California Is America’s Big, Fat Greek Tragedy
Greece is the insolvent, bankrupt country that threatens to bring down the entire EU (European Union) with its exploding and toxic national debt. But it’s just one of the PIGS- Portugal, Italy, Greece and Spain. The EU is damned if they do, damned if they don’t. If they choose to bail out Greece in order to save the union, soon they’ll have much bigger bankrupt nations to deal with (Portugal and Spain are next in a long Conga line). There isn’t enough money in all the world to bail out all of them. The EU is in big trouble.
But the real problem is that Greece isn’t the worst Greek tragedy on the horizon. Greece is only “the canary in the coal mine.” The United States is one big fat Greek tragedy. We are Greece- SQUARED. All the same problems that plague Greece, plague this country- huge national deficits and debt; high unemployment; gigantic entitlement programs; too many government employees; not enough tax revenues coming in; endless bailouts and stimulus; and pension and healthcare systems (Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid) that threaten to eat every dollar of the budget. Just the interest on our national debt is enough to destroy our economy. It’s all a Greek tragedy.
America is Greece- except on a much grander scale. Our economic collapse is still a year or two down the road. Obama is laughing, celebrating, dancing and handing out gifts (stimulus, bailouts, entitlements, corporate welfare) at a big fat Greek wedding…oblivious to the the coming economic Armageddon…oblivious to the madness of his plan- to triple down on spending to save us from insolvency.
But it didn’t take Greece to warn America of the impending doom. California is our Greece. I warned long ago that Obama’s stimulus plan was a disaster. That handing out $120 billion dollars to state and local governments so that they could prevent layoffs of government employees; hire more teachers and government employees; and actually protect raises for government employees…was pure madness. I pointed out at the time that state and local governments across the USA were bankrupt and insolvent. The only possible solution was massive cuts in government spending and layoffs of government employees (just like the private sector). I pointed out that once the stimulus ran out in 2 years, we’d have the same exact problem…except with more government employee salaries, pensions and health care to pay for. All we did was kick the can down the road a bit. We delayed the inevitable economic disaster- just as Greece has done for decades, just as California has done for years. But the day of reckoning is fast approaching.
California is still insolvent and bankrupt…so are most state and local governments…now we have more government employee mouths to feed…more pensions to pay…how will we pay the even larger bill once the stimulus runs out? Where is the next stimulus coming from? How do we pay back the $2 trillion that the Fed has printed? Where are the tax revenues when everyone is a government employee?
All the king’s men…all the countries of the world…all the bankers and Goldman Sachs partners…cannot pay the bills that are coming due for America. The national debt has zoomed past $100 trillion. As a sign of things to come, our December deficit doubled in the past year. Obama’s budget pressed the pedal towards Armageddon- by spending more than all the budgets of all the Presidents that came before him, combined.
The old saying goes, “A trillion here and a trillion there…pretty soon we’re talking about real money.” Well let’s give you some perspective of the trouble we are in. Greece owes $300 billion to the banks. That amount…from a tiny country…threatens to bankrupt banks across Europe and bring down the entire EU. Yet Obama spent $800 billion in one stimulus bill last year. That stimulus by the way, created zero jobs. ZERO. He wanted to spend a trillion more on his expansion of government-run healthcare. If $300 billion can bring down the entire EU…and make big European banks insolvent…who can possibly bailout America’s $100 trillion tab? Just one state- California- is in similar shape and facing the same kind of economic collapse as Greece.
The lesson we must learn is that government cannot spend taxpayers’ money endlessly; that not everyone can work for government; that not everyone can depend on government for survival; that government cannot give raises and bonuses to government employees in a depression; that big pensions and universal healthcare bankrupt nations; that unions are poisonous to the survival of an economy; that “spreading the wealth around” is a failure whenever and wherever it’s been tried- Argentina, Greece, California. The socialist experiment is a disaster.
Now we wait…as the clock ticks…to see if we can avoid becoming the next Greek tragedy that pushes the world towards a second Great Depression.
Regards,
Wayne Allyn Root
February 18, 2010
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the actual quote is “a billion here and a billion there” and it comes to us from the late Everett Dirksen, republican senator from Illinois. Credit where credit is due.
Who will be first to default ? California, Arizona, Illinois or New York . Here I live in Texas listen to lying Rick Perry telling us how Texas is in such great shape but read in yesterdays Dallas Morning News that we are facing a estimated budget gap of 11 to 19 billion . I guess republicans can run a state into the ground as well as democrats.
