Conservatives complain heartily about Barack Obama. “Bush wasn’t the best, but this guy is spending us into oblivion.” Obama believes, or so he says, that he has no other choice.

It’s necessary to see the larger picture before putting Obama on a special pedestal of infamy on the specific topic of government spending. I believe that we’re seeing a historical crescendo. Since 1971 the dollar has been unhinged completely from gold, and this, along with other factors such as the dollar’s currency reserve status, has led to an explosion of spending and debt. Politicians became addicted to cheap money and huge deficit spending (even the “balanced budgets” of the 90s were frauds because they were raiding the misnamed “Social Security Trust Fund” the whole time, and thus massively growing unfunded liabilities). As the heroin addict needs ever greater hits to get the same high, a debt-laden economy requires ever greater infusions of government spending to postpone collapse. The federal debt has more than doubled since 2000, and the debt ceiling has been raised with increasing regularity. The scope of government bailouts continues to widen. Problems are hitting the shore in waves, with the largest wave hitting in late 2008. Ensuing waves have been increasing the destruction, and the government response (propping up large and insolvent banks, guaranteeing nearly all mortgages, and so on) is ensuring that larger waves are in store. In short, the crescendo is building.

Eventually, just as a junkie will crash, so will the economy. The government will be forced to stop spending and make life-altering changes when it can’t find enough borrowers, or if it sees prospect of monetary collapse, or some other crisis. Perhaps it will lose control and we’ll see a hyperinflation. You will definitely be seeing broken promises. They were never sustainable promises.

If the crash doesn’t happen in the next few years, expect the next president, regardless of party, to be a larger spender than Obama. Both parties share a devotion to Keynesian economics and both parties realize that, politically, they don’t have any other choice but to keep spending. Economically, they do. Morally, they do. Politically, they don’t.

Politics always wins out with political parties. They are not going to do the right thing and let the economy (that is, all of us) freely restructure through a lot of pain. The voters won’t stand for it, and politicians know it.

Recently I heard an author on a talk show. The author correctly explained in great detail why the economy was in its current situation. He even implicated the Fed. Then the host asked what to do. The author proceeded to explain that the government needs to spend a trillion dollars (!) rebuilding our infrastructure, with massive “investments” in stuff like solar energy.

Yes, solar energy.

The author commits the same error as politicians: he thinks he knows how everyone else’s money should be spent. Since the wealthy pay an indiscriminate share of taxes (the top 10% of earners pay over 70% of the taxes), he’s replacing the wisdom and knowledge of all the entrepreneurs and businessmen out there. He thinks he has the knowledge and intricacy to spend the confiscated assets of tens of millions of people more wisely than those people would’ve done it.

Think about how arrogant that is. It’s what politicians and bureaucrats do every day.

Politicians have the advantage of trafficking in what is seen. People see $50 million spent on some boondoggle and the jobs it produces despite massive inefficiencies. They don’t see what businesses and products and employment will never come into play because that $50 million has been spent.

The ruling party comes up with a spending plan, they blow hundreds of billions of dollars, and then six months later the opposition says “ha, it didn’t work!” … as if politicians ever spend money on anything that does. The opposition party’s stimulus plan wouldn’t have worked either.

A better idea is to stop all “recovery” and “stimulus” plans, but that’s seen as inaction. Egged on by the voters who want them to “fix” problems and end the suffering, the politicians will never let it be. They have to “do something.” They’re like alchemists in a lab, squandering wealth day after day to find that elusive golden formula.

I caught parts of the State of the Union (SOTU) last night. That’s better than I did the past 10 years. SOTU speeches are basically lists of proposed handouts delivered in a torrent of high-toned cliches (“We must answer history’s call”), accompanied by the Swiftian spectacle of Congresspersons (ahem) ostentatiously barking their approval in the bright lights.

Anyway, the guy who played Obama was spot-on. There were many fine moments, such as when he promised to freeze government spending for three years… except for Medicare, Social Security, and Medicaid. Then he told us that the “worst of the storm has passed.”

However, best of all:

Talk to the window manufacturer in Philadelphia who said he used to be skeptical about the Recovery Act, until he had to add two more work shifts just because of the business it created.

Yes, it’s the Broken Window Fallacy in action, and Obama’s hero in the example is a glazier! Nice!

It has to be the most unintentionally funny line ever delivered in a SOTU.

