GAO chief warns economic disaster looms

[Zorro]

Top headline from Yahoo business:

<snip>

David M. Walker sure talks like he's running for office. "This is about the future of our country, our kids and grandkids," the comptroller general of the United States warns a packed hall at Austin's historic Driskill Hotel. "We the people have to rise up to make sure things get changed."

But Walker doesn't want, or need, your vote this November. He already has a job as head of the Government Accountability Office, an investigative arm of Congress that audits and evaluates the performance of the federal government.

Basically, that makes Walker the nation's accountant-in-chief. And the accountant-in-chief's professional opinion is that the American public needs to tell Washington it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin.

From the hustings and the airwaves this campaign season, America's political class can be heard debating Capitol Hill sex scandals, the wisdom of the war in Iraq and which party is tougher on terror. Democrats and Republicans talk of cutting taxes to make life easier for the American people.

<snip>

More at: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061028/ap_on_go_ot/america_the_bankrupt

This isn't exactly news to us, but hopefully this article will wake up the rest of the US....

[Bozita]

1. Hey Lynn Cheney! ... The government IS broken.

recommended

[Demeter]

28. Not To Mention Broke!

[rhett o rick]

33. Lynn doesn't care, she's not broke. They have half their wealth invested

abroad.

[ClintonTyree]

2. But the Stock Market is doing so good........

and isn't that the economic indicator that all Americans should heed when making decisions about leadership? :sarcasm:
A rising tide floats all boats........right? :sarcasm:
That material wealth from the nation's top 1% will trickle down to all of us, making us ALL better off, Right? :sarcasm:

There's a sarcasm overload. Our economy is fucked and it's the Republicans who own that legacy: lock, stock and barrel.

[barb162]

16. That SOOOOO gets on my nerves.

How are the big corporations doing? And if they're doing okay, who cares about the millions of Americans losing their jobs across the country. It's outrageous
" Our economy is fucked and it's the Republicans who own that legacy: lock, stock and barrel." Oh how true !

[Eurobabe]

3. But Henry Paulson sez economy is great

What else do you expect from a Bush appointee - baaaaaaaa-baaaaah, the wolves killed Mave!!!

"Heading into the final campaign stretch, President Bush and other Republicans have emphasized the good economic news, such as the low 4.6 percent unemployment rate, rising incomes and falling oil prices. "It is a healthy economy," Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson said yesterday during an interview on CNBC. "The economy is creating new jobs . . . there has a been a real increase in wages."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/10/27/AR2006102700408_pf.html

[barb162]

17. what a bunch of horseshit

Yeah, low unemployment because all the "ex" unemployed have lost the benefits and are off the rolls and no longer counted. ANd if they still have no jobs, they're not counted. We all know the unemployment rate is not counting the true unemployed.

[Viva_La_Revolution]

4. "The best we're going to get in the next couple of years is to slow the bleeding."

:(

[rodeodance]

5. wasn't bush's Radio address today about the good economy?

[Frustratedlady]

6. Very interesting article...one that everyone should read

At least they acknowledge we might make a difference by winning one or both and providing oversight by saying:

...So maybe a solution is at hand. "We're likely to have at least partially divided government again," Sawhill said, referring to predictions that the Democrats will capture the House, and possibly the Senate, in next month's elections.

But Walker isn't optimistic that the government will be able to tackle its fiscal challenges so soon. "Realistically what we hope to accomplish through the fiscal wake-up tour is ensure that any serious candidate for the presidency in 2008 will be forced to deal with the issue," he says. "The best we're going to get in the next couple of years is to slow the bleeding."

Somewhere in the article, it mentioned that we might have to print more money to get ourselves out of trouble. Am I wrong, or didn't I read where they are no longer releasing the report that tells how much money is being printed...is it an IEP report, or something like that...and that they were printing huge amounts of new money? Doesn't the GAO keep track of ALL financial records?

I'm really concerned about China and Japan calling in their paper. Can someone tell me not to worry? Please?

