Captain Capitalism's essay is hilarious. Hope you haven't read it before.
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http://captaincapitalism.blogspot.com/20...-debt.html
To simplify my banking career, my primary job was assessing the likelihood and probability that people we lent money out to would pay us back. Of course this was a pointless task because management and bankers were paid by commission so they really didn't care about the quality of the borrower, just that the loan got approved and they got their commission. This, naturally, led to me ramming heads with management (where I would almost always lose), but on a macro-economic scale also led up to the housing bubble and subsequent crash and Great Recession.
However, in my pursuit to find genuine, real silver linings to our current economic state, it didn't dawn on me until very recently that my experiences in banking also provided the 100%
legitimate
sincere
unbiased
logical
rationale to default entirely and completely on the US national debt.
Permit me to explain.
While most of us would put the blame of our financial woes on the idiots who couldn't do 3rd grade math and borrowed way more than they could afford, it has to be pointed out that there were idiots that lent to such morons in the first place. There will ALWAYS be math impaired entitled lazy cry-babies thinking they deserve a McMansion and a luxury car. It's whether there are saner heads in the banking industry that would lend to these idiots. This is called "due diligence" and was primarily my job back in my banking days. Thus, while we certainly (and rightly) place blame on the idiots who borrowed more than they could afford, we must also place blame on the banks who were so stupid to lend to these idiots in the first place as well.
Here were have no argument from any side of any political aisle. Everybody was against the bankster bailouts. Everybody hates the banking industry and those that populate it. And nearly everybody agrees that the banks should have taken their losses, never gotten bailed out, gone belly up and died never to be seen again.
So, riddle me this, riddle me that, why do we hate the bankers so much, but love our nation's creditors to the point we still concern ourselves with paying them back?
Understand they are one and the same AND they made the exact same mistakes.
Bankers lent money to people who couldn't afford to pay it back. Lenders to the US government lent money to a government who couldn't afford to pay it back.
Bankers failed to do due diligence on the borrowers it was lending money to. Lenders to the US government failed to do due diligence on the borrowers it was lending money to.
Bankers created a bubble that inevitably crushed the US economy. Lenders to the US government have DEFINITELY created a bubble that will DEFINITELY crush the US economy.
If that doesn't convince you, let's view lending to the US government much in the same terms as bankers view or analyze lending to regular banking clients.
First, who are these idiots lending to?
Well, the US government or the "American people." But I think a better personification of this would be our chief representative to the world, Barack Obama.
Obama has never worked a real job in his life. He has been an academia, a spoiled brat with his grandma paying for everything, who immediately went into politics and because of his youth, looks, and race won the lottery in the democrat primary to be president.
His political platform has been to bribe voters with money that he borrows, while seeding envy and hatred against the only assets in the US that have the capacity to pay us back (entrepreneurs, hard workers, corporations, private sector, etc.)
But again, it is not so much Barack Obama US creditors are lending to, but the people who put such an idiot in office. He is merely a proxy to the caliber and character of the country as a whole, and that country seemingly has no intention of paying anybody back, let alone concerning itself with government finances.
Second, what is the money being invested in?
Understand that banks don't just "lend out money for shits and giggles." The proceeds of the loan must be invested in some kind of asset or business that generates an income. AND NOT JUST AN INCOME, but MORE INCOME THAT WHAT IS BEING CHARGED IN INTEREST. However, this is entirely a moot point because the proceeds of the loans lent to the US government do not go into ANYTHING even remotely resembling an investment.
1. 70% of government spending is income transfers, which is nothing more than bribes to the parasitic class to vote for democrats.
2. What money does make it to "education" is wasted on indoctrinating youth into socialism and not providing them the skills and jobs they need to support themselves, let alone work up the excess cash to pay back the national debt. Worse still children are so removed from labor market realities they'll blow a trillion in federal tax dollars getting masters degrees in egos and hobbies before considered a trade.
3. Health care spending is, sadly, but factual, mostly spent on people who will never work again and are just going to die soon (so again, mathematically just throwing money in a hole).
4. Wars, no matter how called for, usually are not profitable for either side. Even if the US went into the mid east "for oil," they've done a spectacularly bad job of profiting off of it.
In short, I'd rather lend to a cancer-ridden, faux 55 year old "DudeBro" "businessman" whose Beemer is leased, his house mortgaged to the hilt, and who has a trophy wife with a horse hobby farm that wants to start a bar, because at least a BAR is some kind of an investment.
Welfare bums, single moms, dying old people, tanks, and socialist indoctrination camps are NOT investments.
Third, how are we getting paid back?
You're not! Any basic financial analysis of the government's finances already tells you it is loth to run a surplus. And, once again looking at the caliber of the people in charge of the government, they have no intention of voting in fiscally conservative and astute people into office. The American people are no different than the spoiled suburbanite children and trophy wives of the beleaguered and insolvent failing "businessman" who desperately comes to the bank, begging and pleasing to be lent more money so he can keep the facade up for another 6 months.
Since repayment is not an option, banks naturally then look at the repossession of the collateral.
Fourth, what do they have for collateral?
Creditors to the US government have "the full backing and faith of the US government" for its collateral.
Translated into English?
"Nothing."
There is no collateral.
And the reason there is no collateral is because if any creditor dared tried to repossess say a piece of land or some islands or some other form of US assets a la "South Beach Tow" the full might and strength of the US military would come crushing down on it.
In other words, simplifying it a lot, people who lent money to the US government were just as spectacularly stupid and naive and negligent in their lack of due diligence that they fully deserve the US government to default on it and never pay them back.
The Chinese and foreign creditors? You were just as dumb lending money to an Obama America as you were building all those ghost towns and ghost malls that populate your landscape.
Pension funds, mutual funds and 401k plans? You were just as dumb lending money to Americans as you were actually believing social security was a great way to retire.
And even you parents who thought "teaching your little children about interest" by having them invest in a Series EE bond, are going to instead teach them a much more advanced economic lesson on government bond defaults.
My simple economic take on this is why not make it easy? Simply acknowledge the emperor has no clothes, default on it now and be done with this once and for all. Creditors to the US government will get what their ignorance deserves, and we'll all be free of the national debt...that is until you idiot creditors lend this country of spoiled, entitled brats more money and start the whole cycle over again.