There are those who still think they are holding the pass against a revolution that may be coming up the road. But they are gazing in the wrong direction. The revolution is behind them. It went by in the Night of Depression, singing songs to freedom. -Garet Garrett, 1954

I was at a children’s function a month or two ago at a Lutheran church (ELCA). During it, they did the Pledge of Allegiance. I didn’t join in.

Have you ever thought about the pledge? Joe Sobran once noted that the phrase many want to remove– “under God”– is the only good part of it. The Pledge was written by a 19th-century socialist. It speaks against secession (“indivisible”), which is something that the Founders saw as a necessary bulwark against Federal tyranny. Unlike the National Anthem, the pledge calls on us to… make a pledge. It’s not a binding oath in the sense that I will be prosecuted for disobeying it, but why would I want to say something I do not necessarily believe? Christians believe that kingdom of Christ supersedes the state. Why would a man leave a wayward denomination (where he may have once given membership vows) and yet pledge unqualified allegiance to his country?

I admire the soldiers who risk their lives overseas. However, the U.S. is broke. We need these kids here in America. We need them producing stuff instead of consuming resources. All government employees, soldiers included, are consuming resources. Peter Schiff once created an illustration to explain America’s interaction with foreigners since the end of World War II. Consider an island, he said, where a couple of foreigners and an American are stranded. One foreigner’s job is to gather the wood. Another creates the fire. Another obtains the food. They come to the American and ask what his job will be. His answer: He’ll eat the food.

Government employees are eating the food.

Military spending is a key contributor to what is likely to be more calamitous for this country: a currency crisis caused by overspending. Conservatives rail about government spending, and yet unflinchingly support massive military spending. This defeats the purpose. If even 20% of the populace denied legitimacy to 99% of federal spending (and that includes Medicare, social security, and war spending), I’m guessing that would be a huge problem for the legitimacy of the federal government. Things would change. Among those who should know better (including me a few years ago), the military is the best possible propaganda for federal legitimacy and overreach. People believe dubious claims that soldiers in, say, Iraq, are “fighting for our freedoms.” I don’t question our soldiers’ motives. I do question the government’s motives and the real effect of interventions like this.

The government isn’t “protecting our freedoms” overseas. They are ticking off people who do not want foreign troops in their country. Foreigners may strike back repulsively, but in the same way that you don’t flash jewels in a bad neighborhood and expect to come out unscathed, you shouldn’t blow things up in pagan lands.

Joe Sobran once quipped that the Constitution poses no threat to our current form of government. Other than setting terms of office, the Constitution has been a dead letter for generations. It isn’t even a small speed bump for Congress. The massive entitlements that are far and away the greatest financial threat to the country are all unconstitutional. Every war since World War II has been undeclared. The federal bureaucracy has over 14 million (the figure is probably much larger by now) employees and/or contractors. The Constitution hasn’t changed in the past 50 years, but federal spending has risen steeply. So much for “limited, constitutional government.” Were they still celebrating the republic in imperial Rome?

The older I get, the more I’m questioning “first things” when it comes to politics. Pundits debate who should run the Fed. Better to debate why the Fed should exist in the first place. People debate what the president is or is not doing. It’d be better if people were questioning whether the presidency itself is really a good idea.

The government wants us to believe that it protects our freedoms and rights. It’s easier to prove that government works to restrict our God-given rights. By spending our money and issuing regulations, they take our fields and redistribute them (c.f. 1 Sam 8:14). I think it was Milton Friedman who correctly noted that all government spending is taxation. Politicians are simply connected people who administer goodies to others for political and financial benefit. Congressmen parlay their connections into quite lucrative careers after leaving office, in areas like banking and lobbying that benefit lavishly from political connections.

One way to consider fighting back against the government is to stop, as much as legally possible, feeding it. Stop buying its bonds, use Fedex instead of the post office, don’t join the military, avoid funding public schools as much as possible, etc. Stop feeding into the legitimacy of the current American state as if it is run by anything other than corrupt power-mongers. Don’t buy the lie that a Republican takeover is the answer.

Yes, I know, we live in a fallen world. However, the Bible doesn’t get sentimental about Rome. Paul used his prerogatives as a Roman citizen, but his letters are bereft of state worship. Jesus steered clear of Judean politics. He and John the Baptist knew who Herod was.

Maybe Christians should take a hint from this.

Conservatives would love to scrap the income tax. Question: How do you do this and still support all the wars and defense?