[thingfisher]

8. We are being readied for

a New World Order. The old order was established at Bretton Woods post ww2. I don't think any one in the world has a workable plan in place for the new economic order which is probably why nations continue to go along for now including Japan and China. America is so powerful and yet the economic underpinnings of our well being are extremely fragile.

But, look on the bright side... GAS PRICES ARE DOWN!!!

[barb162]

18. I think the euro wil be the new world currency

The dollar can't last much longer with these disastrous Bush policies

[hedgehog]

7. The scariest economic news that I've ever heard: Mexico just

made a big sale in 30 year bonds based on the peso. That's right, the Mexican economy is starting to grow and become so solid that the peso is up there against the dollar as a trustworthy currency. Who's buying the bonds? A lot of US companies are buying them for their pension funds. What happens in 15 or 20 years when the flow of cheap labor from Mexico suddenly reverses direction? We have got to quit tying our economy to oil or else we will be left behind very quickly.

[The Sushi Bandit]

9. Vote and kick this !!!!!!

[chat_noir]

10. It's the Economy, Stupid!!

Go ahead, Bush, campaign on the economy.

[LynnTheDem]

11. "it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin"

Let's repeat that;

"it's time to steer the nation off the path to financial ruin"

Not to mention the on-going human ruin.

[Cell Whitman]

25. thanks for emphasizing that Lynn. (nt)

.

[teryang]

12. WTO like austerity measures will be forced on a democratic....

...administration. Nothing will be done until the democratic party comes into power and then the banking class and ruling elites having picked the country's bones will force the country into bankruptcy and dictate terms to the nation. It is likely that the democratic party may rule through a period of even greater hardship for the American people.

[marmar]

13. Agreed. It's going to take some austerity measures....

to even begin to undo the fiscal damage done by BushCo. And if our bankers in Hong Kong, Tokyo and London run out of patience, hold on to your knickers! :scared: :scared: :scared:

[Cell Whitman]

21. yes

It is likely that the democratic party may rule through a period of even greater hardship for the American people.

and they ought to start framing who was responsible for it NOW.

This is what the right's leaders want. Grover wants us bankrupt. He is drowning us in the bathtub.

This is good news to the cult.

[Doremus]

14. Okay, who WAS responsible for "pay as you go"?

I don't like this statement from the article:

When President Clinton faced a Republican Congress during the 1990s, spending limits and other legislative tools helped produce a surplus.

It implies that the repukes were responsible for the fiscal restraint that actually produced a surplus. I think that's hogwash, but can't lay my hands on the details.

Anyone have a link handy to refresh my memory?

TIA!

[Cell Whitman]

24. a combination of tax increases on those making over

200 grand and a booming economy created the Clinton DEMOCRATIC LIBERAL surplus. As usual not every hand is perfectly clean so the right, which has no sense of proportion will act like it is both parties who have been irresponsible. EVERY conservative voted against Clinton's tax increase for those making over 200gs. Being fiscally responsible in the "Rush cult mentality world" we have cost the dems control of the congress.

The AP article is written for the "fair and balanced" cult to make it look like the democrats are equally to blame.

here check this out from the man who designed Reagan's Supply Side economics program.


http://www.csulb.edu/~astevens/posc210/files/stockman2.htm

"The Myth of Federal 'Overspending'" - By David Stockman - THE PHOENIX GAZETTE - March 10, 1993

...the full-throated, anti-tax cries emanating from the Republican Party (GOP) amount to no more than deceptive gibberish. Indeed, if Rep. Newt Gingrich, R-Ga., and his playmates had the parental supervision they deserve, they would be sent to the nearest corner wherein to lodge their Pinocchio-sized noses until this adult task of raising taxes is finished. ...

The root problem goes back to the July, 1981, frenzy of excessive and imprudent tax-cutting that shattered the nation's fiscal stability. A noisy faction of Republicans have willfully denied this giant mistake of fiscal governance, and their own culpability in it, ever since. Instead, they have incessantly poisoned the political debate with a mindless stream of anti-tax venom, while pretending that economic growth and spending cuts alone could cure the deficit.

