More wonderful economic news:
From the Washington Times comes this eye-opener for a Monday morning:
As recently as 1996, America's net debtor status was minus $456 billion. Since 1996, it has increased by more than $3 trillion, or 660 percent, as America's 12-year cumulative trade deficit soared by $5.7 trillion.
Scary. Here's more: Our net indebtedness spiked by well over a trillion bucks in a single year:
At the end of 2008, America's net international investment position was minus $3.47 trillion, the Commerce Department reported Friday. That represents the difference between the value of U.S. assets owned by foreigners ($23.36 trillion) and the value of foreign assets owned by Americans ($19.89 trillion).
At the end of 2007, the U.S. net international investment position was minus $2.14 trillion. Thus, America's net indebtedness with the rest of the world increased by $1.33 trillion, or 62 percent, during 2008. It was by far the biggest annual increase in data that go back to 1976.
The bottom line:
Foreigners now hold nearly 50 percent of the federal government's publicly held debt. If foreign investors significantly reduce their purchase of future U.S. Treasury debt securities, without even dumping their current holdings, U.S. interest rates could soar and the dollar could collapse, analysts fear. At minus $3.47 trillion, America's net debtor status with foreigners represents nearly 25 percent of U.S. gross domestic product, the highest level in history. “Three decades of massive [trade] deficits have converted the United States from the world's banker – able to 'pay any price and bear any burden in the cause of freedom' – to the world's largest debtor, utterly dependent on China and other foreign interests,” said Charles McMillion, chief economist of Washington-based MBG Information Services.
And that's when the deficit was under $200 billion. These numbers did not include Obama's policies or actions! Disaster is not far away, I think. Maybe like this from David Burton:
Both the money supply and federal spending have increased at breathtaking rates over the past year, unprecedented in peacetime. The policy decisions made by the Federal Reserve Board and Congress virtually assure we will enter a period of 1970s-like stagflation.
The recovery, when it comes, will combine slow economic growth, unusually long un- and underemployment, stagnating real incomes, rising interest rates and inflation. There is little that policymakers, having made colossal mistakes, can do to prevent such an outcome.
Here's the bottom line:
An economic train wreck is coming. Its cause is simple and straightforward: the breathtakingly bad monetary and fiscal policy during the past six to nine months – in other words, too much money and too much federal spending.
Burton offers some suggestions for lessening that train wreck:
The first thing policymakers need to do is to stop doing harm. The Fed needs to immediately raise the federal funds target interest rate and slow money growth to normal levels. Congress needs to return federal spending to a more normal 19 percent to 23 percent of gross domestic product. It should reduce the U.S. corporate tax rate, currently the second-highest rate among industrialized nations, and, if possible, reform the tax system to promote work, savings and investment. Finally, it needs to control rather than exacerbate federal entitlement spending.
Naturally, of course, Barack Obama is moving in the opposite direction:
…the Obama administration seems bent on doubling down and making a bad situation even worse with massive increases in business and individual taxes, nationalizing or taking control of major industries (including automakers, banks, insurance and health care), hidden but huge energy-cost increases in pursuit of the chimera of global warming and ever greater entitlement spending.
And here's my favorite part – Obama is pondering another stimulus bill:
A second stimulus? As risible as it sounds, Pres. Barack Obama entertains the idea. When asked at a press conference Tuesday if another stimulus bill might be necessary, Obama replied, “Not yet.” How about not ever? People seem to forget that the $787 billion stimulus package enacted last February was the second stimulus — the Bush administration enacted a $168 billion stimulus bill in February of 2008. Neither the Republican stimulus (weighted toward tax rebates) nor Democratic one (weighted toward spending) has delivered anything like the promised results.
Above all, it is important to remember that Obama’s stimulus was not designed to maximize job creation. The administration’s primary goal was to give frustrated Democrats an all-purpose vehicle for pent-up spending desires that the Bush administration had repressed. Obama removed the lid and out came $87 billion in additional funds for Medicaid, $15 billion for Pell Grant scholarships, $3 billion for public-housing improvements, and $2 billion for renewable-energy research.
A second stimulus? A plurality of Americans think this one should be canceled.
Remember, he's not attempting to heal the economy. He's attempting to secure as much control over as much of America as possible in his quest to 're-make' the nation into what he believes is a more 'fair' society – socialism, with permanent Democrat control. That means first destroying the prosperity of the private sector, allowing him to swoop in and take over those 'failures' with the government.
The longer Obama runs his agenda unchecked, the worse this is going to get.
There's my two cents.
I'm a gun-owning, Bible-thumping, bitter clinger conservative in the heartland. You can disagree with me if you want (you do, after all, have a right to be wrong)...just don't be rude or stupid and we'll get along just fine! :)
There's My Two Cents 
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