If you haven't noticed yet, my usual emotions derived from this reading are disgust and anger based on my current level of economic understanding of the future damage to our country based on the decisions being made by leaders today.
But today, as I read page after page of the Wall Street Journal discussing Obama's current and future budget plans, I had a calm feeling wash over me. Why?
Imagine you know a kid in his mid 20's. He went to college for four years with money given to him by his father. He was given money for all his bills, food, clothes, and spending money. After college, this kid left school and his father bought him a new house to live in. To help him get his life started he continued year after to pay for all his bills, food, clothes, and spending money.
After a few years he started asking for new cars, a new boat, a lake house, additional clothing money, and additional spending money because he wanted to go to nicer clubs on the weekend. He never actually got a job because he needed time to shop with the money he was given every month.
Now, looking at this situation, who are you upset with? The kid for taking all this money and spending it, or the father for giving it to him?
I felt good this morning looking at Obama's face on my newspaper announcing his new yearly deficits. I look at our government like I do this child.
Not only did we spend that last five years sending all of our mortgages overseas, we have announced a new "projected" budget deficit of $1.75 trillion. (Obviously it will end up much higher and doesn't include off balance sheet costs.) We are in the midst of one of the greatest economic collapses in human history, and he has announced to the world that he wants to spend hundreds of billions of dollars on his social programs that he had promised before taking office.
Here is a chart that shows Obama's deficit this year compared to the last thirty years. (Remember that the previous eight years under Bush were considered to be horrendous)
You know who pays for the social programs? THE REST OF THE WORLD. They are the father in the example above. His new spending plans are the equivalent of kicking the rest of the world in the crotch, spitting on their face, taking their money, and letting them know he'll be back next year for more.
And you know what? Why not? How stupid must they be to lend us this money? We have no way of ever paying it back. He should have announced a $5 trillion deficit for the year. That way we not only have all the social programs but he can just send the extra to Americans as checks in the mail.
The calmness came over me this morning not because I was less upset with the government's decisions, but I thought about what it must be like to live over in those other countries that actually have to pay for all this spending. Imagine what it is like to be the father I was just describing.
As mad as I would be looking at what the kid was doing, I can only thank God that I am not the Dad. The Dad who has to wake up every morning and work as hard as possible so he can provide this lifestyle for his kid every year.
If we are a bankrupt country, which we are, and we offer nothing of value to the rest of the world, which we don't, then why not take as much as we can get before the music stops? Maybe those dummies will send us money for five, ten, fifteen more years, who knows.
If they ever did stop or even slow down, all that would happen would be that our currency would lose close to 100% of its value and the entire life savings of every American would be wiped out.
No big deal.
Party on Obama. Party on America.