It ought to be obvious enough by now that we can't grow our way out. To be sure, aversion to higher taxes is usually a necessary, healthy impulse in a political democracy. But when the alternative becomes as self-evidently threadbare and groundless as has the "growth" argument, we are no longer dealing with legitimate skepticism, but with what amounts to a demagogic fetish. Unfortunately, as a matter of hard-core political realism, the ritualized spending cut mantra of the GOP anti-taxers is equally vapid. ...

On the vast expanse of the domestic budget, then, "overspending" is an absolute myth. Our post-1981 mega-deficits are not attributable to it, and the GOP has neither a coherent program nor the political courage to attack anything but the most microscopic spending marginalia.

It is unfortunate that, having summoned the courage to face the tax issue squarely, President Clinton has clouded the debate with an excess of bashing-the-wealthy and an utterly unnecessary grab-bag of new tax-and-spend giveaways.

But that in no way lets the Republicans off the hook. They led the Congress into a giant fiscal mistake 12 years ago, and they now have the responsibility to work with a President who is at least brave enough to attempt to correct it.

[philly_bob]

15. Walker: Steadfast voice of honesty during Bush era

I've been watching the GAO for a couple years, and I find them to be incorruptible and immune to political pressure.

Walker's one guy that needn't be replaced at a change of administration.

[Cell Whitman]

19. The man who spent billions bringing the right to power is laughing

The one who spent billions bringing the right to power is laughing - and winning.

___ ___

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/moonperceived.htm

In the 1970's Moon told some of his leaders that what he was doing was preparing an international infrastructure so that when the world economy collapsed- it would be in place to establish the new world order.

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/moonorg.htm

He has been busy setting up the infrastructure for his world takeover for many years. He has long realized that when there is calamity, disaster, economic collapse, that is when he can best operate. In the recent years, he has focused his activities in the former Communist bloc countries. It is relatively easy for him to operate there. Throughout the world he has created hundreds of organizations which operate in the following areas: religion; politics; media; culture; academics; banking and international business.

"I am not a day dreamer, I am a master tactician or strategist. When I plan, I execute the plan. And when I execute a certain battle plan, I will always come out with a better result than any other tactician in history. The Korean government learned many tactics from me. And America is going to be learning much from my strategies." (MASTER SPEAKS 3/24/74)

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/fraser-report/index92.html

In his own speeches to followers, Moon made it clear that the Little Angels, the annual science conference, and other seemingly philanthropic projects were in reality geared toward his ambitious and carefully thought out plans for winning control and influence over political and other secular institutions.

The Moon organization will tell you that the 1978 Fraser investigation did not bring charges against them so it didn't find anything. Of course this is a deception. The committee didn't have the power to bring charges. It made recommendations that several government agencies work in unison and further investigate the extensive evidence of wrongdoing it had discovered. It believed that the laws were on the books to deal with the problem.

Further investigation? That never happened and you then had Moon spending billions, BILLIONS bringing the hard right and theocratic to power in America. The face he gained here has allowed him to now move on the planet. Other than a few rare instances where a nation will not let his plane land, he is unopposed. I will repeat, to date, he is basically unopposed. Even democrats who have been kicked in the teeth by his money and fronts for the last 25 years send him well wishes as he tours the nation. His group claims they advise our State Department - this is likely.

http://www.freedomofmind.com/resourcecenter/groups/m/moonies/fraser-report/index75.html

Spokesmen for the Moon Organization have attempted to create the impression that, to the extent there is a relationship, the businesses contribute to the religious movement and not the reverse. However, the flow was in fact two ways. For example, when a commercial enterprise was beginning, funds were transferred to it from the UC directly or indirectly. After it began to prosper, it contributed to the religious or nonprofit side of the Moon Organization. The Moon Organization's economic system provided substantial advantages to its various components. The religious side provided inexpensive and ready sources of labor; access to large amounts of untaxed liquid assets; and a wide-ranging, inexpensive marketing network. The commercial side provided additional funds, power, and influence. ...

The investigation of Moon-related businesses shows that they are totally interrelated with noncommercial components of the Moon Organization. There is a pattern of interlocking directors, officers, and stockholders. The interrelationship of the businesses with the UC and other components of the Moon Organization is made explicit in internal UC publications, where there are frequent references to the "family" businesses, as they are called.

