Soap Box

I have no degrees in economics - or for that matter anything else - on my wall, my academic credentials consist of a certificate of graduation with the Class of 1955 from Goldston High School, a lengthy tenure at the college of hard knocks and over 60 years of supporting myself.

I have never collected an unemployment check, entitlements nor any other form of government assistance, which is certainly not a virtue, but something I count as more of a blessing than an accomplishment and hold no malice toward those who do, providing they have a valid reason for doing so.

My experience in the business world has all been from the practical side and, I couldn't do my own books, or for that matter my personal income tax return if the penalty for not doing so was decapitation.

But while I can't, there are plenty of trustworthy and capable people who can, and after a few stumbles and glitches along the way, I have located some very able folks who look after the financial side of my business with honesty and precision and give me the bottom line fiscal facts, sparing me the convoluted description of how, after navigating the myriad of ever changing federal regulations, they arrived at them.

I said all that to emphasize the fact that while I lay no claim to being an expert on the subject, I know in fact I learned in a very traumatic fashion, the simple truth that you can't spend more than you take in no matter what manner of forty dollar words and fiscal projections and computer models you use to rationalize it.

Actually, there is no verbal or theoretical mumbo jumbo that can change the fact that when you run out of money you're broke and when you borrow to cover the shortfall you go into debt and when you borrow to pay interest on the debt you go farther into debt and no matter how long you're able to put it off, a day of reckoning is looming and inevitable.

Kick the can has long been the game of choice in Washington as parties and politicians seek temporary financial fixes and makeshift delays to keep the news that would reflect badly on them from surfacing before an election.

Well, the can is worn out, as well as the excuses, the blame game and the veil that has been pulled across America's eyes so many times by both parties.

There is an unavoidable day of pain coming and the longer the politicians can put it off the more painful it's going to be.

To try to grasp the enormity of the national debt, try to imagine counting all the leaves on the trees in Yellowstone National Park or emptying out the Great Salt Lake a shot glass at the time. Unfortunately in the last few decades we have become immune to words like billions and trillions, as the office seekers at both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue convince another segment of the population that they can't make a living on their own and need to take a place at the federal trough.

President Obama says that raising the debt limit does not mean acquiring more debt, which is just a fancy way of saying he has no intention of cutting any of the gluttonous entitlement programs that are at the root of America's fiscal mess.

And not raising the debt ceiling does not mean that the government has to shut down or can't pay it's debts, but that they would have to do like the rest of America and get by on what is coming in, which is defiantly going to happen at some time in the future. And as I said, the longer it takes, the more painful it's going to be and the longer it's going to last.

The Fed is currently buying up federal bonds to the tune of eighty five billion dollars a month; a move that artificially props up a sick economy and considerably weakens the dollar.

When the dollar becomes weak enough that it will no longer be accepted as the global trade currency, when we have to buy currency from some more stable economy to pay for the imports we're so addicted to, the props will finally be kicked out and the people of this nation, at least the ones who have been lulled to sleep by thinking that if everybody just paid their "fair share" everything would be alright, are not going to know what hit them as 401Ks, retirement funds and entitlement programs blow away like a politicians empty promises.

Is this going to happen?

I certainly hope not.

Are the pieces falling into place to force it to happen?

Absolutely.

What do you think?