“It is well enough that people of the nation do not understand our banking and monetary system; for if they did, I believe there would be a revolution before tomorrow morning.”
-Henry Ford
I have a small confession.
I was lurking around my Facebook account the other day. I came across a rare economic debate over which president is worse when it comes to debt? I took a minute to recover from my disbelief.
The centerpiece was a rebuttal to the accusation that Obama held reign under the worst debt expansion in history…
RNC’s Priebus picks the wrong fight on the wrong issue:
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/rncs-priebus-picks-the-wrong-fight-the-wrong-issue
In the rebuttal, the author put together a chart (see link above) illustrating the percentage debt increases for each presidency going back to the Reagan years. On the face of it, the percentage that the national debt went up during Obama’s administration was relatively lower, or at least on par, when compared with other administrations.
And that was all pretty much everyone needed to fuel the vitriol. It was ‘a fact’. The debate was like walking into the middle of a bar fight that had gone way past any semblance of reason.
Both sides were locked in a drunken political debate that could have easily been about two rival teams. The vitriol was palpable. Anger and resentment, albeit from a virtual soapbox.
Here we are on the verge of chaos and no one understands why. But we are one step deeper into the data from an opened a Pandora’s Box that neither ‘side’ would like to admit.
Using 1980-81 as an example. The national debt was ‘only’ $1 Trillion. Today it is $18 Trillion. Therefore, it was roughly $11 Trillion at the beginning of the Obama administration.
Using similar logic, Bush II raised the debt 80% or approximately $4.5 Trillion from where it started at the end of the Clinton years.
But who really cares? This is the wrong debate!
There is no governing. This is a runaway train passing through whoever happens to be the “boss” at the time. And what about unfunded liabilities due now and ongoing — many more trillions in social security, and Medicare?
Not to mention the degree of leverage the debt imposes on the whole scam. The truth of the matter is that the debt can never be paid. The point is: the absurdity makes us evermore doomed.
Is it really that much of a stretch to go back in history a few generations to see where all of this started? Most people didn’t question it at all. I suppose we are always looking for meaning and understanding. It’s a primal need. But could it hurt to shine the light through these cracks of ignorance?
Whatever the rationalization, information is everywhere and available. Yet the quality of the low hanging fruit is underwhelming and cloaked in an illusive skin.
Then it all came together for me.
This pocket of people is not going to change their views. They were not drunk. Many were angry, but quasi rational. The debt issue is real. But to put all the blame with one human or a set of power-hungry, bought and paid for ‘professional’ politicians…
It may have arisen from humanity - human systems - but finance has morphed so far beyond anything humane that it is unrecognizable. It is other-worldly.
And this brief moment in time…
It will be like looking back over a series of policy speeches and announcements - that is how history will be told. It will seem so obvious.
What history will not say is how those awake while it unfolded knew it was all an empty hologram. We could not believe how blatant, how upside down and backwards things had become.
How tragic, immoral and unjust — all the damage that was being done.
How no one saw it coming at all.