Look at the math. The government is slated to take in about $2 trillion in tax revenue this year. Around $866 billion of that is from the income tax, while another $842 billion comes from FICA (which is supposed to be earmarked for various entitlements like social security). Meanwhile, the U.S. government is spending over $1 trillion a year on wars, overseas bases, and missiles (note: the US debt clock shows less, but that figure does not include supplemental appropriations).

Let us reason together, conservatives: How do we scrap the income tax and yet spend $1 trillion a year on defense? The government isn’t bringing in enough from the income tax to even fund current defense/war spending. Surely you don’t want to raise taxes. Surely you don’t want to continue the ruinous borrowing. Surely you don’t want the Fed to further debase the money supply.

Limited government and foreign interventionism are simply incompatible. The current level of defense spending is unsustainable.

Here is the argument I always hear: “Yes, but defense is a constitutional function. If the government didn’t spend so much on unconstitutional things like social entitlements, it could afford to fund Iraq and Afghanistan and our overseas bases!” While it is imperative that all social entitlement spending be phased out, the argument is simply wrong. Again, look at the figures. The current budget for wars and defense ALONE is enough to ensure “big government.”

Financially, these wars are a real danger to freedom, especially if a dollar collapse results in social chaos. I’m with Ron Paul that our presence in foreign countries does more harm than good anyway, but we’ve hit a point where the U.S. either brings the troops home and closes its bases now in orderly fashion, or it scoots home later with its tail between its legs.

This is my favorite snippet of his. It’s the funniest way you can spend three minutes learning how politicians think. Republican ones, too.

That’s Peter Schiff on how the health care bill will destroy the private insurance market. The proposed bill doesn’t take effect until after 2012, conveniently bypassing the next presidential election. In 2016, when the scope of the disaster is dawning on people, they probably won’t tie it back to the 2009 bill. Instead, greedy insurance companies and speculators will be blamed, just as oil greedy oil companies are blamed for high gas prices instead of the devalued dollar.

Regardless of whether the health care monstrosity passes, the size of unfunded liabilities (most of which are health-care related) ensures that rationing will ratchet up in the next decade. It’s going to take longer to see the doctor, especially specialists. Fewer treatments will be available. The process will be even more bureaucratic. The wages of big government is poverty.

Start thinking in general about how to deal with your health situations when your doctor’s office is less available. If you rely currently on, say, monitoring your blood pressure regularly and you do this at your doctor, think about getting your own home unit. These are the kind of things where one could expect to see shortages.

Email arose to get around the postal service mail monopoly. Cell phones have circumvented heavily taxed and regulated local phone services. How will the free market circumvent the government health care monopoly?

I think you’ll see more trips to Mexico and other countries for medical care. Walk-in pay clinics? Great idea, although those will be threats to the gov’t system and likely there will be pressure to outlaw them. There is already a huge amount of medical data online, professional and homespun. Maybe we’ll see more businesses arise allowing people to ask questions of specialists on the internet. These will have to be careful with all the personal injury attornies out there. Another way would be to let people buy prescription drugs with cash, without seeing a doctor, but that will never be allowed for various reasons (almost none of them good). Maybe some enterprising people will come up with ways to do various medical tests and solutions at home. More of these would undoubtedly exist if it weren’t for government regulatory oversight that adds huge cost barriers to innovation.

By the way, if any of you make any of these ideas fly, I fully expect to be reimbursed.

But we urge you, brethren, that you increase more and more; that you also aspire to lead a quiet life, to mind your own business… 1 Thess 4:10-11

Those who are busy-bodies, meddling in other men’s matters, generally have but little quiet in their own minds and cause great disturbances among their neighbours. -Matthew Henry

A thought has been occurring to me lately: Why do people think they can steward my money better than I can?

Imagine if I were granted the right to steward your money for you. Perhaps I’d make you buy cloth diapers. You can forget about that SUV; a used Cavalier will do. Don’t give me that nonsense about an easier way to ferry the kids home from school! You can cram three in the back of that Cavalier if you try. Your kids should be riding the school bus anyway (oh, I forgot, they will be going to public school because the private one costs too much). You can plan to start eating soy instead of steak, chubby. Also, your clothing will be furnished off the Old Navy clearance rack, and Old Shep will be dining on the cheapest 50lb bag of dog food that I can find.

