Important Debt Ceiling Update
President Obama just announced late this evening that a deal has been reached to cut government spending and raise the debt ceiling in order to avoid a debt default. If the deal is approved on Monday, it will raise the debt ceiling by between $2.1 and $2.4 trillion in three installments: $400 billion immediately, $500 billion this fall subject to a disapproval vote by Congress, and $1.2 to $1.5 trillion more after a special committee agrees on a matching amount of spending cuts that will be in addition to $900 billion in spending cuts proposed in the bill. With no tax increases included in this plan, all of this additional debt will eventually be monetized and paid for through monetary inflation.
Although the deal is supposed to cut as much as $2.4 trillion in spending over the next decade, Obama said that none of the spending cuts will occur anytime soon so that not to derail the phony economic recovery. That’s right, none of the cuts will come until early 2013 and by then we will need to once again raise the debt ceiling to north of $20 trillion. If our elected representatives were serious about cutting spending, they would have the bulk of the spending cuts now and not in the future when many of them will be out of office.
This deal is a complete and total sham, and will do nothing to prevent hyperinflation. In no way will these spending cuts be mandated and nothing will force future Congresses to abide by them. Even with these cuts, government spending is going to increase every single year for the next decade. As price inflation spirals out of control in the years ahead causing the purchasing power of the dollar to plummet, all government employees will demand higher salaries and it will cost more to run all parts of the government. Future Congresses will raise spending and make the spending cuts proposed in this deal meaningless.
NIA believes that all of the events that took place in Washington this weekend were scripted in advance. It is likely that both parties knew from the beginning what deal they would ultimately agree to, but came out with these other proposed bills in order to satisfy tea party supporters and make them think that their efforts are making a difference. The reality is, although the tea party movement helped Republicans take over the House of Representatives so that Democrats didn’t have free rein in Washington, most of the new Republicans elected to Congress haven’t followed through with their promises and have failed to make any kind of a positive difference.
Everybody in Washington assumes that interest rates will remain at artificially low levels for the rest of this decade. The interest rate that the U.S. paid on its total marketable debt in the month of June was only 2.38%. Exactly one decade earlier, in June of 2001, we paid 6.162% interest on our total marketable debt or 159% higher than current average interest rates. On August 15th we owe our next interest payment of approximately $30 billion. Imagine if that payment rises 159% higher to $77.7 billion or $932.4 billion annualized. Later this decade, interest rates will not only rise back to normal levels like we had in 2001, but will likely rise to artificially high levels to balance out the damage being created today from artificially low interest rates.
If this bill is approved by Congress and the President on Monday, it will avoid a short-term honest debt default but just about guarantee a default by inflation later this decade. There is about a 1 in 1,000 chance that future Congresses will stick with the spending cuts in this bill, but even if they do, rising interest payments will not only wipe out the $2.4 trillion in spending cuts, but they will add trillions more to future deficits and the national debt. A new Gallup Poll shows that 53% of Americans oppose raising the debt ceiling compared to only 37% who favor an increase. We pray that millions of Americans march to Washington tomorrow in protest of this bill and that millions more call, email, and fax their elected representatives in the morning demanding that they vote no.
It is important to spread the word about NIA to as many people as possible, as quickly as possible, if you want America to survive hyperinflation. Please tell everybody you know to become members of NIA for free immediately at: http://inflation.us