http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/articles/20071005_1

October 5-7, 2007 -- Comptroller General Walker: Financial tsunami  
coming
publication date: Oct 5, 2007



October 5-7, 2007 -- Comptroller General Walker: Financial tsunami  
coming

David Walker, the Comptroller General of the United States, urged  
journalists gathered in Washington for the annual meeting of the  
Society of Professional Journalists to start covering with more  
honestly the impending financial crisis facing the United States.  
Walker is the head of Congress' Government Accountability Office  
(GAO), a non-partisan oversight and chief accountant position with a  
15-year term.

Walker warned that with the first "baby boomer" retiring on January  
1, 2008, a tsunami of increased non-discretionary spending for Social  
Security, Medicare, and Medicaid will bankrupt the United States  
government and may force U.S. bonds into "junk" status in 20 years.

The Comptroller General also warned that the U.S. work force is  
decreasing and, as a result, so will the tax base. He also said that  
the United States currently ranks 16 out of 28 among industrialized  
nations in leading quality of life indicators, including health care,  
the environment, personal savings, and education. This situation is  
not likely to improve, especially as the work force will be required  
to postpone retirement in the early 60s age group and work longer.

Walker sounded another alarm. He said if other countries decide to  
stop buying America's debt, interest rates will skyrocket resulting  
in massive unemployment, inflation, and a steep rise in taxes.

Walker declared that the U.S. dollar "is tanking" and the  
administration's rhetoric about that making U.S. products less  
expensive is not borne out by the current trade imbalance statistics.


Comments

Arthur T. Murray (Seattle, WA)
     After thirty years of slowly sinking, the Canadian dollar has  
made a surprise comeback and was most recently worth US $1.01 in  
American dollars. Is that situation an indicator of American  
financial collapse? And why blame it on the baby boomers? They work;  
they contribute.

     It reminds me of a time a few years ago when some Eastern mall  
told the mall-walker retirees that they were suddenly forbidden to  
"mall-walk" -- to get their indoor exercise without shopping or  
buying anything. So the disenfranchised mall-walkers said, OK, we've  
been giving money to our grandkids to spend at your mall, and we will  
no longer do so. Pretty soon, the mall reversed its policy against  
mall-walking.

     In general, though, the U.S. economy must be pretty precarious  
right now. The substandard home loan thing is still reverberating  
through the markets. The Fed dropped the prime rate by half a point  
-- probably not enough to prevent at least a recession. Just how bad  
will the U.S. economy tank?

Verda Ingle (Boone)
     Greenspan and company did this to us on purpose. It was with a  
sense of great alarm that they saw a budget surplus looming in the  
year 2000, just 8 years before the boomer wave started retiring.  
Heaven forbid that the US treasury might actually be able to handle  
the retirement benefits of the Vietnam generation, and vindicate the  
virtues of the welfare state. And if Al Gore had gotten into the  
White House as he should, that would have happened.

     But it's been the fondest wish of the neocons to starve  
government, to create crisis where there was none, to prove to  
Americans that government can't take care of us and we should instead  
rely on the private sector. Grover Norquist is famous for his  
impolitic remark about drowning government in the bathtub, but  
they've all been scheming on this for years. No administration before  
Bush/Cheney had the chutzpah to unleash the neocons and bear the  
criticism for it. When they talk about "legacy", that's what they  
mean---driving America over a cliff to the point where we can never  
go back to what was before. These men think they are heroes for their  
courage.

     It took some doing to drain the enormous US treasury, and  
destroy our industrial base, and disenfranchise the powerful middle  
class. It took wild, unheard-of spending---opening flood gates of  
cash---and 24/7 media manipulation to stem the tide of public fury  
and resistance. But they persevered, and they didn't care what we  
thought of them, and they didn't care about elections or parties  
because they had figured out how to handle those. They made up their  
own "new rules" and new reality, where the strong will rule the weak.  
Those who are late to catch on to the new plan will be devoured in  
the Darwinian struggle.

liberty antigone (?)
     I hate to show this to you, but you probably should know about  
it. Webster Tarpley, on Guns & Butter, on the coming economy.
     Turn on your speakers

     http://kpfa.org/archives/index.php?arch=22000


     The U.S. Banking System: Too Big To Bail Out
     Interview with economic historian and author, Webster Tarpley,  
on the global financial crisis. We discuss his new 17-page article,  
Helicopter Ben Unleashes Hyper-Inflation, including the bailout of  
Wall Street, inflation, demise of the dollar, derivatives, hedge  
funds, the plunge protection team, commodities as the next "bubble",  
and what we should do. Tarpley is author of Surviving the Cataclysm,  
A Study of the World Financial Crisis (Your Guide Through the  
Greatest Financial Crisis in Human History). He is also author of  
9/11 Synthetic Terror, Made in the U.S.A.; Against Oligarchy; and co- 
author of George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography. Visit his website  
at www.tarpley.net.


liberty antigone (?)