Can you imagine being such an arrogant busybody, nannying the lives of other adults? Well, when we vote for a bond issue, or we support a new tax or a new government entitlement, that’s what we are doing. We are putting a claim on other people’s money. We’re reducing the money that they have available to steward for themselves. In effect, we are telling the government to spend other people’s money for them in accordance with our wishes.

How about we let people steward their own money instead, and let them be answerable to God for it?

I often do not steward my money wisely, but I can guarantee you one thing: I steward it more wisely than the government stewards its money. I’m not $100 trillion in debt, for example.

Granted, it’s not a very high bar to jump over.

As my wife will tell you, one of my favorite statements now is: “Nothing will change until the collapse.” In other words, the irresponsible spending will continue until the government cannot do it any more. The voters are deluded and/or economically ignorant, and won’t believe that the merry-go-round is going to stop until it actually stops. Politicians aren’t going to risk losing re-election by doing the right thing.

Perhaps I should define “collapse” (or “tsunami,” as I sometimes call it). I do not mean Mad Max or Omega Man. I do not necessarily mean that the economy will disappear and we’ll be back to barter, or that we’ll be pointing rifles at dudes throwing Molotov cocktails. What I do mean is a watershed time of huge economic downturn. The Argentine Fernando “Ferfal” Aquirre put it this way about his country’s 2001 economic crisis (allow for the fact that English is Ferfal’s second language):

Most man kind divides the world’s history according to the birth of Christ. So do we, but Argentineans also refer to “before and after 2001” or “before and after the crisis or 1:1″ (when 1 peso = 1 dollar). I kid you not, this kind of reference is used several times a day on ordinary conversations.

Example;
“Nice car! How did you afford it?”
“No, I bought it before the 2001 crisis”

“Have you ever been to Paris?”
“Yes, beautiful place”
“Really, man I wish I could go there”
”Yea, but I went before 1:1”

This is just an example, of how such an event transformed everything for us, in such a terrific scale.

When I say collapse or tsunami, that’s what I mean. I believe that a currency crisis and severe inflation will be involved, because (and you’ve heard this all before) the U.S. government has massive debts it cannot possibly pay back. It has made promises to entitlement recipients that it cannot keep. It has creditors who have been moving away from the dollar to cut their losses. The government is doing all the wrong things.

The end result of the collapse will be a more hardscrabble existence for all of us. Historically, people may look back and say that the collapse began in earnest last year, but I think it’s going to get much worse.

The U.S. Debt Clock has updated its figures and now lists unfunded liabilities of over $100 trillion. Note that the unfunded liabilities of the infamous Bush “prescription drug program,” which was rammed through by the Republican party leadership (whose hacks are often in the media complaining about irresponsible spending), now exceeds that of Social Security. Both programs are pikers, though, compared to Medicare.

Michael Moore has been on various shows flogging his new movie. He criticizes capitalism as “evil.” However, when he describes “capitalism,” it turns out that he’s really criticizing fascism.

The health care and banking systems are examples of economic fascism, which is the whorish entanglement of government and big business (with government playing the role of Daddy). Let’s take the banks for example. U.S. banks are a cartel under the thumb of the price-fixing Federal Reserve. The banks are “private,” but they operate under heavy regulation (which they embrace). Government agencies like the FDIC “guarantee” bank deposits with money they do not have, which means instead of one bank being at risk, the entire system is at risk of broad collapse. The big banks benefit from government guarantees that ensure privatized gains and socialized losses. Politicians benefit by getting large campaign contributions from financial interests, and they get their big government programs funded by the Fed’s counterfeiting. There is also a swell revolving door between lobbying and banking interests and government agencies. Look at the fantastic wealth accumulated by the Rubins and Hank Paulsons of the world.

The current banking system wouldn’t exist in a free market. To call the banking system “capitalist” is a horrid misuse of the word. Capitalism is simply private ownership of the means of production. It involves the voluntary interaction of buyers and sellers. I grow corn on my property and offer it for sale. You (or a middleman) decide whether to buy it. We must agree on a price. The capitalist system is simply millions upon millions of these transactions.

In other words, the capitalist system means freedom. That’s why I prefer the term “free market” to “capitalism” because it speaks to peaceful, voluntary exchange. The alternative is that Michael Moore and others decide how to spend much of our money for us (since they arrogantly assume that they know how to allocate resources more efficiently and “fairly” than us uncaring dolts).

