True, particularly as we continue to act as if we have a solvency problem.

Germany Says ‘Great Uncertainty’ About US Debt

German Finance Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble said on Tuesday there was great uncertainty about how the United States would deal with its high levels of state debt.

25 Responses

      1. @Unforgiven,

        with respect to the abysmal agility of US policy.

        i.e., we can never seem to raise public spending nor lower private taxes fast enough to ward off the Upper Looting Class’s fear of “hyper” inflation

        there’s considerable hysteresis, as various taxes on the 99% seem to multiply faster than they decrease;

        We should have a chart comparing the agility of adjusting
        public spending;
        tax rates;
        interest rates;

        We fiddly with the last one on a moment’s notice, but dither endlessly on the other ones.

        In fact, there is FAR too many shenanigans constantly going on, from Fed asset buys to inter-country currency swaps … all under the radar screen of supposed policy makers (i.e., our government). By default, we’re ceding way too much policy space to bankers, who don’t know what to do with it anyway!

        Warren nailed it with his various references to the blind leading the blind, on a ship of fools, or the inmates running the asylum.

      2. “Who came up with that article and what have they done with John Carney?”

        He’s moved on to advocating NGDP targeting.

  1. This paragraph makes me want to suspend my belief and belt someone.

    “German Chancellor Angela Merkel has established a close relationship with Obama and they are of one mind on many foreign policy issues.”

  2. Warren
    if the US is in financial trouble why dont you do a leveraged buyout of the US ! Just imagine the shock when you make good on all the US’ financial obligations ..

      1. @roger erickson, You laugh at what is the TRUE REALITY of what is going on Erickson, the greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Sad that an enlightened mind like yours thinks taking over entire nations in leveraged buyouts is too preposterous to be given serious consideration, boy those Edward Bernays propoganda masters sure snowed you! (sigh)

        Mosler, I don’t have the billions you have, but I have tens of millions, I am willing to join your investor group and bring some of my millionaire friends and do LBO of team USA, lets squeeze that sucker for all its got! What is the minimum buy in?

      2. @Security Guard Class 4,

        I didn’t laugh at the supposed impossibility, I laughed at the thought that many of our current policy crowd would take it seriously, and probably even try to negotiate a sell-out … in “good faith” no less.

    1. @Walid M, Walid, have you watched the matt taibi stuff on Romeny and how he used Bain Capital to take over companies? In summary, he would get lotsa banks and investors to give him money to takeover a company, then once he took it over, he would force the company to take out big loans with those same banks to repay the previous loans plus a BIG fee for him and his investors. You see the banks make money at the cost of the destruction of the companies and the employees.

      Now what has transpired is this GLOBAL GREED from these people have reached such a proportion that taking over companies is not profitable enough anymore, they must take over and collapse entire nations at this point, in a george soros breaking the bank of england wet dream!

      So you have hit it on the head Walid, romeny’s and soros and moslers will get the banksta class to indebt entire NATIONS to them, take over the countries, and then like bain capital, have them repay the banks with NEW loans and huge fees. This was already being done for the past few decades with the smaller nations, but the greed has reached the point where the larger western powers too must fall victim to these vultures.

      We are FREAKING DOOMED! Public purpose? LOL! As Glen Ford just said about the Obama trojan horse. All our civil rights are being dismantled, regulation is a fairytale in some storybook, and the subjugation of the sheeple to be sheered is just another day at the office for the capital masters.

      1. @roger erickson, LOL! That is a good one Erickson, a long time ago the politicians I had on the take told me they always name the bill the opposite of what you really mean it to do, that way the dumb legislators that don’t have time to read anything but the title can say to thier electorate, the title of the bill promised good things, and the dumb electorate also too lazy to read the whole bill can say yah, the title of the bill, it was gonna do good things.

        LOL! I realize bringing tens and even hundreds of millions to our LBO of team USA is not enough, I do have a few state politicians that I can payoff to exert legislative influence, and a few banksters I can get to loan us a few hundred million more. If we work together and get all our bought off crony politician and banksters to join us, with mosler and his federal level corrupt cronies leading the partay, I am sure we can squeeze every last drop out of this ripe melon! Are you in Erickson? 😉

        As my old girlfriend used to say, don’t be dumb, get you some!

  3. “Last week marked the conclusion of the grand taxpayer funded spectacles known as the national party conventions. It is perhaps very telling that while $18 million in tax dollars was granted to each party for these lavish ordeals, an additional $50 million each was needed for security in anticipation of the inevitable protests at each event. This amounts to a total of $136 million in taxpayer funds for strictly partisan activities – a drop in the bucket relative to our disastrous fiscal situation, but disgraceful nonetheless. Parties should fund their own parties, not the taxpayer.

    At these conventions, leaders determined, or pretended to determine, who they wished to govern the nation for the next four years amidst inevitable, endless exaltations of democracy. Yet we are not a democracy. In fact, the founding fathers found the concept of democracy very dangerous.

    Democracy is majority rule at the expense of the minority. Our system has certain democratic elements, but the founders never mentioned democracy in the Constitution, the Bill of Rights, or the Declaration of Independence. In fact, our most important protections are decidedly undemocratic. For example, the First Amendment protects free speech. It doesn’t – or shouldn’t – matter if that speech is abhorrent to 51% or even 99% of the people. Speech is not subject to majority approval. Under our republican form of government, the individual, the smallest of minorities, is protected from the mob. ”

    – Congressmen Ron Paul

    1. @Alexia The All Knowing,

      Hell! If that’s one way to trick politicians into more deficit spending, maybe we should have weekly political conventions? Think of all the low-paying salaries that would create! Thirty % of GDP might become dedicated to sign-making.

  4. Isn’t it all about something else? What if Wolfgang Schaeuble is an old-school Atlantist sick of global strategic “leadership by dithering” of Obama?

    The following statements and linked articles may upset some liberals but just because some ideas and memes appeared on “right-wing” websites or are “politically incorrect” doesn’t mean that they are bad or useless.

    Obama is universally disliked in Central Europe for “throwing Eastern Europe under bus”

    http://csis.org/blog/obama-throwing-eastern-europe-under-bus

    He did the same to Israel

    http://www.debka.com/article/22324/US-disowns-Israel-over-Iran-strike-No-weapons-or-military-backup

    Whether this is good or bad for the Americans and for the alleys is a question at least worth asking. Obama is implementing the doctrine of “ageing gracefully” or rather tactical withdrawal and allowing for decay processes to take their natural course implicitly expressed by Zbigniew Brzezinski in “Strategic Vision”.

    Is Romney going to at least try stopping global decay of the Western civilisation? First we need to see whether he is going to have a chance.

    1. @Adam (ak), When supposed allies like Schaeuble decay that fast, there’s not much you can productively do except deficit spend at home.

      Protectionism now means protecting what’s left of domestic sanity – if we can.

  5. Why does an autonomous currency issuer need a revenue generating bond market? Moreover, why does this autonomous currency issuer tolerate bankruptcy in any of it subordinagte political jurisdictions? State and municipal bond markets have always been the crucible of corruption spawning debt service obligations which crowd out public purpose funding.

    How can so many be so completley ignorant of U.S. monetary and fiscal policy history, and the implications, particularly, of abandoning gold standard and fixed exchange rate rubrics?

    1. @SteveK9,

      He may get it at the level of MMT, but he let’s the tinfoil hat slip a bit in his penultimate sentence:

      “But Moody’s wants us to be scared of the federal debt, so as to advance a right-wing agenda.”

      How far deep in his rear-end did he have to reach to pull out that gem? Anyone want to guess who the largest shareholder in Moodys is?

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