     In the recent discussion by Naomi Klein in her tour for book THE  
SHOCK DOCTRINE with this 6 minute video as introduction, we heard  
Klein discusses the way the shock of a false flag or crises sets up  
the way for the government to go in an restructure the economic  
scene, and reduce freedoms and economic-political power of the  
people. It was a powerful speech, indeed.


     (I am secretly convinced Hurricaines, Tsunamis, forrest fires  
and earthquakes are set up by the powers of fascism to restructure  
the economy. Just prior to the 1989 earthquake in San Francisco, many  
new waterfront developers in the middle of construction were rewarded  
with waterfront views on the Embarcadero, where freeways previously  
blocked the view. Just like in SUPERMAN where Lex Luther (Gene  
Hackman) plans to buy up the real estate along the San Andreas fault,  
and then nuke it, so he has waterfront property in California in the  
1980 movie, so to the real estate developers managed to go in an buy  
property wherever the earthquakes and tsunamis have been. See New  
Orleans real estate before and after the bombing of the levees.)


     http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine


     6 minute video:


     http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film

liberty antigone (?)
     PPS. The timing of the earthquake was in the opening minutes of  
the baseball finals between Oakland A's and San Francisco Giants.  
Hmm. The world was watching.

JM (Pine Ridge)
     Liberty- similarly to 9/11 in NYC, there should be seismograph  
readings before the earthquake occured to determine if there was an  
underground explosion to set it off. It was clear at least on 9/11  
that there were explosions occuring before the collapse of the  
towers. How unfortunate this info hasn't really been released by MSM,  
but how typical, too.

Verda Ingle (Boone)
     lib antig-
     I think you're the real deal.

spoonful (Boston)
     Nowhere is Bush's squidlike backbone more evident than in the  
decline of our once proud and mighty greenback. There is no doubt  
that a strong greenback is directly tied to lower budget defecits,  
lower interest rates, higher world trade volumes and an overall  
increase in economic efficiency. If the bleeding of our national  
treasure were shifted from the absolute lunacy of the middle east to  
a "Manhattan Project" type investment in renewable energy, we would  
see our currency would rise from the junk heap.

Kait (Michigan)
     They are ever vigilant in their assault on the enconomy. They  
are now trying to push through NAFTA expansion to Peru. Go to Public  
Citizen Action Network at http://action.citizen.org/campaign.jsp? 
campaign_KEY=12561

     There you can fill out the form to send a letter to your  
Representative and to both of your Senators.

     For those that don't know and don't want to trust a click on a  
link in a blog, remember to copy and paste into address bar instead.

Kait (Michigan)
     Here is a site for those who want keep tabs on bank failures.

     http://www.fdic.gov/bank/individual/failed/banklist.html

Kait (Michigan)
     If you can stomach it here is a site with charts to watch the US  
Dollar index.

     http://stockcharts.com/charts/gallery.html?$USD

Kait (Michigan)
     Leading Americans Ask Military to Refuse to Attack Iran and  
Start a Global Catastrophe

     Global Research, October 5, 2007

     I know this is off topic but it is very important. Please go to  
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6982

     and sign the petition

Susan Modikoane (Houston/TX)
     That's funny because I thought they were seeding the storms in  
the Gulf last year. It was just a feeling I had.

     Anyhow, the real problem with the economy according to

     http://www.energybulletin.net/7707.html
     (EXCELLENT article) and http://www.lifeaftertheoilcrash.com

     the current collapse of the dollar stems from the fact the oil  
and gas used to be traded in US Dollars. This forced all governments  
to keep US Dollars in their treasuries in bonds, so they could  
purchase oil for their countries. Iraq started selling oil in Euros  
the year before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

     Last year, Iran opened the oil bourse, an oil trading floor,  
similar to the one in London, selling oil in Euros. Then Venezuela  
started selling oil in non-PetroDollars.

     The effect of this is to lower the demand for the dollar and  
therefore it's value.

     Another problematic and related issue is Peak Oil. Many people  
believe that the world oil supply is a bell curve that has peaked and  
is going down quickly. We've used oil for the last 100 years. In that  
time, the population and industrialization have exploded, creating a  
greater demand for oil. That means that we will go down the bell  
curve a lot quicker than we went up it. Next year, Mexico, our second  
largest supplier of oil, will stop exporting oil, because their  
Cantarell field is going dry. They also supply oil to Israel.

     The recommendations are that you buy an electric bicycle or car,  
learn organic gardening or support local organic gardeners, and try  
to learn as much as you can about renewable energy and switch over to  
it.



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