Michael Moore is an authoritarian socialist dressed in populist garb, so he has an interest in confusing his terms. He is another reminder of this observation by Paul Elmer More:

There is something at once comical and vicious in the spectacle of those men of property who take advantage of their leisure to dream out vast benevolent schemes which would render their own self-satisfied career impossible.

Government is good at one thing: It knows how to break your legs, hand you a crutch, and say, “See, if it weren’t for the government, you wouldn’t be able to walk.” -Harry Browne

There was a town hall event a few weeks ago where it transpired that one of the people who was there calling for (if I remember correctly) the abolition of Medicare had to be treated by Medicare for an injury. Haha, what a hypocrite!

Really? The government takes over half of our incomes, perhaps 3/4 of it once you trace the taxes everywhere. The government creates the inflation that slowly robs people of their savings and taxes false gains (e.g. If you buy a stock for $50/share and sell it 10 years later for $75/share, you have to pay capital gains on $25/share even though much of that gain is due to currency debasement i.e. inflation). All of these factors have created hardships if both spouses are not working. The government’s massive subsidies and other interventions in the health care, education, and financial markets have jacked up costs to the point where it’s difficult to survive outside of the system. The government created a massive bubble with its monetary policies that are wreaking havoc on family wealth.

Given all this, it’s hard for people to avoid the government net at some point. It’s hard to avoid an elephant that spends $4 trillion a year, especially if the majority of your income goes to fund its large appetite. Even principled people may have to swim to some extent in the elephant’s cesspool.

As regular readers know, I state often that nothing will change until the collapse brought about by the unavoidable, coming tsunami (this may not necessarily hit at once; it could be a wave that hits over an entire generation and causes the standards of living to fall dramatically). The reason to inform people of the “freedom” position is to hopefully influence what happens “on the other side,” after a currency crisis or some other spark that causes broken government promises. This is when people will be looking for answers.

Things can work out for the better after the tsunami. One reason the founding fathers hated paper money was because they experienced the ravages of it during the Revolutionary war. A similar thing occurred after the demise of the Civil War greenback. The post-Civil War era (up until the Progressive era came along and began dismantling it) was perhaps the most prosperous and soundest economic era in the nation’s history. The government was far less invasive then.

Things can also work out for the worse. Germany and Russia of the early 20th century come to mind. So does the corrupt French monarchy, which fell to the wickedness of revolutionary France, which in turn fell to the warmongering Napoleonic state that ended hundreds of thousands of lives.

Lew Rockwell believes that the best thing “average” people can do is spread the word with friends, family, and others you can influence. Help to create an informed minority (speaking of which, Ron Paul’s book End the Fed is now out).

My pastor reminds me on occasion that this is how it works with the Christian life too. Sprout where you’re planted.

Conservative talk radio is already abuzz about the 2010 mid-term elections. The hope is that Barack Obama is self-destructing, and a massive wave of discontent will lead to a great victory for the Republicans. Hopes are often dashed, but let’s assume the Republicans do sweep into Congress in 2010. Then what?

Here’s what: there will be more borrowing and spending. There will be the requisite complaining about the borrowing and spending to mollify the conservative base, but much of that base doesn’t really want entitlements cut any more than the rest of the electorate. Entitlement spending is the main reason why the tsunami is coming, but politicians don’t get elected by promising to cut such spending. Voters may congratulate politicians for straight talk about the coming insolvency, so long as it stays talk. Politicians know they’ll get safer mileage out of focusing on inconsequential discretionary spending and abstractions such as “We need to get our fiscal house in order!”

I’m all for driving a stake into Obamacare, but politicians who aren’t seeking to drastically cut entitlement spending are part of the problem because entitlement spending is the problem. In other words, all but a handful of Congressmen are part of the problem. That includes the conservative flavor of the week: Congressman Joe “You lie!” Wilson. It’s noteworthy that Rep. Wilson voted for Bush’s prescription drug entitlement, which now has liabilities exceeding $16 trillion. He voted for the September 2008 bank bailout, too.

The Republicans are using Obama’s dissembling about Medicare rationing against him. Do you think Republicans are going to turn around and push their own cuts to a Medicare Ponzi scheme that is $70+ trillion in the hole and well on its way to collapse? Are you kidding me? They aren’t going to touch it with a ten-foot pole. They know that people who hang around for an explosion tend to get blown up. (The idea that the government will move toward fiscal soundness before the collapse is as laughable as Barack Obama’s fondness of using the excuse that he inherited a economic crisis, as if he would’ve acted more fiscally responsible than George W. Bush. Who was that former senator from Illinois pushing for all that big government? It must have been the current president’s evil twin.)

