Battlespace Prep, Part V
By Mitch Berg
Joe Doakes, formerly of Como Park, snuck one in after the putative (ahem) finale yesterday:
When I claim Trump must shut down the government to force Congress to slash spending because the United States is bankrupt, I get angry push-back.
We can’t be bankrupt! That’s ridiculous. This is the greatest nation in history. How can we be bankrupt?
How can you tell if someone is bankrupt? One classic test is being unable to meet obligations they come due. That certainly is the USA. We have to borrow more every minute to keep paying the bills. The hole never stops getting deeper. Look at The National Debt Clock website. Another class test is whether the person’s debts exceed their assets. Ours certainly do.
But we have all the gold in Fort Knox and all the national parks and stuff! That’s worth a ton of money!Yes. But we owe a ton and whole lot more. Look, 147 million ounces of gold in Fort Knox at the current price of $3,000 per ounce gives us $450 Billion worth of gold (billion with a B). But the national debt is $37 Trillion (trillion with a T). All the gold in Fort Knox won’t cover two percent of our national debt. And that’s if the gold is all there at stated purity (what, you never heard of debasement, clipping or plugging? Look them up. Wouldn’t be the first time United States money was debased by our own government. Silver dollars began as pure silver but were reduced to half in the 1830s and after 1964, contain no silver at all. The fact Trump was concerned enough to ask for a look at the gold reserve concerns me, but the fact nobody was allowed to weigh a bar or melt one one down to assay its purity sends my paranoia into overdrive. You think Biden wouldn’t countenance stealing from it so long as he got 10% for the Big Guy?)
Yes, but Fort Knox isn’t the only gold! We have other gold, and gold rights, and gold leases and options, none of which has been audited but Biden assured us it was there. 8,000 METRIC TONS of gold. That’s $775 Billion worth of gold! And we have other assets, too, like Yellowstone and the White House!If all that gold is there, sure, that’ll cover nearly 3% of the national debt. As for all the land the federal government owns and mineral rights and navy bases, how do you determine the market value of the White House and who are you going to sell it to? China? Do you really want to go there?
That’s why Trump sicced Elon on finding fraud and waste, so they could drum up public support to slash the budget, so they could force Congress to stop digging the hole deeper and maybe, if we get really, really lucky, force Congress to start paying down the debt before the creditors come knocking and the United States is compelled to publicly admit we are bankrupt. Because when that happens, nobody has money in the bank, nobody gets paid, nobody’s 401k is worth a damn, nobody gets Social Security, nobody gets welfare, nobody can fix it.It’s not too late. Demand that your Congress-critter get with Trump’s program. Before it IS too late.
Joe Doakes
Passing the “big beautiful bill” earlier this week was a start.
February 28th, 2025 at 9:15 am
I do not think Trump would go into Ft. Knox if he did not know ahead of time gold was there. Implications of it not being there are catastrophic to the very being of the nation and I would like to think Trump is smart enough to understand what he is doing opening that can of worms. As far as insolvency, I think Joe’s thick-skulled friends who live in denial can grasp the very simple concept of Econ 101 – if inflows are less than outflows and your assets are not liquid, you are bankrupt. We have been bankrupt for quite some time, but just like recession, if nobody declares it, it did not, is not, and will not happen.
February 28th, 2025 at 9:33 am
Small quibble, silver dollars have always been 90% silver 10% copper(1800s-1900s.) The early Ike dollars were low content silver.
February 28th, 2025 at 10:41 am
JPA,
SOP is Washington has been that everyone knows it’s problem, they’ll even sometimes admit to the problem (Social Security Insolvency has been a topic since at least the 1980s), but everyone assumes that they’ll be gone, and possibly dead, by the time the reckoning happens.
“Companies go bankrupt slowly, and then all at once.” Different people have been warning about the upcoming catastrophe for decades, but the general response has always been, “but is it happening right this instant?” while the general public has effectively been sticking their fingers in their ears and shouting “Lalalalala.”
My father has been a stock broker since the early 1970s. I remember him telling me back in the 1990s when there was a balanced budget briefly (because spending growth was controlled!!!), he started telling that various different “big brains” began worrying that the balanced budget, and the decreased call for Government Bonds, were going to result in economic ruin for the Country. Our economic experts have been disproportionally morons for decades.
February 28th, 2025 at 11:54 am
Smith,
I remember that balanced budget in the 90s. It was during Clinton’s regime, when Newt Gingrich held on to the check book.
I also seem to recall that Building 7 had the fed’s NY vault in the basement. Allegedly, there was a large stash of gold bars in there, which was removed and the building was destroyed to cover it up.