Is America Going Broke?

[NVMojo]

By Steve Maich
Republished from Macleans
Record deficits, colossal debt and no clear plan for digging itself out. If the U.S. sinks, it will take Canada down with it.
David Walker can see the future, and it scares the hell out of him.

That wouldn’t be terribly unusual if he were one of the thousands of lobbyists, legislators and activists crawling all over Washington on any given day, pontificating about the urgency of their pet issues. There is a thriving industry here built on pushing policy prescriptions for every ailment, real or imagined. But Walker isn’t a lobbyist or an activist, he’s an accountant. His title is comptroller general of the United States, which makes him the head auditor for the most important and powerful government in the world. And he’s desperately trying to get a message out to anyone who’ll listen: the United States of America’s public finances are a shambles. They’re getting rapidly worse. And if something major isn’t done soon to solve the country’s intractable budget problems, the world will face an economic shakeup unlike anything ever seen before.

Seated in his wood-panelled office in downtown Washington, Walker measures his words, trying to walk the fine line between raising an alarm and fostering panic. He cringes when he hears prominent economists warning about a financial “Armageddon,” but he makes no bones about the fact the situation is dire. “I don’t like using words that are overly inflammatory,” he says, leaning forward in his chair. “At the same time, I think it is critically important that the American people, as well as their elected representatives, get a better understanding of just how serious our situation is.”

THE NUMBERS are staggering—a US$43-trillion hole in America’s public finances that’s getting worse every day. And the stakes are almost inconceivable for a generation of politicians and voters raised in relative prosperity, who’ve never known severe economic hardship. But that plush North American lifestyle to which we’ve all grown accustomed has been bought on credit, and the bill is rapidly nearing its due date. If the United States can’t find a way to pay up, the results will spill beyond national borders, spreading economic misery far and wide. In Canada, the country whose financial well-being is most tightly tied to trade with the U.S., there wouldn’t be a single region or industry left untouched by a fiscal shock south of the border.

more....

http://www.guerrillanews.com/headlines/2222/Is_America_Going_Broke

[Erika]

1. America is broke

We can no longer offer good paying jobs, a good education, or healthcare to our citizens. Fact.

[ginnyinWI]

13. and our leadership is also morally bankrupt. n/t

[NEOBuckeye]

2. Bush and Cheney don't give a damn. They've made their fortunes.

And probably have them neatly tucked away on a remote island somewhere. In gold.

They probably even have a "getaway" planned.

[Eloriel]

6. They DO care -- this was exactly the plan

IMO:

The Economic Tsunami : Coming Sooner Than You Think
(The country has been intentionally plundered and will eventually wind up in the hands of its creditors as Bush and his lieutenants planned from the very beginning....This same Ponzi scheme has been carried out repeatedly by the IMF and World Bank throughout the world; Argentina being the last dramatic illustration.)
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=103&topic_id=118706&mesg_id=118706
Link: http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_16735.shtml

[Paradise]

17. Precisely! n/t

[dxstone]

3. If the Fed Chief's not worrying, why should I?

Alan Greenspawn Forecasts Golden Showers For All
http://www.presidentevilonline.com/sn_goldensh.html

other news of note:

Tom Delay Shits Self In Middle of Senate Floor
http://www.presidentevilonline.com/sn_delayshit.html

Halliburton Caught Overcharging Again
http://www.presidentevilonline.com/sn_blackwh2.html


"I LOVE horror movies, man... I just don't want to LIVE in one."
DXS

[izzie]

4. Well we are not acting like we are.

Presidents wants to spend and Congress lets him just like some friend of the family will bail us out. Lets face it, no one will want us to go down,as we may take them, so we will sort of stay a big deal for a long while. But I do believe we need more than power in an army to stay on top. It is these endless little cuts in every thing that will do the deed of bring us down to kicking size.

[ixion]

5. " the President is on his way to making his own warnings a reality."

Pretty much SOP for BushCo, IMO.

Everything this maladmin touches turns to sh**, including our once great republic. :-(

[earth mom]

7. KICKED & NOMINATED! eom

[struggle4progress]

8. The Republicans are deliberately driving the nation into bankruptcy.

[Vincardog]

9. The Republicans are deliberately driving the nation into bankruptcy."

They have declared war on the middle class. They want to destroy the Middle class to put an end to the questions asked about their ThugOcracy.

Have I mentioned how much I loath the Sub Humans who stole our government in 2000?

[struggle4progress]

10. Actually, I don't think they care much about the middle class ...

... one way or the other. But they have an ideological commitment to bankrupt the Federal government in order to eliminate any possible control of or limits to corporate power.

[indepat]

12. They had much rather have that three trillion dollars as added wealth of a

precious few and don't care adding three trillion dollars to the Federal debt to do so.

[Leftest]

11. All Going As Planned

In my opinion, never lose sight of the fact that the super rich's goals are to consolidate the wealth, and thus, the power. So therefore the middle-class must be eliminated because, as in Mexico, when you have a few super rich elite's and everybody else dirt poor; the poor are too busy trying to make enough money to feed their families and put a roof over their heads, much less bothering to jeopardize their precarious lives by organizing against the plutocracy.

In my opinion they aim to destroy the middle-class.

[JPZenger]

14. If the China National Bank Stopped Funding Our Debt...

If the China National Bank stops buying billions of our treasury bonds each year to fund our national debt, we're screwed. Or, if China and Japan would decide to sell off the hundreds of billions of U.S. treasury bonds that they already hold, we're really screwed.

Bush's Tax Cuts for the Rich - Funded by the Communist Chinese.

[ClayZ]

15. Going? Going? GONE!

[loftycity]

16. How long would it take to repay a 43 trillion dollar debt?

I had listened to some super mathematics professor on national debt from those "Great Courses" video tapes. The time frame for a 6.6 trillion dollar debt being paid off at 10 billion a year would take 660 years. What would 43 trillion take?
Hard to fathom...1984 ...here we are.

[0007]

18. In most all third world counties corruption & crime runs rampant within

with the elected officials, including the local police. The U.S. is no exception and has no money to straighten out the feeding frenzy on the few left crumbs.