And the Band played on…..

25 Responses to And the Band played on…..

1. Ronbo says:

   March 8, 2014 at 06:30

   It doesn’t matter…Our currency is worthless…No gold in Ft. Knox. In Fact, we have even spent the German gold they were dumb enough to give us for safe keeping during the Cold War.

   The economic collapse is coming soon, as I do believe the SS United States has hit the iceberg and is slowing sinking into the Atlantic.

   ….and the band plays on as the First Class dancers dance on and on…
2. Michael in Nelson says:

   March 8, 2014 at 06:47

   He austerity part is the military budget.
3. William Stout says:

   March 8, 2014 at 09:08

   America takes in 2.45 trillion in funds. A 4 trillion dollar budget means that we are spending 1.55 trillion more than we make. This means that in order to fund Obama’s budget, we have to borrow 1.55 trillion to make ends meet. As we already owe over 17 trillion dollars now, how are we going to pay for it? Oh sure, we can pay the interest on it, but the principle remains untouched and continues to grow. What this boils down to is that we are affixing the yoke of financial slavery on our children and grand children by saddling them with a debt that they will never be able to pay.

   That is not only immoral, it is unconscionable. It is perverse. It is a horrific act that only a leftist would condone. This President, and his leftist cronies budget by overdraft. That means that without borrowing, the Federal government is dead in the water. A fact that is not spoken of by the mainstream media. The left, once so vocal about Bush’s spending, has now grown silent about the runaway spending of Obama. In short, the United States of America is becoming a debtor nation.

   Like Portugal, Spain, Ireland, and Greece, the U.S. has abdicated liberty in favor of servitude to the Almighty dollar. Worse, we have accelerated this process by pursuing the single payer healthcare pipe dream. A plan that will literally cause the nation to go bankrupt in a hurry. But never fear! We can always print more money. In fact, we have been printing money non-stop since March of 2008. Sooner or later, we are going to have to pay the piper, and unless he is brain damaged, he won’t take a check.

   What does this mean for the rest of the world? It means that America is out of gas. With no money, but that which we borrow to live on, it is damned difficult to project power and influence on the world’s stage. You can’t field an army when you are broke, you can’t support ships at sea, and you can’t fly military aircraft because that all costs money. Don’t think that the enemies of freedom don’t know that. In fact, the left knows it, and that is why I believe that this is by design.

   By bankrupting America, the left removes a bitter enemy from the field and confines us to our own borders. Further, it binds our posterity as well, preventing them from future action on the world’s stage. In one fell swoop of avarice, the American people have abandoned the world. But this is a road that has been traveled by the West for decades. First in Europe, and now by the United States.

   As our values and traditions are forgotten, what is left? What do we bequeath our children? Anarchy, debt, moral bankruptcy, and misery. This is what Hobbes spoke of when he wrote about man’s natural state in Leviathan. While I suppose that one could argue that man became so high minded that he returned to the savage, the truth is far more incredible: man was far too lazy for freedom.

   We are indeed the lesser children of far greater sires.
   • Wombat says:

     March 8, 2014 at 10:17

     There was once a cause for nationalism in the west.
     Presently it’s time for westerners to stop thinking in terms of “our debt” and more in terms of “the government’s debt”.

     I didn’t sign on to be saddled with national burdens that I can never repay, and no democratic majority can make a slave of me unless I consent to it. This goes just the same for all rights. There’s no copper with a gun to my head. I choose to abide by their rules or disobey them at my whim.

     It has been made abundantly clear that old fashioned nationalists are no longer relevant. There is no Australia in existence that I recognize or hold allegiance to. I am responsible for me and mine, and I’m sad to say, everyone else can get fucked.

