Irrevocable Harm

Irreversible. Permanent. Inescapable.

As I lay in bed last night a frightening aspect of our economic debacle coalesced into words: it's official! We're now officially trapped!

Up until now, all the known bad debt and potential exposure was private. In America that kind of bad debt can be dealt with under the law, as our Constitution contains a provision to wipe the slate of private calamities - it's called bankruptcy.

It's not well understood, but bankruptcy rights are the cornerstone of our free market system. The right to discharge debt is what makes risk-taking possible. This concept replaces the debtor's prisons of the old days, under which risk-taking was a hazardous sport played only by royalty and the insane. Under modern bankruptcy code, any indebted individual and/or business can reorganize into a position of viability or wipe the slate clean and start over.

The Founders understood that wiping the slate clean of bad debts and guaranteeing a clean start was infinitely preferable to ruining people for life. They understood that without a legal means of bankruptcy, few if any would be willing to take risks, to innovate. They tried to ensure that not just each citizen but the nation as a whole would not end up in debtor's prison.

Well, debtor's prison is back, ushered in by our government's subservience to the FED - and we're ALL in it.

By virtue of government "bailouts" the bubble will never burst. Rather than allow bubble valuations to evaporate (thereby allowing the economy to heal) we've just refinanced all the bubble debt into government paper and debt to the FED. There's no legal outlet for eliminating these bad debts now that they've been assumed by the government.

The debt is now secured, and we the people are the collateral.

It's well known that we work for several months each year just to pay for government. It's nearly as well known that the income tax portion of that is entirely consumed by interest on the national debt. Thus, the people of a debtor nation such as ours are at the very least indentured, as we've been for decades. When the nation's debt reaches current proportions, the people are slaves. The bankers and nations who hold our America's paper now OWN us.

From this day forward, we will work for several months each year to just service government debt. When we're done covering debt obligations, we still need to work to pay all the current-year costs of government such as the millions of direct employees and all the additional millions who receive government benefits. Adding insult to injury, a bit more of our work will then be stolen from us to prop up third-world kleptocrats, study endangered insects, etc., etc., etc.

Only after meeting all these burdens can we provide for ourselves, if we have any time or energy left. Barring the outright economic collapse of America, this debt (and much more like it) will be on our backs forever. So long as it is, we're all slaves. Add to that the wipeout of the baby boom generation's wealth and the government takeover of medical care and it's over - we're an enslaved cradle to grave socialist state. Sure, like the slaves of the past we'll be allowed a few chickens and a small garden, but most of our labor now belongs to our master the FED and it's minions in government.

This mess wasn't a 1929 replay - it was more like 1917 in Moscow, 1933 in Berlin or 1959 in Havana! This was a takeover, and it's practically over with before most of us knew it started.

Goodbye, Liberty! Welcome to the socialist new world order!