Wayne,
What the hell are you smoking? Where were you Chicken Little’s during the 8 horrendous Republican Bush Years of Terror at home and abroad?
Regards,
Rayne
For the record: a billion here, a billion there… was not coined by Everett Dirksen, R-IL. In fact it is only wrongly credited to him because he used it as have many other members of congress. Apparantly the term has been around since the 1930′s.
The “billion here, billion there” quotation, however, goes back to the 1930s Depression years and even further. “A billion here, a billion there until billions are getting common” is recorded as early as 1917. The January 10, 1938 New York (NY) Times reported: “Well, now, about this new budget. It’s a billion here and a billion there, and by and by it begins to mount up into money.” Another near match for the quote is recorded in the 1940s: “A billion here and a billion there. It begins to run into money.” Numerous printed citations appeared in the 1950s and 1960s.
Karl Marx was the original doom-and-gloomer. In the mid-19th century, Marx (who never set foot in a factory or met a blue-collar worker) confidently predicted the “crisis of capitalism” just as the Rightwing Conservatives of today predict doom and gloom of America because no doubt they’re so disgruntled about the collective genius of Americans voting out the incompetent Republican Party and installing the Democratic Party to fix the damage brought to our doorstep by the very people beating their war drums to rise up with pitch fork in hand to storm the palace gates. Give me a break!
Sorry, Jay, but the original “A million here, a million there” is attributable to Sam Reyburn, I think. MDC suggests it may have gone back even farther to our hero, Strom Thermond!
Greater Houston area late sixties person,
I have been a commercial wheat farmer my whole life in north central Montana and come from many generations of farmers. I simply feel I must respond to some of the misinformation I see here.
First, do not get sucked into believing all the fear about the total collapse of the country and the huge commercial food producing system we have here in the US. We are the Saudi Arabia of food, and there is no way that we will be unable to produce enough food to sustain our people. The Kunslers are wrong, we have enough domestic energy to run agriculture and a basic transportation system.
Take a road trip through the heartland of our county. You will go hundreds and hundreds, neigh, thousands of miles through the best food growing areas of the world. It contains not only the very best soil, but the local farms, the people, the infrastructure, the transportation system second to none.
So, both you and the sixteen year old, I would give this advice. Do not be sucked into thinking that you will have to produce your own food. This is a fear-based idea.
Here is what I would advise. Educate yourself in those things that will be of economic value. Make yourself indispensable to those who are able to hire you.
I would advise that you do as Gary, Bill Bonner, and others like them do, educate yourself in those hi-tech things that will be of great value in the hi-tech era we will be in going forward.
I f you feel really drawn toward participating in the agricultural community, then acquire skills that will make you valuable to it. Learn how to drive an 18 wheeler, a large tractor, be an agronomist.
The era of the substance farmer is over. Billions of people are fleeing that. Be smart and do not be fooled.
Richard-
I surely hope you are right, but when the price of oil raises the cost of fuel, fertilizer, pesticides and herbicides; when Federal debt forces the inevitable elimination of all farm subsidies and thousands of deeply indebted farmers are forced to pull the plug, it would be wise to have a backup plan. Going into an uncertain future without a plan “B” is little short of suicide.
‘jm
Wow,
Some real believers!!! Good to see.
I was not impressed with G. W. Bush’s spending at all. But President Obama makes GW’ya look like a small time spender. Therein lies the popularity of “Do you miss me yet?”
I think what we have here is a real Italian Tragedy. Remember Il Duce? Please google up some pictures.
He looks just like President Barack Hussein Obama II. The poses, the stances, the pout and even the defiant look, he has him down pat. I hope he does not end up the same way.
This should put Whiskey and Gunpowder on the map for sure as the starting source for one of the great comparisons of all time.
Ol’ Blue Lips is not finished yet. I think we have the makings of a tragedy on the scope of the Roman Empire and Whatever empire Il Duce thought himself part of.
Since a critical eye makes an argument more sound, I have this critizism for you.
First you say:
“That handing out $120 billion dollars to state and local governments so that they could prevent layoffs of government employees; hire more teachers and government employees; and actually protect raises for government employees”
Then you say:
“Yet Obama spent $800 billion in one stimulus bill last year. That stimulus by the way, created zero jobs. ZERO.”
It’s one or the other. Now, if you had said that there weren’t many, if any, wealth creating jobs resulting from the stimulus funds, your statements would make more sense.
An interesting read, none-the-less.
