Where Do We Go From Here?

 

O, Brother! My Cup Is Almost Empty!

I think Ted Cruz did his thing on the Affordable Care Act with the intention of making a total mess out of everything, so that the big boys and adults would have to patch things up, then he and his BFF Sarah Palin could stand up and say that they were stabbed in the back.

Sooner or later, they will again attempt to do the unthinkable, and in doing so will destroy America's standing in the world. On the morning after Cruz gets his way, we shall wake up just a few steps lower than Italy.

In order to forestall another cave-in by the Republican leadership to the Obama administration in the next confrontation, a right-wing radio stalwart took the position that Treasury default would be a nothingburger for holders of T-bonds and T-bills; according to this self-serving narrative, bondholders could get paid off on time and in full with tax proceeds, thus preserving government creditworthiness in the financial markets.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/GECON-01-181013.html

The default is coming again. We just have to wait in fearful silence.

Budgetary cuts are the cry, default will be the strategy, and what will happen is that Social Security and Medicare will suffer major cuts, pensions will vanish, and within a ten year period, enough elderly Boomers will have died during the crises and market downturns, so that they will no longer be a drag on the treasury.

In the 1990's, the USA was at a pinnacle,  unchallenged since the fall of the USSR.

Almost immediately we began to cut each other, as a group of Republican conservatives sought to impeach the Democratic President.

The old battles are arising to be fought yet again: rural against urban, non-union versus union... 

In the 1990's, I told my friend that the USA - standing in unequalled strength - was coming in for a time of troubles.

I had no details.

And I was embarrassed to say such things, because how could the mighty USA ever fall?

Soon after the 1990's, the dot.com bubble burst. Then there was 9/11, followed by a mindless march to war in Iraq, a march so unthinking and so unjustly based upon lies that I count it as the most startling thing I have ever witnessed.

Then our greed consummated in 2008 and the Great Recession.

Unemployment is still high, the economy is under siege by battling politicians, foreign countries watch us with bemusement or alarm.

We are not yet done.

I had a goofy economics based on a reverse Fibonacci series detailing years between financial crises.

The time interval does not matter. (In fact, since nothing has yet fallen apart in 2013, my model is wrong... so far.)

What matters is that there is a definite downward trend and expectations of problems rather than blessings.

That's what matters. Everyone thinks were marching to the wrong drummer, and all the drummer boys available seem to have guns in their pockets.

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