     Whether gladly or belatedly, they hitched their wagon to progressive collectivism. They made their bed. They can sleep in it. What’s coming to them has no bearing on me, up until I wave to start wasting ammunition on the motherfuckers.
     • Darin says:

       March 8, 2014 at 11:25

       That’s been my attitude for many years.
     • William Stout says:

       March 8, 2014 at 11:27

       Increasingly, I am arriving at the same opinion.
       • KG says:

         March 9, 2014 at 10:03

         And here.
4. Darin says:

   March 8, 2014 at 09:38

   Obama just lacks the *rspect”of his “corpse-men” in all *57* states.So much for the world’s smartest community organiser

   http://www.examiner.com/article/obama-r-s-p-e-c-t-obama-bungles-spelling-of-respect-for-aretha-franklin-intro
5. Wombat says:

   March 8, 2014 at 10:43

   I’m getting pretty bloody sick of the faux shock and horror every time Obama’s handlers dump another steaming, ebola infested bucket of shit into his teleprompter and tell him to read.

   It conjures to mind those videos where some psychopath is beating up a helpless victim and everyone stands around watching, hoping that the lunatic will get bored or tired and walk away, thus ending their responsibility to intervene.

   These political commentators needs to have the balls to simply start posting articles that read “Obama has stepped beyond poor policy. It is now clear that his administration stands for nothing short of the destruction of the U.S.A. I will offer no more figures or insights. The time for talk is over.”

   When you start hearing something like THAT instead of the ever-persistent bitching and moaning from the conservatives then you’ll know that phase two is underway. Sadly, when you make a living from complaining about the same old shit day in day out, you’re not exactly going to pressing for open revolt.
   • Darin says:

     March 8, 2014 at 11:20

     Some of us have been preaching that since Nov 2007.I have quit,my position now is up on a hillside watching a slow motion train wreck happening.I tried to warn them that the trestle was washed out.Tried to get them to stop.Tried to get them to slow down or at least jump off.But they decided to stay on board and help a mad man stoke the boiler.
     • Ronbo says:

       March 8, 2014 at 11:45

       Indeed, the federal government of the United States of America is a runaway train beyond the control of its bureaucrats and politicians that will crash and burn sooner or later.

       However, in the long run is this such a bad thing? If you want to build a beautiful new home in crowded urban area one first must destroy the old home on the lot.

       Creative destruction…The old British Colonial Regime was destroyed in the 13 original American states and something better rose in the ashes.
       • Wombat says:

         March 8, 2014 at 19:43

         It’s bloody hard to know how it’ll all pan out. Between a few hundred burning metropoli and just as many nuclear reactors going the way of Fukushima when the grid goes down we might be living in caves licking mildew from rocks for several generations.

         How’s that for optimism
6. Flashman says:

   March 9, 2014 at 03:52

   Most great empires go down pretty similar Low Roads.

   This is what a socio-economic train smash looks like. I’m only surprised at how quickly the American one occurred and how so amazingly self-inflicted it all was: like watching a window-licker play with a nail gun.
7. Ronbo says:

   March 9, 2014 at 05:08

   The USA is the oldest republic in modern world and in the ancient world the Roman Republic lasted for nearly 500 years.

   But if you want to go back to 1607 with the creation of the Jamestown colony – America has went from a monarchy to a loose confederation in 1775 to a federal republic in 1789 – with a short experiment back to confederation in 1861 to 1865 in the South.

   My point is that when a form of government in America becomes unworkable and oppressive something else will replace it which will be workable and freedom focused.

   The French are on their 5th republic since 1789, America at the end of the day may create a Second Republic.
   • thor42 says:

     March 9, 2014 at 11:52

     Agreed.
8. Ronbo says:

   March 9, 2014 at 05:21

   @Wombat:

   I don’t see it that way at all – It’s the federal government in America that’s in trouble and about 15 state governments. In 35 states and in the private sector things are going ahead nicely…Take the new oil discoveries and techniques for pumping up oil – all of this was done on private lands by private corporations. Thanks to their efforts, America has oil to export. Then there are the numerous high tech companies and advancement in computer power, the Internet and robotics.

   Don’t forget this was done in DESPITE government regulation and excessive taxes, so if the current U.S. federal government would disappear tomorrow, you’d see the same sort of rapid improvement for the average man as happened during the 19th century when we advanced from an agricultural people to the industrial era.

   Government is only needed for a few things like defense and the law courts – other than that – We The People can do the rest bigger and better.
   • Wombat says:

     March 9, 2014 at 09:39

     I agree, absolutely, however we live in an incredibly interdependent society where the butterfly effect is definitely a factor.
     I also hold no illusions regarding the lengths the psychopaths in power will go to in order to hold on to that power, and I use the term “psychopath” very deliberately, without exaggeration.

