A few words about the larger picture: our economy. What we’re being told is a recession that is truly a depression is only a few slips away from being total economic collapse. Don’t believe me? Okay, then, consider this: if OPEC moves away from the dollar as its oil currency of choice, moving toward the Euro as many economists predict will ultimately result from the lower stock market price of crude, our dollar will fall faster than Joan Rivers’ face without plastic surgery.
Alternatively, if we reach or exceed a certain debt ceiling, Japan and/or China can do a massive dollar dump, refuse to continue to purchase our debt (they own over 60 percent of it) and call in their loans. Game over.
If neither of those two things happen, the dollar could slide all on its lonesome down the market, as it’s slowly doing right now. Eventual game over. Longer life support, but end result is the same.
And if none of those tickle your fancy, the stock market can continue on, unable to find a bottom, until our government announces total economic collapse. Would likely happen after a banking holiday, when the government discovers officially that the banks are insolvent, owing much more in liabilities than they have on the asset side of their ledgers.
But, hey – I’m just a Cassandra talking about really unlikely things, right?
Not if you read pages from the Austrian School of Economics Daily Reckoning or The Automatic Earth blog. They’ve been calling it for years. So has the head of the GAO, since 2006. But what is the GAO? Just the Government Accountability Office. They’ve been saying that debt like this is going to have catastrophic results.
For my part, after last year, I feel pretty free, in some weird ways. I’m no longer really scared of much in life. As always, I drive 80 down the freeway, still think money is the root of all evil, and no longer worry about answering to anyone but God – if he’s still listening.
