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.
