Our Highway To Hell
Monty Pelerin
Economicnoise.com
Aug 27 2012
The Role of The Government in The Economic Crisis
At this point, everything the government is doing – and not just the US government but governments everywhere − is not only the wrong thing but exactly the opposite of the right thing. They’re passing more laws, raising taxes, creating more currency and incurring more debt. They should be doing the opposite. We’re currently still in the eye of the storm. Their actions guarantee that when we go back into the hurricane − the trailing edge of the hurricane − it’s going to be much worse and will last much longer than what we saw in 2007 to 2009. Doug Casey
How nice it would be to argue that Mr. Casey is wrong. No matter how much I wish he were, that is unlikely. We are in for very tough times ahead.
Recently I wrote about the insolvency of the federal government and its upcoming default. Mathematically, it is impossible for government to meet its obligations. There simply is not enough income or wealth for it to confiscate. It cannot satisfy the spending path it is on and the promises made.
Cutting spending is a political non-starter. As Mr. Casey argues it is politically impossible:
… just as in Greece, or most of the EU for that matter, most US government spending is on entitlements and welfare programs of various types − mainly Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, so-called Income Security and pensions. Those things are politically and legally impossible to cut; in fact, they’ll grow. Most of the rest of spending is on so-called “defense,” which alone is 25 percent of the budget. As much as Americans love their military, that’s not going to be cut; in fact, the Republicans, idiotically and unbelievably, want to increase it. The other functions of government − the police, justice and regulatory agencies − are really just a tiny portion of government spending.
The Rest…HERE