Voters won’t accept that their entitlement programs are hosed until they’re actually hosed in the coming tsunami. Most of them contributed payroll taxes, and as the masterful and reprehensible FDR once said, “no d*** politician can ever scrap” such entitlements, even if they were a fraud from the beginning (which they were) and the money was spent long ago (which it was).

Republicans are often better than Democrats on key issues like gun rights and abortion funding, even if at best they tend to just maintain the status quo. However, unless the tsunami has already hit, the 2010 election won’t propel meaningful economic change, nor will it remove the inevitability of the tsunami… even if the Republicans win every contested seat in Congress.

Perhaps it’s a waste of time to debate the merits of Obamacare, Cap and Trade, or the latest stimulus measures. None may matter due to one overriding reason: they will all be deluged in the tsunami to come. They’re all empty promises.

The tsunami will slam ashore once the crisis occurs over the national debt. This is the key political issue of our time (at least economically) that frames all others, and yet it is largely ignored. People are hoping against hope. Some politicians and citizens are wary, but the borrowing and spending continues unabated. Remember putting three pieces of bubble gum in your mouth and blowing a bubble the size of your head as a kid? It was awesome watching it grow and grow… until it popped all over your face and hair.

There’s no way to know if the tsunami will hit in a month, a year, or ten years. We can only speculate what will initiate it: the end of foreign debt buying, a Fed shell game uncovered, a series of major bank failures, a sudden submarining of confidence in the dollar… who knows. I know one thing: it’s coming, unless our Lord comes first. It’s coming for the same reason that a street drunk ends up in the gutter after a bender and for the same reason that punching a brick wall hurts your hand. It may hit more like a hurricane than a sudden wave, but nothing will be the same after the tsunami. There is no legitimate way to pay off the debt and the deficits are escalating. It is what it is. At this point, I don’t think there’s any way to escape the island. All the escape boats have been set adrift.

I have no idea how much damage the tsunami will do, but I think a few things are inescapable: (a) the standard of living is going to be much lower for years, perhaps a generation, and (b) some government programs may survive, but they’re going to handle fewer people with far less benefits in real purchasing power, and (c) A lot of people are going to be hurting. War, hunger, and anarchy wouldn’t be a surprise, nor would successful secession movements. More likely are the rise of multi-generational families under one roof, mending clothes, an emphasis on local communities, more crime, fewer imports, poorer health care, used cars, back yard garden plots, less travel, oil shortages, people working until they die, and hopefully fewer animal rights supporters and environmentalists (chic causes during prosperity give way to survival during lean times). This is just off the top of my head. You can follow the logic and come up with your own predictions.

Yes, everything will change in the tsunami’s wake, but Christians will do well to remember what C.S. Lewis noted back in 1939 as England fell into a cataclysmic war:

The war creates no absolutely new situation: it simply aggravates the permanent human situation so that we can no longer ignore it. Human life has always been lived on the edge of a precipice. Human culture has always had to exist under the shadow of something infinitely more important than itself. … We are mistaken when we compare war with “normal life”. Life has never been normal. Even those periods which we think most tranquil, like the nineteenth century, turn out, on closer inspection, to be full of cries, alarms, difficulties, emergencies. -C.S. Lewis, “Learning in War-Time”

God is still a very present help in trouble. Eternity is still forever.

Note: I have created a new category for posts on the economy and the coming tsunami.

We’ve heard more than one person tell us that cost is no object when it comes to our basic right to health care. This is like saying that air is no object when it comes to breathing.

Cost always matters because scarcity is a fact of life. Scarcity is there whether the government “provides” health care or not. Now, some say that health care is so important that we must spare no expense in providing it. Looking beyond the obvious objection that this immorally sanctions us to raid our neighbor’s wallet, there simply isn’t enough wealth to continue on our present financial path (and the government is always busy with new regulations that harm future wealth-building). Medicare and Medicaid alone, using conservative estimates, are almost $50 trillion in debt. That’s way more than the U.S. can ever afford. Government revenues for 2009 are projected in the $2 trillion range. Every new dollar spent is a borrowed dollar.

I tell people this, they disregard it, and basically retort that it needs to happen anyway. Well, pigs need to be able to fly, too. These people are like a Party Boy who gets his paycheck and spends it all on a big blowout keg party. Never mind what’ll happen later when the landlord comes calling for the rent.

