George Rebane

[This is the submitted version of my regular Union column that appears in the 10dec11 edition of the newspaper’s print edition and here in its online edition.]

Our leadership has committed to take the country down the Hugo Chavez path.  Last week Venezuela’s portly leader shouted “Socialism, socialism, and more socialism!” as the solution to his country’s mounting economic and social problems.  While our president can’t use those exact words, he does promote the policies that will get us to the same place.

It was American socialist Upton Sinclair who in 1951 said, "The American People will take Socialism, but they won't take the label.” – the Left has made this their watchword ever since.  Today the socialist will accuse anyone of name calling if they dare call him that in an open forum.

Europe is now roiling in the inevitable throes of socialism.  Recently its voters have sought to tilt their governments to the right, but it is too late.  The decades’ long doses of government handouts and entitlements have made European addicts by the tens of millions.  And like addicts, they fear the cure much more than delaying their next fix, no matter how that worsens the inevitable reckoning.  But the death spiral of Europe’s eurozone, and perhaps the EU itself, is not reported by the media by using the true name of the dreaded disease.

So in America, half of our politicians continue to sell dope to masses of voters that are already hooked.  And they tell those of us addicted that there is nothing to worry about the cost of all that social narcotic being pumped into our welcoming veins.  It makes us feel good right now, and it will continue to be paid for through the never ending loans from our global storefront lenders.  The best part is that we addicts will never have to pay it back.  Incredulously you ask, how does that work out?

The answer, we are told, is that we’ll get the rich to pay off the loans some day.  And when they run out of money or just run out, we’ll have (wink, wink) other means.  Well, the rich will not have enough money.  And the same lenders are already telling Europeans that they don’t want to throw good money after the bad money which countries like Greece, Italy, Spain, Belgium, …, and even France will never pay back. 

All this has finally caught the attention of the drowsy analysts at Standard & Poors – remember those guys who gave corporations about to fail top AAA ratings the night before.  S&P has now put the world on notice that Europe may not be as creditworthy as its lenders, many already sporting 50% haircuts, continue to hope.  So the people who today lend 40 cents of every dollar our government generously spends, they are saying that the AA+ downgrade America now wears is beginning to worry them.

And here’s where the ‘wink, wink’ comes in.  Since there is no way that we can, or even have the will to work ourselves out of debt, we’re going to stiff our lenders.  And we’ll do it with freshly printed worthless dollars that add up exactly to the amounts owed everybody.  We are not going to default on our loans, no sirree; cause we’re Americans and we pay our bills.

Now some of you may protest and say that we’re going to do the right thing – cut spending, raise revenues through a new tax code, get our workforce re-trained, and put our shoulders to the wheel – and then hold a big national celebration when our are accounts are cleared.  Not even close.

No such plan exists on God’s green earth, and no politician would dare put one forward if it did.  But that’s not even the bad part.  The bad part is that along with the Chinese and other lenders, we will screw ourselves when we print our way out of debt.  Yes, the accounts will be cleared, but so will our pocketbooks, retirement accounts, and our wealth-generating economy to boot.  And none of us addicts have the gumption to do anything about it.  Do we?

So look around you today, this is the view from the other side of the tipping point – a firm and unshakeable belief that we’re not on the wrong side yet, and that the cavalry will come charging from over that hill yonder to save us all.  Oh yes, anyone who says differently will be tarred and feathered to nip such fear mongering and foolish reports in the bud.  That’s the spirit.

George Rebane is an entrepreneur and a retired systems scientist in Nevada County who regularly expands these and other themes on KVMR and Rebane’s Ruminations (www.georgerebane.com).