Doomsday? China claims U.S. already in default

The faces of stock traders tell the story that big trouble is brewing.

(Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images

As a means of stirring up political opposition to the intention of Congressional conservatives to refuse to raise the debt ceiling, the Obama Administration, Congressional Democrats, and liberals in general have warned that if we do not raise the debt limit the U.S. will 'default on its obligations to its lenders.' Apparently that warning was highly misplaced. One of America's largest creditor nations, China, is claiming today that the U.S. is already defaulting on its loans. Is this the doomsday many have warned about for at least 3 years?

The Obama Administration has pursued a policy of deliberately devaluing the dollar and spending the nation into oblivion with money that is borrowed. Many astute political observers, including this writer, have warned incessantly that such a policy would ultimately lead to economic collapse. The more the Administration spends borrowed money without restraint, the more likely it is that the nation will default, given that it has no money to pay its creditors and its creditors are becoming more convinced by the day that they cannot lend America any more money.

Without the luxury of continuing to borrow money, the vast majority of America's obligations to senior adults and the disabled poor will go unfunded. This will lead to widespread suffering on a scale never before experienced in the United States of America.

Not surprisingly, the stock market plunged again today in response to such news, dipping below 12,000 for the first time in months. Today's plunge represents the worst sustained decline in stocks since 2002, just after the 9/11 attacks.

What does this mean for the average citizen on the street?

t means inflation will necessarily skyrocket. This has already happened in the food and energy sectors, but the government conveniently does not count these two items in its inflation numbers. Further, look for food shortages, energy shortages, and continued skyrocketing costs. Electricity rates will be raised to historic levels, in keeping with a statement Obama made in 2007, "Under my plan, energy costs will necessarily skyrocket."

The nation can also look for civil unrest as citizens grow increasingly outraged that their government has deliberately pursued policies that have brought the nation to the brink of ruin. Even James Carville, former Bill Clinton advisor, confirmed that such a scenario is not mere speculation or fear-mongering but a distinct possibility.

What can the government do to reverse this march into the abyss? Stop spending money. Cut the budget drastically. Don't borrow any more money. The government must live off of only what it takes in from the citizens in the current tax structure. And taxes must not be raised in any shape, form, or fashion. That would merely throw dirt on the grave.

In addition, the nation must lower the tax rate for business, making this country the most business-friendly nation on earth. Only the private sector can get the economy moving again, and a friendly and non-oppressive tax structure would do the trick in getting businesses to invest and hire workers.

Be sure to catch my blog at The Liberty Sphere. Visit my ministry site at Martin Christian Ministries.

Source: Examiner.com

• China ratings house says US defaulting: report

 

German Rating Agency Feri Downgrades US Government Bonds: AAA to AA!

The first Western downgrade of US government bonds is a fact! The German credit rating agency Feri lowered its rating on US debt by a full notch, from AAA to AA.

Here is the German press release: Feri Downgrades US Gov Debt AAA to AA

The English translation:

Homburg, 8 June 2011 - The Bad Homburg Feri EuroRating & Research AG downgraded the first credit rating agency's credit rating for the United States from AAA to AA. Feri analysts justify the downgrade by the continuing deterioration of the creditworthiness of the country due to high public debt, inadequate fiscal measures, and weaker growth prospects.

"The U.S. government has fought the effects of the financial market crisis primarily by an increase in government debt. We do not see that there is sufficient attention being paid to other measures, "said Dr. Tobias Schmidt, CEO of Feri Rating & Research AG. "Our rating system shows a deterioration in economic health, so the downgrading of the credit ratings of U.S. is warranted."

For the third consecutive year the deficit of the United States is in double digit percentages relative to gross domestic product (GDP). "Deficits of such magnitude are not a sustainable fiscal policy. We would reconsider the rating when the U.S. government creates a long-term sustainable budget," said Schmidt.

Feri Rating is listed on the Federal Financial Supervisory Authority (BaFin) as an EU credit rating agency approved and created with more than 20 years experience in sovereign ratings. Every month, the Feri analysts evaluate sovereign credit ratings from the perspective of a foreign investor based on the ability and willingness of countries to repay their debts. The credit ratings have eleven possible gradations between "AAA" (best credit) and "Default".

Obama's Jobs Plan Takes a Page From Marx

By Investor's Business Daily

Politics: The president has unveiled a plan to cut joblessness with an industrial policy from the 19th century. In this "new" economy, government will pick winners and losers for industry. It didn't work then, it won't work now.

Taking a cue from classical Marxist theory as well as vintage union organizing doctrine, both discounting the value of service work over manufacturing, we now see President Obama touting training for factory jobs over all others, pushing government spending in that area and calling it a jobs recovery plan.

"I see a future where we train workers who make things here in the United States, and continue a important and honorable tradition of folks working with their hands, creating value, not just shuffling paper," he said Wednesday at Northern Virginia Community College, urging students to pack up and go to ... Detroit.

As he announced his public-private "Skills for America" partnership to train and credential 500,000 students for jobs in industries favored by the Obama administration, it bears looking at how at odds this approach is to both history and economic reality.

