can America be Bankrupt when we still live as we always have, when we still have so much, when so much remains available to us at “modest” prices? Ironically, the same machinery that allowed us to initially prosper, to then drive us into irreconcilable debt is the same machine that preserves this ongoing illusion that everything is hunky-dory…all while continuing to drive us into ever deeper debt and at an accelerating pace.
Let me make an effort at an analogy…Years ago ( I think I remember it being the 1960’s)…Madison Avenue genius created Chevrolet’s “Heartbeat of America” advertising campaign…it was a memorable and uplifting message, and was an incredibly successful campaign. But all advertising is propaganda, and for a while, that kind of propaganda kept us all believing that America still had a strong heart (at least the General Motors heart)…a multidimensional heart comprised of all the elements of our society we used as a measure of our status and value…of how the world perceived us…and how we really were.
As it turns out, both by accident and design, Chevrolet’s Heartbeat campaign became part of an almost subliminal pervasive message that helped to lull us all into believing that we were more than we were/are…because underneath all of the hype, America was/is ill. America is troubled on many fronts, on many levels, for many reasons…but the most dangerous immediate issue is the health of our economy.
We have financial heart disease….the financial Heartbeat of America is on life support and temporarily alive because of being jumpstarted by the TARP defibrillator and because we are our own bank. It’s very convenient, even necessary that a country be its own bank…but we are a very perverse bank…our banks are part of a financial pump that taps into a monetary aquifer supplied by the US Treasury but controlled by a private banking force called the Federal Reserve Bank.
America’s financial heartbeat was not always controlled by the Federal Reserve. The Fed pump was created and authorized by the US Congress back in 1913 when they voted into law The Federal Reserve Act. From that point forward the REAL financial “Heartbeat of America” was dictated by the actions of the Federal Reserve…and correspondingly the economic health of America.
How the pump works….
The Federal Reserve Bank hires the US Treasury to print money, and they only pay for the cost of the printing (Isn’t THAT special!). The Federal Reserve then loans out that printed money to banks at full face value. Those same banks then loan that same money to “we the people” who must repay it in the full dollar value…plus interest (Usually lots of interest!)
This whole scenario is exacerbated during low points in the economic cycle by the Federal Reserve when it hires the US Treasury to print money in quantities far in excess of that needed to purchase available goods. With excess money in distribution the money supply inflates and too much money starts chasing too few goods and services, and push follows shove and the prices of things go up.
Interestingly, (Deviously so!) the Fed controls the monetary game through all of the ups and downs…subsequently at any point in time inflation can be arrested by the Federal Reserve by issuing the order to stop printing money. And they have done this historically with regularity…they turn the pump on and off depending on what is best for their margins. The common man gets devalued paper, and the banks rake in huge profits.
So when you see that the Dow Jones Average is “recovering”…don’t get too excited as it is an indication of nothing other than the transient health of the DOW, and the DOW is only one dubious indicator of the general health of our economy. That famous index is comprised of powerful companies that actually create measurable and meaningful products…it is also comprised of financial companies that pawn investment “instruments” as having real world value, where in reality the only place those abstract instruments have value is on their home turf...which is conveniently populated by vested financial players (Again, isn’t THAT special!).
So here we are in the early phase of the 21st Century, living in the most interesting and dynamic country to ever adorn the surface of planet earth, and we are in financial chaos…to the tune of over 90 Trillion dollars of national, public, private, foreign, set-a-side, and "off budget" debt. A number that is so large that using conventional methodologies offers no practical hope of ever returning to a point where financial proportionality has any meaning.
The bottom line is that America is bankrupt. I’ve been saying it for years, been saying it on the radio for almost five years, and even though the events of the last two years confirm that premise, virtually nothing has changed. The Banks, Wall Street and all of it's corrupt and corrupting vested enablers continue to scam mountains of money while we sit and write about it.
The Fed is still pulling the strings, the Wall Street Banks are still skewing numbers and awarding themselves for being above the rest of us, and we sheeple/people continue to grind it out at two or three jobs while fearing the Federal Reserve’s collection agency…the Internal Revenue Service. It’s a mell of a hess and I see no indicators that a change in direction is in our future.
The only unpredictable thing is the pace at which we race towards our ultimate financial Armageddon. How soon? What will be the “we’re broke beyond immediate repair” indicator? That my friends is the great unknown...but I'm certain it will destroy the Heartbeat of America.
