You know when someone is really fat but no one in their family has said anything and they've lived for years without even realizing it? And this state of non-reality led to eating more and more McDonald's and coca-cola and chips... which just led to the person being fatter and fatter?
It isn't until that first person finally says it..."Hey, fattie"...that the tears come rolling down and all of a sudden reality hits. The bawling fattie returns home. It gets worse from there.
That is what just happened to the US Government over the weekend. Standard & Poor's called the US Government - at 5'9" and 1,350 pounds - fat.
And, just like that, the lies and the falsehoods all come crashing down, but the morbidly obese U.S. government clings to its denial.
Little Timmy Geithner was the first to say a few months ago that we're not fat and we never will be fat! He stated that the US would never lose its triple A status.
How he still retains his job is a testament to Government job security.
Then today Barack Obama was plugged in to relay the thoughts of the Presidential teleprompter: "This is the United States of America. No matter what some agency may say, we've always been and always will be a triple-A country."
We've always been skinny and we always will be skinny! Denial rarely runs this deep.
The next stage in denial this bad usually comes in the form of attacks against the person who called you out in the first place.
On cue, Congress just announced that a Senate Banking Committee will begin probing S&P's downgrade decision.
It's the way most governments deal with reality: by censoring it, attacking it or making it illegal. In Italy, four analysts from S&P are currently under police investigation. And in Argentina, last month, the Argentine Government fined and filed criminal charges against some economists who published the real rate of inflation - not the Government's misinformation.
Economists are the new terrorists!
Down Comes The Edifice
As we stated yesterday ("When Risk-Free Becomes Risk-Certain"), when the entire structure of this non-free market, artificial financial system is grounded in a giant lie - that US Treasury Bonds are "risk-free", the entire thing can come down suddenly like a rickety tower of blocks in a game of Jenga.
Today we witnessed the beginnings of that. Citibank was down 16%. Bank of America was down 18%. And, the man who has been dead wrong about almost everything for 11 years running, Warren Buffett, had his Berkshire Hathaway tagged for a downgrade. (We couldn't supress a tiny cheer as the lying government schill got his)
Those, and countless others, were sent cowering after the S&P Government debt downgrade. The reason? If Government debt isn't risk free, then what does that mean for the debt and holdings of the rest of the financial system? No one knows, and that's the problem. That's what sent investors fleeing into gold today.
The US Government is Terminally Ill
Since the Federal Reserve was founded and took away the "free" out of "free market" and since the US dollar became untethered to gold in 1971 the US has been headed for disaster.
The entire system is based on debt. And now it has reached its ultimate eventuality, nearly everyone and everything in the US is terminally indebted.
The Federal Government is indebted to the tune of more than $75 trillion in debts and obligations - more than $1 million per family of four. Most states are bankrupt. Many municipalities are bankrupt. And plenty of real, live Americans are indebted over their heads too.
This entire debt-based edifice and a system set-up to punish saving and to promote debt has infected every part of the US. Take, as example, the fact that there were more than 30,000 college students in Michigan on the food stamp program! You have people who can't even afford to eat going to colleges to go into debt in order to get a piece of paper that in many cases is worthless.
System Collapse is a Certainty
There has been no valid option for the US Government for years now. The debts and obligations are too great to be serviced. Therefore, there are only two options...
Face reality and default on its debt and reduce the size of the Federal Government by at least 90%...
Or continue to be in a state of denial and head back to the all-you-can-eat buffet...
Ben Bernanke will let you know the choice he will make on your behalf on Tuesday. If he announces QE3 then it will be death via a massive coronary: dollar hyperinflation.