Despite all this talk about Medicare savings that has the elderly up in arms, Obamacare will on net add trillions to already unsustainable levels of spending. Its supporters aren’t calling for us to forgo anything to fund all this new spending, except for perhaps military expenditures. While I’m all for bringing the troops home, eliminating the entire military budget (not just war spending) saves around $500 billion dollars a year. Now, $500 billion is a lot of money, but the U.S. deficit is $1.5-$2 trillion this year alone. So even eliminating the entire military budget, which of course will never happen, doesn’t resolve the deficit or future liabilities. Financially, the bigger problem is entitlement spending– Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, prescription drugs. Most Obamacare supporters believe that these things are sacred, and now they want a massive new program added to the list.

Isn’t the denial of reality, the utter foolishness and childishness of this, obvious?

Let’s say there is a church that built a million-dollar sanctuary back during the boom years. The bust occurred, and now the congregation has lost jobs and tithing is half what it once was. The church can’t meet its commitments. What would any sane session do at this church? Would they vote to borrow money to add another wing? Would they tell the congregation that funding xyz ministry’s is so important that “cost is no object?” Of course not. They would instead cut costs to the bone. They would recognize their earlier foolishness and consider moving to a place the congregation can afford. There is no more important work than that done by a faithful church, but that doesn’t mean that every church has a “right” to a large sanctuary or an expensive ministry to the poor. It has a right to what it can afford. The faithful church works with God’s provision (Rev. 2:8-9).

And so it should be with health care. Any system must be sustainable. Otherwise its will eventually fall victim to severe rationing, just like Party Boy will end up eating ramen noodles and fighting eviction. The system may even fall apart completely. Given that scarcity is a fact of life, I would much prefer the efficiencies, quality, innovation, and sustainability that spring from free-market competition instead of the deficits and wastefulness of government. We want the computer industry, not the post office.

Sometimes I just want to shake people and tell them to stop acting like children. If the dollar collapses as a result of the unsustainable spending and debt, then the chickens will really come home to roost for all the people who’ve pushed and pushed to extend the government spending to unsustainable levels. They are contributing to a disaster greater than any problem they wanted to solve.

He doesn’t hit the target 100% of the time (who does?), but few writers land harder punches than Gary North. Here is yet another example.

“Keep your eye on the yellow buses.” Indeed.

Most of you have probably heard that the Congressional Budget Office is predicting $9 trillion in federal deficits over the next 10 years. Politicians are kvetching about this. They won’t do anything serious about it, though. Too unpopular.

Understand something: You could create a comedy using CBO 10-year budget projections. They change constantly and they are almost always inordinately rosy. Some examples: In 2000, the CBO estimated a budget surplus of over $1 trillion for the next decade. In 2008, they projected that deficits would turn into a surplus by 2012. And now, in 2009, they are projecting steadily increasing revenues and economic growth beginning next year. If that sunshine happens, the deficits will only be $9 trillion over the next decade. Yee haw! You can revisit almost 35 years worth of “Budget and Economic Outlooks” here. Vast amounts of comedy.

Central planners always hope for the best. They think they can tinker with the economy and create a winner, but as Hayek explained long ago, central planning fails because bureaucrats do not have the knowledge of tens of millions of people making transactions in their various endeavors.

It’s hard to blame the CBO in the sense that no man can predict 10 years of the U.S. economy. No one can predict the future because no one knows the future. That said, all you have to do is look at what’s happened in the past and the economic trends (monetary policy, unemployment, debt and spending levels) and it’s evident that things aren’t headed in the right direction. When they tell you there will be $9 trillion added to the deficit over 10 years, it’s safe to hazard that the real number will be at least twice that. However, I think a crisis, perhaps even a collapse, is coming before that, which means that all bets are off the table.

When I ran a business, I had a woman ask me once if I paid a living wage. I replied that I paid a competitive wage. I wanted to tell her that if she were willing to pay me twice as much for the job, I could then pay my workers $25/hour. Many people are so clueless that they actually think that there’s a golden egg hidden somewhere– some vast store of wealth– that more regulations and taxes and righteous indignation at “profiteers” will uncover. Instead it just smothers the goose.