I get so tired of everyone blaming the unions and government employees for the current budget problems because of salaries and pension’s. The fact is that most, if not all, local and state governments have corrupted the system in favor of large corporations and Developers through (RDA) redevelopment projects. RDA is just another scam for the corrupt to walk away with general fund monies that should be going to pay wages and pension’s that were previously negotiated and budgeted for. The money is being hidden by design in what governments call enterprise accounts. The government then claims the general fund is broke while spending tens-of millions from enterprise accounts on secret projects to get family, friends and supporters rich so the politician can stay in power. So who does the state controlled media and politicians blame when the little house of cards start to collapse, the employee that gets up everyday and goes to work and had no say in the budget process…of course. The public is fed-up with wasted tax increases so now government has to eat their own by playing the same game those private corporate raiders pulled in the 80’s, by breaking contracts and stealing the pension funds. But now it’s the government after the trillions in government pension funds that were not properly funded due to political corruption and incompetence. If the government pension funds collapse, so goes the United States.
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[...] California Is America’s Big, Fat Greek Tragedy [...]
Jay,
Yes, as the price of oil goes up, expenses will go up, but then so will the prices farmers receive. When the price of oil hit over $100, the price of basic grains went up several times to compensate. Now that prices for oil are down, so are grain prices. The market takes care of this. If prices go to permanently much higher prices, then ag prices will adjust, and yes, food will be more expensive. People will have to spend a little more on food and a little less on frivolities, which is already happening.
As for farmers having to “pull the plug”, well, that happened in spades in the 80’s Their neighboring farmers simply absorbed the land from the overextended and life went on. Most farmers today are in much better shape than the average small businessman, with the last few years of high ag prices going into reducing debt. Many farmers carry no debt at all.
The main point is to quit listening to the gloom and doomers when it comes to the country as a whole. They most all have an agenda, which is to sell you something. Yes, finance and currency will get very bad. But to think that farmers will just stop producing food and everyone will need to produce their own is just not credible. If you want to have a country place and grow a garden, by all means do so, it is a great way of life. But do not quit your day job.
Dear Richard:
No one thinks that farmers will stop producing food capriciously or that they will go on strike. Some of us think many have forgotten and more have never known what goes into producing food. Short of radishes and sprouts very few vegetables can be produced in two weeks. There is ONE corn crop a year, and it isn’t always successful. Meat of any sort takes months to years to raise; rabbit is about the quickest, but few of us are accustomed to it, rabbits are bad about killing their young, they don’t breed in hot weather, and I discarded the idea of raising them when research revealed that the food they eat costs more than the meat is worth. You can’t just turn rabbits loose in a field. They are preyed upon by many predators and they don’t come up to the barn like cows do. Farming and ranching are expensive, labor-intensive, at the mercy of bad weather, and subject to increasing government control. Do you suppose either does well in Bosnia? All of you can envision or research a Watts riot or Katrina/Rita. You know trucks stop rolling and shelves empty. Your supposition is that in a few days or weeks life will return to normal. When a Sherman marches to the sea his army consumes, burns, or otherwise destroys everything. If the young crop is trampled it cannot be replanted until next year. When seed corn is eaten and animals are slain recklessly in the fields recovery is lengthy, at best. It doesn’t matter whether the destruction is caused by invaders, local government, bandits, starving refugees, or a potato blight. The food production chain is far longer and more fragile than you appear to believe.
No one thinks that farmers will stop producing food capriciously or that they will go on strike.
Well, that is good, because I can assure you they will not.
Some of us think many have forgotten and more have never known what goes into producing food.
This is so bizarre I truly can not comprehend what you must be thinking. Do you not know and understand that almost all family sized commercial farms have been in business for generations? Are you not aware that they for decades have been able to make a living every year of their lives by growing commercial quantities of food crops and delivering them to market. What can you be thinking “they have forgotten about what goes into producing food???”
Short of radishes and sprouts very few vegetables can be produced in two weeks. There is ONE corn crop a year, and it isn’t always successful.
Pardon me but I really can not grasp what point you are trying to make here. Yes, the major crops are full season crops. Yes, in some isolated spots there are always poor crops every year. The point is, we have the whole North American Continent to produce the commodities that both we and a very large portion of the world depends on for domestic and export commodities. You may not realize it, but if a few counties have a crop failure of whatever commodity is grown there, the people actually do not starve. There is something called grocery stores that are a part of a vast economic system that bring in food from all round the country. Again, what is your point?
