We have to put the screws to someone. Don't we?

By Mona Goldwater
Amateur Economics Correspondent





What do we do?  If this was a real business--and it seems like we need to treat it like that once again--wouldn't we nick our employees and, especially, our vendors and buyers; we'd lower wages and raise prices (taxes) and hope we could find a middle ground on which to survive.  Despite all the moaning and groaning, hasn't the TARP money done what it was supposed to do?  In fact, haven't many/most of those "investments" been paid back, even with a little vigorish?  Yeah, we ran up deficits dealing with the late 2000's financial meltdown, but isn't it approximately time to put a cork in that?

The U.S. ran up budget deficits for nearly 30 years--from 1970 through 1997.  Bill Clinton was president in 1998, when the government finally achieved a surplus--a surplus created through bi-partisan cooperation.  And we racked up further surpluses in 1999, 2000 and in 2001.  2001 was the final year of a Clinton-managed budget.

George W. Bush succeeded Clinton in 2001, and--surprise--we had a budget deficit in 2002 that has continued every year since then.  The deficit is projected to increase massively and exponentially this year under President Barack Obama.

This isn't an editorial opinion.  I have no idea how to roll back the clock to 1998.  What do the smart people say?  What would you do? What's three trillion between friends?  Do we need to crank up the presses at The Mint?  Or sell, say, a 25% equity stake in the U.S. to The People's Republic of China?  If the numbers I see are right, we have now borrowed around $1.4 trillion from China, or, $1,000 from every one of the PRC's 1.3 billion citizens.   Where do we go from here?  How do we fix this?

And one last question?  How much gold do we actually have in Fort Knox?  I know that virtually all the gold we own there was purchased at $35 an ounce or less, and most of it was accumulated when the price was far lower than that (when we were still on the gold standard).  Why don't we break that gold out and sell it, now that it retails for around $1,500 an ounce--while all the knuckleheads are buying gold, shotguns, and canned goods like madmen?

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