Mission Impossible

Boy, I thought that my job had some tough moments. I came across this gem about Treasury Secretary Timothy Giethner's latest assignment. It seems that the President has sent Mr. Geithner out on a world tour to convince the world that U.S. Treasuries were still a good investment.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31995295/ns/business-world_business

I suppose that I could probably walk into the office of my counterpart in China or Saudi Arabia and deliver this message if it were my job, but I would be shocked if I could pull it off with a straight face. It seems that the Secretary pretty much stuck to the same script: "The Obama administration was committed to guarding the value of the dollar and, once the economy improves, shrinking the deficit." Only a first class fool would take the Secretary's word on this subject seriously. You couldn't sell me on that snake oil. In fact, the article stated that a group of Chinese students at Peking University laughed when the Secretary told them that investments in U.S. Treasuries were a safe investment. The article states that his quick answer when asked was the reason for the laughter, but come on, those students aren't as stupid as President Obama hopes that the public here will continue to be.

Here is the problem, according to the Congressional Budget Office, this year's budget deficit is estimated to be $1.84 TRILLION dollars and that the smallest deficit the Obama administration will incur under its current spending plans is $633 BILLION, pushing our already insane national debt up to $9 TRILLION plus. I was sick with President Bush's deficits, but this is unconscionable. Before the President took office, I was actually hopeful that he would do something to bring spending under control. I guess that I missed on that one a bit, didn't I?

So why is all of this deficit such a bad thing? Because as anyone who has maxed out their credit cards knows, the bigger your debt load to income, the less likely that someone will loan you money. Eventually, we are going to reach the point where our debt is so big, that other countries will quit lending money to us. Here is a more eloquent explanation that I could make:

http://articles.moneycentral.msn.com/Investing/SuperModels/mad-world-chinas-bind-is-ours-too.aspx?page=1

The way that our current Congress is spending, I don't think that insovency is very far out in the future. With cap and trade, health care "reform", and whatever bailouts and stimulus that the administration will waste another trillion or two on, we can bet our last dollar (soon to be worth 19 cents) that interest rates and inflation are to follow. Tim Geithner's world tour is not going to save us on this one. The only hope that I have is that the U.S. is too big to fail, or something comes along to stop this madness. If something is to be done, it will have to come from the taxpayers. We have to send a message to this Congress by voting their reckless a**es out of office - Citizen Zane.