"We know it means building the infrastructure, the roads and bridges, and manufacturing new products here ... that create good jobs," Obama said. "Above all, it means training and educating our citizens to out-compete workers from other countries."

The Bill Moyers crowd has been touting manufacturing-era nostalgia for years, claiming the world would go back on its axis if America could just shut its market and put everyone back into blue collars, turning gears and listening for the lunch whistle.

Fact is, the more advanced the economy, the greater percentage of the work force that moves out of manufacturing and into services.

Economists call this the "tertiary progression" of development - from farming and fishing, to the Industrial Revolution, to an advanced service economy. Every rich nation has followed this path - every one.

In the U.S., that move started not last decade but more than 70 years ago. In the U.S. there are six times more service workers than factory workers, boasting higher skills and per capita income. U.S. trade data consistently show U.S. surpluses in service exports across the board because that's America's competitive advantage.

Now the president wants us to "give back" all that white collar development and return to a simpler sort of economy premised on manufacturing - one that's more characteristic of today's China or Peru than a developed economy such as America.

Amazingly, he wants this even though he admits state-directed industrial policy has failed. "We've got a lot of programs out there," he said. "If a program does not work in training people for the jobs of the future and getting them a job, we should eliminate that program."

Which defies belief when one recalls he's holding up job-creating free-trade treaties with Colombia, Panama and South Korea for just such a useless training program called "Trade Adjustment Assistance," or TAA.

That program is so bad a 2008 American University study by Kara Reynolds and John Palatucci declared it "of dubious value in terms of helping displaced workers find new, well-paying employment opportunities." Obama is holding up a proven way to create jobs - trade deals - to expand TAA from $2 billion to $7 billion.

It's as if all the economic knowledge acquired in the course of the 20th century never made it to the Obama White House. Obama wants to pick industrial winners while the economy languishes from high taxes, massive new regulatory burdens and his failure on free trade.

The only logic that can explain this is that Obama means to spend more money on vocational education to prepare kids for work in industries dominated by unions - Obama's main base of political support.

Presumably, if enough community college students can be trained for traditionally unionized manufacturers, employers will have no choice but to hire them. That's a win-win-win-win for educational bureaucrats, unions, jobs and Obama's political prospects.

Too bad the rest of the economy - which accounts for three-quarters of all U.S. output - didn't make Obama's list of industrial winners.

Warren Buffett Joins Critics on Obamanomics: Too Much Spending – Too Much Debt – Not Sustainable: Stop Spending, Stop Printing Money and No New Big

Double Dip Recession Around the Corner

Times Topics: Warren E. Buffett

IN nature, every action has consequences, a phenomenon called the butterfly effect. These consequences, moreover, are not necessarily proportional. For example, doubling the carbon dioxide we belch into the atmosphere may far more than double the subsequent problems for society. Realizing this, the world properly worries about greenhouse emissions.

The butterfly effect reaches into the financial world as well. Here, the United States is spewing a potentially damaging substance into our economy — greenback emissions.

To be sure, we’ve been doing this for a reason I resoundingly applaud. Last fall, our financial system stood on the brink of a collapse that threatened a depression. The crisis required our government to display wisdom, courage and decisiveness. Fortunately, the Federal Reserve and key economic officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations responded more than ably to the need.

They made mistakes, of course. How could it have been otherwise when supposedly indestructible pillars of our economic structure were tumbling all around them? A meltdown, though, was avoided, with a gusher of federal money playing an essential role in the rescue.

The United States economy is now out of the emergency room and appears to be on a slow path to recovery. But enormous dosages of monetary medicine continue to be administered and, before long, we will need to deal with their side effects. For now, most of those effects are invisible and could indeed remain latent for a long time. Still, their threat may be as ominous as that posed by the financial crisis itself.

To understand this threat, we need to look at where we stand historically. If we leave aside the war-impacted years of 1942 to 1946, the largest annual deficit the United States has incurred since 1920 was 6 percent of gross domestic product. This fiscal year, though, the deficit will rise to about 13 percent of G.D.P., more than twice the non-wartime record. In dollars, that equates to a staggering $1.8 trillion. Fiscally, we are in uncharted territory.

Because of this gigantic deficit, our country’s “net debt” (that is, the amount held publicly) is mushrooming. During this fiscal year, it will increase more than one percentage point per month, climbing to about 56 percent of G.D.P. from 41 percent. Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out.

An increase in federal debt can be financed in three ways: borrowing from foreigners, borrowing from our own citizens or, through a roundabout process, printing money. Let’s look at the prospects for each individually — and in combination.

The current account deficit — dollars that we force-feed to the rest of the world and that must then be invested — will be $400 billion or so this year. Assume, in a relatively benign scenario, that all of this is directed by the recipients — China leads the list — to purchases of United States debt. Never mind that this all-Treasuries allocation is no sure thing: some countries may decide that purchasing American stocks, real estate or entire companies makes more sense than soaking up dollar-denominated bonds. Rumblings to that effect have recently increased.

