Sunday, February 13, 2011

No Signs of The Economic Collapse Being Headed Off

Today's talk shows are all a-twitter about the President declaring "$1.1 Trillion in deficit cuts" but not mentioning that this figure is over 10 years.  With a deficit this year of about $1.4 trillion, or $14 trillion dollars in debt over 10 years with zero growth in deficit per year, cutting $1.1 T amounts to less than an 8% cut.  In other words, it's pretty close to meaningless.  Imagine being on a boat far from shore and you're taking on water at an alarming rate.  Sure, it would be nice to bail out 8% of the water, coming in, but it doesn't change your ultimate fate.

Repeat after me: "It's The Spending, Stupid", a recurring theme of mine, (here, here, and here

The president talked about freezing non-discretionary domestic spending, but that's less than 15% of the budget.  In other words, meaningless.  It's like the alcoholic saying he's not going to stop drinking, just "freeze it at current levels".  Only in DC is not increasing your spending called "slashing spending". 

With a deficit of $1.4 Trillion this year, I'd like to see spending cut of, ... oh, I don't know... how about 1.4 Trillion not 1.1 - and do it this year, not over 10 years!!??!!  Are you saying, "Dude, you're crazy!  Think of the damage it would do!"?  How much damage is done by not cutting spending?  If the economy collapses, how many people are going to be hurt by that? The stupid party is showing a slight edge here, although the really stupid ones still think there are things that should not be cut.  Supposedly, each party is trying to make the other one look like the party that cuts social security and Medicare.  It's politics like this that makes the collapse appear unavoidable. 

I subscribe to a silver investors newsletter.  The letter quotes Chuck Butler of the "The Daily Pfennig" saying,
"Let me explain what I see for the U.S. this year [regarding the federal deficit]... The CBO has already said the deficit this year will be $2 Trillion, and that's before health care's $1.5 trillion price tag... So... If health care goes through, (Heaven help us) that's a total of $3.5 trillion in new financing that the U.S. will have to deal with... Who on earth, I ask politely, is going to step up and do another $3.5 trillion in loans to the U.S.? Just keep thinking about that one, folks..."
As I've said before, who can possibly loan us that amount?  It's way more than the GDP of all but a couple of Nations and the EU.  Folks, this is ending one way or another, and none of the possible ways are pretty. 

I should point out that the sale on silver appears to be ending.  The 30 day chart shows a nice re-grouping, finds a bottom, and starts back up again. 

If you had planned on buying silver on the dip, but didn't do so by a week ago, you've probably missed the dip.  I personally only got a little more.  And I continue to regard anything less than $50 per Troy ounce to be a good price.  That may continue for the year, but I wouldn't be at all surprised to see massive price run-ups, if the Mideast degrades much more.  I should point out that Donald Trump has been quoted as believing the Mideast turmoil might collapse OPEC for good.  Maybe he's on to something.  Oil is at a 10 week low, when I'd expect the uncertainty around the Suez Canal would increase its price.

But, hey, why worry?  Lady Gag showed up for Grammy awards in an egg!  How cool is that? 

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