What do you see when you click here? What do you see?

[donsu]

27. kicking

nt

[Roland99]

20. I've been writing/posting about David Walker for about 18 months now!!!

When I keep telling people that taxes will have to nearly be doubled and spending cut drastically in order to keep the US from repeating what happened to Argentina, they call me a nutcase, a tax-and-spend liberal, a socialist, a commie, etc.

One thing many people fail to understand is that our economy was doing very well with the tax rates that existed before Bush's ill-advised (Greenspan and O'Neill wanted triggers to reduce/repeal the tax cuts should the economy sour) tax cuts. The ol' dot-com boom and the economy, in general, was doing well in the late 1990s and we had balanced budgets/pay-as-you-go budgets (but note we had an opposing party in control of the Congress at the time).

The first time I read about this impending financial crisis was May of 2005 in this Washington Post article:

Almost Unnoticed, Bipartisan Budget Anxiety
May 2005
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/17/AR2005051701238.html

With startling unanimity, they agreed that without some combination of big tax increases and major cuts in Medicare, Social Security and most other spending, the country will fall victim to the huge debt and soaring interest rates that collapsed Argentina's economy and caused riots in its streets a few years ago.

"The only thing the United States is able to do a little after 2040 is pay interest on massive and growing federal debt," Walker said. "The model blows up in the mid-2040s. What does that mean? Argentina."

...

Walker put U.S. debt and obligations at $45 trillion in current dollars -- almost as much as the total net worth of all Americans, or $150,000 per person. Balancing the budget in 2040, he said, could require cutting total federal spending as much as 60 percent or raising taxes to 2 1/2 times today's levels.

Butler pointed out that without changes to Social Security and Medicare, in 25 years either a quarter of discretionary spending would need to be cut or U.S. tax rates would have to approach European levels. Putting it slightly differently, Sawhill posed a choice of 10 percent cuts in spending and much larger cuts in Social Security and Medicare, or a 40 percent increase in government spending relative to the size of the economy, and equivalent tax increases.

[papau]

26. I doubt/hope against an Argentina result - But I moved assets overseas and into Gold

this year because the foriegn exchange may well blow up soon - much sooner than 2040.

[NoAmericanTaliban]

22. Good Article. K&R

[UrbScotty]

23. Well Mr. DeVos, I guess it's NOT a single-state recession, is it? (nt)

[moodforaday]

29. Follow the money

It's the third time I'm posting this link, so forgive me if you've seen it before, but in an important thread about GAO and the dollar (as in, imminent collapse of), this is relevant:

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-4312730277175242198&sourceid=docidfeed&hl=en-AU

It's Aaron Russo's new documentary, "Freedom to Fascism", uploaded to Google video by the director. Please do not prejudge the film by its title. I personally think the title is ill-chosen, because a lot of people will be put off by the word "fascism" (Oh no, not another movie about how Bush it Hitler - or - Nobody should demean the holocaust by making inept comparisons - or - It can't happen here), and anyway what he's describing is not fascism. That was 1930s, this is now. The movie is NOT about comparing Bush to Hitler, and the current administration isn't even featured much. If anything, Russo's narrative ties in with Michael Ruppert's analysis of the financial markets - though again, Russo does not talk about the drug trade or the peak oil. But the machinations he's describing connect with what Ruppert looks at in his work.

Please also don't be put off by Russo's libertarian stance. As things are, liberals have a lot in common with libertarians: the issue of civil liberties. I think it's a very significant movie, and it *is* about the economy. It's a "follow the money" route, without a happy-end at the last stop.

[Javaman]

30. We're broke, at war, heating up and running out of power...

All brought to you by moron* in chief...

What else do the repukes need to show them that the village idiot* is a colossal failure?

I'm completely dumb founding at their complete inability to grasp reality.

[Clyde39]

32. Well said----people are just clueless, it seems

Some people are easily manipulated into being followers of totally corrupt policies---very depressing.

[young_at_heart]

31. This should be on the front page of all newspapers....is it?

Our future is truly at stake and no one talks about this.....why not?