Then take the second element of the scenario — borrowing from our own citizens. Assume that Americans save $500 billion, far above what they’ve saved recently but perhaps consistent with the changing national mood. Finally, assume that these citizens opt to put all their savings into United States Treasuries (partly through intermediaries like banks).

Even with these heroic assumptions, the Treasury will be obliged to find another $900 billion to finance the remainder of the $1.8 trillion of debt it is issuing. Washington’s printing presses will need to work overtime.

Legislators will correctly perceive that either raising taxes or cutting expenditures will threaten their re-election. To avoid this fate, they can opt for high rates of inflation, which never require a recorded vote and cannot be attributed to a specific action that any elected official takes. In fact, John Maynard Keynes long ago laid out a road map for political survival amid an economic disaster of just this sort: “By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.... The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

I want to emphasize that there is nothing evil or destructive in an increase in debt that is proportional to an increase in income or assets. As the resources of individuals, corporations and countries grow, each can handle more debt. The United States remains by far the most prosperous country on earth, and its debt-carrying capacity will grow in the future just as it has in the past.

But it was a wise man who said, “All I want to know is where I’m going to die so I’ll never go there.” We don’t want our country to evolve into the banana-republic economy described by Keynes.

Our immediate problem is to get our country back on its feet and flourishing — “whatever it takes” still makes sense. Once recovery is gained, however, Congress must end the rise in the debt-to-G.D.P. ratio and keep our growth in obligations in line with our growth in resources.

Unchecked carbon emissions will likely cause icebergs to melt. Unchecked greenback emissions will certainly cause the purchasing power of currency to melt. The dollar’s destiny lies with Congress.

Warren E. Buffett is the chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway, a diversified holding company.

Obama Now Says He Agrees With McCain's Resurgence Plan Proposal

Obama Now Says He Agrees With McCain's American Homeownership Resurgence Plan; then throws in if there is enough oversight, as if McCain wasn't planning to do that...  Anyway to grab some credit

McCain's American Homeownership Resurgence Plan

Obamanomics and the Coming Stock Market Crash

 How destructive to the U.S. economy would a Barack Obama presidency be?  

An exclusive Newsmax analysis warns: There would be a very rough time ahead.  Beneath Obama's flowery rhetoric lies a dangerous economic plan that will wreak havoc on the American economy. Obama plans to return to the failed policies of high taxation coupled with an expansion of government spending.  Worse, Obama says he is absolutely committed to almost doubling the capital gains rate — something he will easily accomplish with a Democrat Congress.

In the coming months — when investors realize that Obama will raise the cap gains rate — there could be a stampede of asset sales as investors rush to take their profits now to avoid Obama's doubling of the tax rates next year.

All of these issues and more are explored in Newsmax magazine's special report "Obamanomics — the Coming Tax-and-Spend Nightmare," by Wall Street Journal columnist John Fund.  This special report gives Americans the first in-depth look at the Democratic presidential candidate's likely strategies — and how they will affect not just the larger economy, but your personal wealth as well.  It is an article worth reading for everyone before they vote!!

Indeed, Obama makes no bones about his plans to go on a tax rampage. Not only would he increase the capital-gains tax rate from 15 percent to as much as 28 percent, he wants to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which effectively raises taxes on Americans by tens of billions of dollars.

He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7 percent in taxes on earned income.

And the loan dividend tax rate George Bush implemented? Under President Obama it will be DOA!

If you are concerned about your money and family's financial well-being — and that the American economy remains strong — you must read this special report and share it with friends and family.

Wide-ranging points covered in this Newsmax Article:

• How Obama's policies could cost more than $850 billion over four years
• The dire repercussions of Obama's minimum wage proposal for small businesses and retail outlets
• Obama aides' private and very revealing admission about the candidate's economic savvy
• The surprising revelation when Barack's own tax returns were reviewed by an expert
• The "proof" that Obama will kowtow to organized labor
• Obama's Social Security plan: a giant income-redistribution scheme
• How Obama's policies could boost some tax rates to 60 percent
• Leading economist Arthur Laffer's warning on Obamanomics
• Obama's policies point by point on energy, healthcare, regulation, and the housing crisis
• Who would lose under Obama's tax proposals — and who would win
• How Barack "flunked" an easy question on capital gains
• The Democrat's contradictory statements on tax increases
• Why Obama's campaign against special interests would backfire
• Obama's plan to double America's foreign aid
• How Obama's trade policies would damage U.S. multinationals
• Obama's embarrassing denial regarding NAFTA
• The National Taxpayers Union's Obama rating: just 5 percent
• Obama's misguided views on technology's future
• How the Democrat would undermine private sector healthcare
• Obama's tactics — old left-wing populist ploys

Sen. Barack Obama’s “naïve” world view could embolden America’s enemies during one of the most dangerous periods for America since the 1930s, U.S. Sen. Joseph Lieberman told Newsmax in an exclusive television sit-down interview Tuesday. Lieberman, visiting Fort Lauderdale, Fla., also told Newsmax that he is so disappointed with the Democratic Party, he will consider whether to bolt the Democratic Senate caucus next session. [You can see the full video broadcast on Newsmax.tv — Go Here Now]. For completer article see:  Lieberman Calls Obama Naive