Meat of any sort takes months to years to raise; rabbit is about the quickest, but few of us are accustomed to it, rabbits are bad about killing their young, they don’t breed in hot weather, and I discarded the idea of raising them when research revealed that the food they eat costs more than the meat is worth. You can’t just turn rabbits loose in a field. They are preyed upon by many predators and they don’t come up to the barn like cows do. Farming and ranching are expensive, labor-intensive, at the mercy of bad weather, and subject to increasing government control. Do you suppose either does well in Bosnia? All of you can envision or research a Watts riot or Katrina/Rita. You know trucks stop rolling and shelves empty. Your supposition is that in a few days or weeks life will return to normal. When a Sherman marches to the sea his army consumes, burns, or otherwise destroys everything. If the young crop is trampled it cannot be replanted until next year. When seed corn is eaten and animals are slain recklessly in the fields recovery is lengthy, at best. It doesn’t matter whether the destruction is caused by invaders, local government, bandits, starving refugees, or a potato blight.
I simply can not make sense of this nor can I answer it. Nothing in this part of your post makes the slightest sense to me.
The food production chain is far longer and more fragile than you appear to believe.
On the contrary, if you think that the food production system and distribution system is fragile, then you do not understand our economic system. What IS fragile is one lone person or family attempting to grow all their own food. Now That is a very fragile system indeed.
Folks, I would urge you to get out of your cities, get in your car and drive for about a half day into the country. Stop and talk to real commercial scale family farmers. Talk to the business people who transport and process the local crops. Above all EDUCATE yourselves on the reality of the real world. What I see here is compete ignorance of reality. It is not my intention to offend anyone or start a flame war. But the ignorance about the real world of agriculture and the economic system in general is just unbelievable.
Again, for those who want to get into agriculture as a business, please educate yourself, make contacts with real farmers, and try to stop heeding all the hippy, gloom and doom nonsense out there. Reality is reality. If you want to raise some of your own food, great. More power to you I applaud that. What I think is that in the course of may years of attempting to do so, you will have educated yourself as to the reality of the fact that you will be spending vast amounts of hours attempting to produce a very small amount of food, and that those hours could have been vastly better spent at a productive job that would have given you and society a great deal more of value. Good luck.
On the subject of farmers and food I agree with Linda. (Im not sure that Im an expert but I used to be able to castrate pigs at the rate of about 200 head per hour, pulled calves at 3 AM, thawed out waterers when the temp was -30, done mouth to snout resecitation, sewed up prolapses and spent the greater part of my childhood and young adult years behind the wheel of large diesel powered equipment. There is no better smell than freshly worked ground and diesel exhust.) The food “system” we have in the usa is very precarious. Not many farmers actually grow food anymore and are many steps removed from the end user. We have done this mainly to simplify the system as there is no money in producing food. The money is in the processing. Over the long haul the best a farmer can hope for producing commodity crops will break even. The system is precarioius because everyone is a specialist and we have very few generalists in agriculture or society for that matter any more. Used to be that a farm would have some hogs, cattle, row crops, small grains, chickens and maybe a small truck patch that they would produce each year. This is a complex system that needed people who were highly trained (yes highly trained) and who marketed their crop locally being at most one step away from the end user. Highly complex systems are not liked very well by modern business plans. As a farm grows in size it becomes increasinely difficult to keep up with all the equipment needed to produce all these different products at a rate that makes it worth your while. The amount of capital and labor become prohibitive. So everyone just does one or maybe two things at the most. You specialize in hopefully what you do best. This is all fine and dandy in the name of efficiency, but simplification increases overall risk to the farmer and to the food eating public as well. Well our efficent system is based on a ready available supply of liquid energy to move the products from the farm to the many steps of processing until it reaches the consumer. Take a look in the grocery store, very few of the final products resemble anything that came off of a farm. This is the risk Linda is speaking of. You disrupt this chain in any one spot and the whole thing flies apart. When I was a kid we grew almost everything that we ate on the farm. We would look at the articles appearing on this site about being a prepper and scratch our heads as to why an article like this was even needed. In today’s world though few if any farmers even grow food for themselves or would even know how. Personally I dont miss being out in the garden every day. It was something that I always hated, I rather spent my days with dad doing the cool stuff. But it is completely right that our system is precarious, just look at what happened to the banking system. If anything, we should stop simplifying everything to the point it becomes fragile. Where that point is I dont know. The problem is that complex usually means some inefficiency and therefore increased cost. There is a reason why we have some of the cheapest food in the world, but that could easily make it very expensive given the right situation.