An Economic Nightmare Is Brewing in America

The Perfect Storm

After September 11, 2001, many Americans realized for the first time how truly vulnerable our nation is from an attack by a determined enemy that is willing, and even eager to destroy themselves in the process. But we should be just as concerned about several basic economic factors that are threatening our nation's vitality and the American way of life. America's economy is precariously balanced in more ways than perhaps anyone of us can imagine. (See: A Time To Stand, Chapter Ten) Just five economic realities: 1) the national debt 2) government waste and inefficiency 3) corruption and greed 4) our aging population and 5) budget deficits, could turn the American Dream into an American Nightmare if immediate actions are not taken. In fact, dozens of potentially catastrophic economic, socio-cultural, religious, military, geo-political and environmental elements are converging together in America in what may be a type of "perfect storm" that will have disasterous consequences for every American.

We Don't Have What It Takes

The radical changes that are necessary in our government's spending habits and in the management of its fiscal affairs that are required to save our nation from a financial meltdown may however, never be proposed, let alone implemented. The courage and commitment to financial solvency simply does not exist at the Federal level - by Democrats or Republicans. We are not going to solve the economic problems facing America without a moral commitment that is virtually non-existent in politics today. The fatal combinations of corruption and incompetence, of selfishness and greed, and of immorality and laziness make reform all but impossible.

Perilous Days Ahead by 2009

The National Debt of $9 trillion as a percentage of GNP will go from 35% to over 80% under a new wave of federal spending that even raising taxes cannot prevent. Taxes collected now simply go to pay the interest on this debt. Foreign nations now holding $2 trillion in mortgages on American assets will see their 25% stake in our economy increase to over 50% - before they panic and "pull the plug." The Federal government will do nothing to "downsize" itself. In fact, the declining economy will only encourage to expand its bureacracy. The Federal government is barely policing or monitoring its current spending. The GAO is an "auditor's joke." Waste and corruption will abound beyond historic levels. We can't stop the "baby boomers" retirement nor their increased need for medical services. The $500 billion being paid in benefits to over 48 million recipients will significantly swell in size very shortly and will collapse the economic "safety nets" that are already stretched to their limit. The GAO's own January report entitled "Long-Term Fiscal Outlook is Unsustainable" was an understatment. The truth is we're heading for a serious financial collapse, and not the "minor corrective recession" that is the popular (but managable) prediction we're hearing from our presidential candidates.

Biting The Bullet

The US Economy is teetering upon a weak foundation that has been fifty years in the making and a fiscal budgetary process that is designed to mislead the average American into thinking that spending more money that's what being collected is acceptable when it comes to running a government over the long-term. Just because we've financed our way out of a 1930's type depression, doesn't mean we can keep it up forever. There will be a day of reckoning...and it will be sooner than anyone imagines.

A. Citizen