The $5 Trillion Skeleton in Congress's Closet

By Bill Glynn

Contingent Liabilities Add up to Almost $30 Trillion

How's that! Someone telling the truth. Better than my economic bulimia. The figures are out and just the bank bailout program alone will equal more than ONE THIRD of the U.S. economy. And, yes, there is more to come - commercial real estate and jumbo loans - so it's not over yet. But I think some real business people are realizing that Congress has no clue how much money is being spent (whoops! borrowed to be spent), how much it is costing, and, oh, by the way, all those financial commitments to Freddie and Fannie and a host of others. If you add all that to the $111 trillion of unfunded liabilities of the government, we start to see the picture they don't want us to see. "The Full Faith of the U.S. Government" is backing up all these commitments, liabilities, contingent liabilities and the world's investments in our country.

Oh, and add a $2 trillion deficit this year and over $1 trillion for healthcare reform. So, in a nutshell, our sovereignty has been forfeited to foreign nations, we are bankrupt at best, we've got rampant moral and social decay, uneducated and ignorant voters, sub-par education for our children, and a nuclear economy. It is true that I am a radical thinker but it doesn't take any education to see all the cave drawings on our wall. You tell me if I am wrong. [more...]

History in the Making: Deficit Tops $1 Trillion

By Bill Glynn

Expected $2 trillion by year end...

A direct quote from me: “If the U.S. was a company our Board of Directors, management and employees would be fired, the business bankrupt and a lot of people would go to jail” is as true today as six months ago. The U.S. has many milestones that have impacted our nation and the world very positively. Now we are seeing the negative side of our leaders' actions and management. Try to comprehend what a $2 trillion deficit will do to the national debt. Yes, $2 trillion more! This doesn’t include the minting of currency and other debt we are taking on but simply our national profit and loss. Imagine if the U.S. WAS a company! Well, the best way to gain perspective and a proxy for where we are fiscally is to see the U.S. as a business. We are a capitalist nation, after all. [more...]

Stop The Stimulus: The Fox is in the White House and Congress

By Bill Glynn

Democrats are turning up the volume on the stimulus while the GOP has finally put their foot down. Obama is using TV, again, to pander to us. Can you even imagine that there are now talks about another stimulus package of borrowing and spending in D.C.? I don’t know if I am blind, deaf and dumb, but wasn't it borrowing and spending money across every part of economy that got us into this mess in the first place?

The current stimulus package has already shown the typical mismanagement and ineffectiveness of the government to run this kind of operation. Already pilfering the money for pet projects should have every American marching in the streets and should be a real sign of what else is coming. Worse, we are allowing them to do it. Why? Because they don’t care about, listen to, or even acknowledge our ideas and outrage. How does it feel to be impotent and marginalized in America?

It should be more than apparent, only four months into it, that the program is not working as planned and the unemployment and economic downturn continues to worsen. Only 6.8% has been invested in the turnaround, which is appalling from my perspective. If you are going to do it, do it quickly and massively.

As the pandering continues and the promise that the money will be invested (after borrowing, I may say) in the second half of the year and next year is bad policy. The money should have been sheltered from the politicians and placed under the reigns of our best business executives to make sure it all - I mean 100% - went into a massive and radical economic boost. But in D.C., it's just another piggy bank to raid and now they want even more. We can all see the paw prints on the cookie jar and the writing all over that wall.

You see the I.Q. in D.C. - especially the economic I.Q. - is sub-par. Economic savvy by career politicians and academics would be the last thing I would ever retain to run my business or manage money. Economic I.Q. to just borrow and spend is their only solution? And, worse, they want to do it again! What is wrong with our representatives? I just can’t believe this happening. I am really sick to my stomach.

We must stop the borrowing and spending. The world needs a signal that we can get our fiscal crap together and fast. But the very people that have bankrupted our nation are all foxes in the White House and Congress eating away at us - the stupid chickens that let them in to begin with. [more...]

GM Bankruptcy Plan Approved

By Robert Weiss

Late Sunday night, General Motors won permission from a federal bankruptcy judge, Robert Gerber, to sell its assets to a new government-backed company in order to complete a restructuring plan backed by both GM and the Obama administration. All of this in hopes of reviving the ailing auto industry. It should be no surprise that even after a surge of nearly $50 billion to this restructuring plan, the people who will suffer the most are the consumers once again. Because this is a non-traditional bankruptcy structuring, GM’s desirable assets, such as Buick, Cadillac, Chevrolet and other GMC brands, would be sold to a "new," leaner GM. What becomes of their other profit-less assets and high value liabilities? They will be left behind in bankruptcy for hundreds of creditors to fight over. [more...]

Wal-Mart on Health Care

By Ross Reck

Wal-Mart is way ahead of the pack in terms of its thinking on employee health care. By partnering with its employees’ union to support the proposed government mandate for large businesses to provide health care insurance for their employees, Wal-Mart is demonstrating extraordinary foresight and leadership. When push comes to shove, nearly everyone in America wants better health care coverage for our citizens. Employer provided health care coverage is the only way this can ever happen; taxpayers can’t afford it and neither can the government. American businesses, on the other hand, can afford to pay for it and it will not cost them jobs nor will it drive down wages. In fact, doing so will not only make American businesses more profitable, it will make them more competitive in the global economy. [more...]

The Big Blue States Bellying Up: How about IOUs!

By Bill Glynn

California, New York, Illinois, Pennsylvania

The economies of the most liberal and largest states in our union are in jeopardy of bankruptcy and collapse. Who would ever think that we would see such chaos and fiscal mismanagement across the nation? It is hard to believe that California, one of the world’s largest economies, is on the brink of bankruptcy. Is this the writing on the wall for the federal government, too? You bet! This should be taken with the utmost seriousness on Capitol Hill - or should I say CAPITOL CLIFF - because that is what America is teetering on and close to going over while our government has the peddle to the floor. Does anyone see the borrowing and spending coming to a halt at the state or federal levels? Poll people - and I bet an overwhelming majority - would say Hell No! When state governments across the nation are in dire need of money, in political stalemate after stalemate what is their answer? More borrowing - even California is ready to issue IOUs to keep itself afloat. That means more debt on top of mountains of debt. Our currency and treasuries are not dissimilar - these are IOUs to the world. How long can states and the federal government keep the house of cards afloat? [more...]