Another blip on the radar

[MadHound]

We've been getting warning signs for awhile now.

Blip, the dollar starts to weaken as countries move out of dollar reserves.

Blip, Moody's states that if the tax cuts for the rich continue, it will have to consider downgrading our credit ranking.

Blip, Bernanke continues full speed ahead, monetizing the debt, literally just turning on the presses and letting them run.

Blip, the latest. On Wednesday Pimco, the largest world's largest bond investor, has sold off all of its US bond holdings, what was approximately twelve percent of its portfolio.
<http://www.kansascity.com/2011/03/09/2712005/report-pimco-sells-off-all-us.html>

These are increasingly loud warnings that our debt has become too much, and that it is going to become increasingly harder to find investors who will buy our debt. It also means that the Fed's current policy of trying to monetize the debt is making investors nervous. If the costs of borrowing go up for the US, then all holy hell could break loose.

It is time to reduce our debt and balance our budget. But rather than doing so on the backs of the poor, middle and working classes, the rich and corporate need to start paying their fair share. Not to mention we need to slash defense spending, not domestic spending. We can no longer afford these illegal, immoral wars, and if we continue down that path, then we're going to bankrupt ourselves, ending our empire Soviet style.

Just another blip on the radar.

[mmonk]

1. Everybody should expect that with the tax cut extensions.

[Mnemosyne]

2. K&R for more visibility.n/t

[blindpig]

3. If only this empire would end, 'Soviet style'..

When the communist leadership saw the writing on the wall they abdicated power, virtually bloodlessly. I do not expect our masters to be so reasonable.

[MadHound]

4. The trouble with that is when the Soviet economy collapsed,

It devastated the poor, working and middle classes. The rich fled, leaving the country in the lurch.

Not to mention the years and decades of suffering that the non-wealthy had to suffer as more and more was spent on the military, and less and less spent on the people.

[blindpig]

7. There were no rich in the Soviet Union.

Corrupt managers and well placed individuals oversaw the privatization of state assets to their great advantage, often with outside financing. Even the highest members of the party and government lived no more than upper middle class lifestyles by American standards, at best.

[MadHound]

8. Umm, that's not the case,

Granted, the number of the rich in the Soviet Union were smaller than other countries, but they were present.

[blindpig]

9. Show me. n/t

[MadHound]

10. Alrighty then,

<http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article530142.ece>

From 1981
"The Soviet Union has given up another of its biggest and best-kept secrets - the great socialist republic, dictatorship of the proletariat, is swarming with millionaire capitalists, every one of them a Soviet citizen, and many in the same league as the super-rich of the capitalist west!
Is it not strange, and most significant, that this fact should have passed unnoticed by the Western media and Western historians for more than 60 years, a fact of major importance that did not qualify for as much as a mention in Time magazine's most exhaustive 45-page presentation "Inside the U.S.S.R." in its issue of June 23, 1980!"
<http://www.alor.org/NewTimes%20Survey/The%20Oligarchs%20or%20How%20the%20Virgin%20Became%20a%20Whore.htm>

Not to mention the many talks I've had with the ex-pat Russians in my extended family. But I suppose that you won't accept that since it can't be linked to. Perhaps you should go talk to some Soviet ex-pats yourself:shrug:

[blindpig]

13. I find your links inadequate

The first, is dated 2005, by that time the damage had been done.
The second, written in 1980, the year Raygun was elected, has the smell and feel of Cold War propaganda. I will, however, look into this and get back if I have been disabused.

[MadHound]

5. kick for a bit more exposure. n/t

[lonestarnot]

6. K & R.

[MadHound]

11. kick n/t

[unblock]

12. it's NOT the right time to reduce our debt.

it's the right time to spend and regulate far more intelligently than we have been.
the goal should be to protect and shore up the poor, the middle class, small businesses, and the economy as a whole.

big businesses, who unfortunately have a stranglehold on washington power, should be left to fight for themselves, something they are more than capable of doing without further pointless subsidies and tax breaks.

the problem is not the size of our deficit. the problem is that the excess spending is being frittered away on largely unproductive things that have immediate political benefits but highly limited economic benefits.

if we had more useful spending, the economy would improve despite the deficit (actually, that's the effect deficit spending is SUPPOSED to have) and once the economy is where it should be (in particular, with unemployment under control), THEN we can tackle the deficit/debt.