     Some of the states of the union are starting to become what you might call “prepper states”, and seeking to limit the damage a federal crash would bring upon them. This is a very positive sign but there’s a long way to go in that regard.

     That said, if the grid goes down and there’s nobody to deliver enough diesel to keep the nuclear reactors humming (at least for as long as it takes to decommission them) then everyone in the northern hemisphere will be having a Christmas to remember.
9. thor42 says:

   March 9, 2014 at 11:58

   What has me puzzled is – the US govt just keeps on borrowing and borrowing and *still* the economic house of cards hasn’t completely collapsed. Still, things are functioning.

   Borrowing and running up massive debt doesn’t seem to be enough on its own to *totally* collapse things.
   ( I wish it *were* – then something much *better* could arise from the ashes. )
10. Mathew says:

    March 9, 2014 at 20:32

    Sometimes it’s a fascinating thing to watch, this runaway spending, the debt simply grows and grows. I’m sure that most of us have seen that debt counter turning away, it just goes up and up, seemingly no end in sight. It just never stops. Is it even meaningful anymore, i don’t think so.

    Will America ever pay its debts off, no way. I’m sure you all have seen this counting technique parents use to get their children to stop doing something or do something they don’t want to. The parent tells the child – I’m going to count to 5 or some number – for some magical reason most children will actually do what they’re told then.

    The more spineless parents will go – 1, 2, 2 and half, 2 and three quarter – but eventually the child does its told.

    It’s always fascinated me that the children actually listen to it, i’ve never seen a child let the counting finish just to find out what’ll happen if they still won’t behave.

    When it comes to America it’s a different story, i don’t see anyone doing any counting to get America to behave. No one’s even doing the 1, 1.1, 1.2……. 1.2.1

    Not even that, honestly speaking i think that if whoever tries to do it – I’m going to count to 5 and you better pay my money back, 1, 2 – America will just look up and say – 5 bitch!

    They’re too terrified to do it cos they know they’ll never get their money back, however little it is and just pray that they at least get the interest on the loan, better than nothing.

    It’s a fascinating thing to watch.
    • Wombat says:

      March 10, 2014 at 10:32

      +1

      But as the divide between the federally insulated employee and the schmuck on the street grow, so too will the anger.

      Interesting times indeed.
11. Flashman says:

    March 10, 2014 at 03:33

    It is fascinating to watch…as are the rationalizations about how America isn’t in as bad shape as sometimes described.
    1. A common theme in failing empires is an drumbeat of optimism. For example in the early 1950’s Britain was said to be entering a New Elizabethan Age.
    2. America is printing money against the never-never. Another feature of endemic failure.
    3. Ironically the most serious impediment to America reinventing itself politically (as assuredly it has to do) is its handcuffing federal constitution. Diocletian had the right answer for all clunky empires: break the old federation up into three autonomous sub-regions of states or provinces. It’s too big and cumbersome to be run by one person and from a DC bureaucracy in the 21st Century. More decentralization in other words.
    • The Gantt Guy says:

      March 10, 2014 at 04:36

      While I agree in part, I think what you’re proposing is what the Constitution envisaged. 57 semi-autonomous sub-regions, with a small amount of centralisation of those matters which cannot be managed centrally. The constraint isn’t the Constitution. It’s a century of subverting it!
      • Wombat says:

        March 10, 2014 at 10:35

        Are you suggesting decentralization?

        In the United Federation of America?

        I knew you guys had a sense of humor!
        • The Gantt Guy says:

          March 10, 2014 at 13:35

          Not at all! I’m suggesting the Framers wanted and intended decentralisation. That’s surely the point of enumerated powers and the 4th Amendment?
          • Wombat says:

            March 10, 2014 at 18:25

            Ahh, but America is no longer a Constitutional Republic by any stretch of the imagination.
            In fact, it ceased to be more than a hundred years ago.

            What the framers intended is long gone. No point sweating the details at this late date. Plenty of Yanks are doing just what needs to be done. Getting range time, building tribe, and hardening up for the coming storm.