Similarly, politicians yearn for economic growth. They love to foster artificial booms using gimmicks like low interest rates. In times of prosperity, the populace isn’t as concerned about the government skimming more cream off the top. This suits the government just fine. The boom proceeds and everyone is rocking and rolling, and the government is expanding like Jabba the Hutt. Then the bust happens and there’s a mad dash to come up with more gimmicks. Politicians don’t understand– perhaps they don’t want to understand– what makes sustainable economic growth occur. They think borrowing and consumer spending and regulations, not production and savings and freedom, are what lead to sustainable economic growth. In their greed is the seed of destruction.

In case you want to keep track, here is the U.S. debt situation on one page. These figures are conservative compared to other estimates I’ve seen.

The top section of the site shows the national debt. It also shows the current year deficit which is added to the debt. The section at the very bottom is equally important. It shows the total unfunded liabilities. That is, this is what the government is short now to meet promises of future payment for entitlements.

I’m reminded of something Dennis Miller said 25 years ago (as the figures will indicate):

Federal deficit figures are in for the last decade, and the deficit for those ten years topped the trillion-dollar-mark. A trillion! And it goes up all the time. You know what that means, somewhere out there, there’s somebody who still insists on lending us money. I don’t know about you, [but] somebody runs up a tab like that on me, [and] I get a call from him hitting me up for more, I think I’m gonna go, “Hey, my man! You got that trillion you owe me!”

The only politician in Washington who is really worth listening to is Ron Paul. I think he may be the greatest single politician of my lifetime. Ron’s son Rand is now happily running for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky. Father and son are both physicians. Listen to them talk about health care.

Ron Paul makes a point in this video that I think is key: the entire government is broken. Barack Obama is attempting to apply a wrecking ball in the form of Obamacare and Cap and Trade, but the edifice has already crumbled. If John McCain had won the election (or if a “Ronald Reagan conservative” had won it), the “reforms” wouldn’t be as disastrous as those proposed by Obama, but at best they would be no better than the status quo. The status quo is unsustainable. We have the colossal and unpayable debt I’ve written about ad nauseum. We have a central bank (the Fed) that steals our money and has doubled the monetary base in one year. We have a massive system of taxation. We have states all over going bankrupt. We have a massive federal bureaucracy. We have a deficit that will probably be at least $2 trillion this year. The entire system militates against prudence and fiscal soundness. It’s way too big. There’s just no lipstick that’ll make the pig attractive.

The only solution to is to drastically cut spending, let interest rates rise to market levels, eliminate regulations, and let the market restructure the country through a painful depression. However, the Republican Party, our supposed party of limited government, whose liberal members even claim to be “fiscal conservatives,” has no will whatsoever to cut spending. They never have. Spending always increases. It went up throughout the Reagan administration. It went through the roof when the Republicans controlled both the presidency and Congress during Bush’s first term. Nothing has changed. Many Republicans voted for the stimulus programs. One-third of House Republicans voted to extend Cash for Clunkers this week. Meanwhile, the utterly reprehensible Democratic Party has the fiscal soundness of a young child.

It’s amazing to hear people say that they support “bipartisan solutions.” How do you think we arrived at our current state of bankruptcy? It took two to tango.

Both parties are just looking for soundbites and leverage over the other one to get the upper hand in the polls. Since neither party will do the right thing, all they can both do is look to escalate the borrowing and spending, and put off the collapse as long as possible. That is what’s going on right now. While anyone with sense should hope that the Republicans stop Obama’s lunacy, understand that Republicans will continue to refuse to take the revolutionary steps needed to replace our house built on sand. Just as they always have.

Nothing will change until the collapse.

“…instead of having both a window and a suit he must be content with the window and no suit.” -Henry Hazlitt

I don’t like to overwrite about this topic, but few Christians write about economic issues. This Cash for Clunkers program announced by the government is just too rich to pass up. It is a classic example of Bastiat’s “Broken Window Fallacy.” This fallacy was restated concisely by Henry Hazlitt. If you understand the Broken Window Fallacy, you’ll understand the majority of the economic errors made by the government. In fact, Hazlitt’s classic Economics in One Lesson should be read by every child and adult. It should be read by elders and deacons. It helps you to understand how to think about economics.

Cash for Clunkers allows people to take in their old cars to a dealership in exchange for a maximum $4,500 credit toward a new, more fuel-efficient car. The old car must be crumpled up and destroyed. People take an old car that likely works and is likely paid-for and affordable, and exchange it for a new car that costs a lot more money. Most people will go into debt. They won’t be able to purchase something else. They won’t be able to save and invest the money that they spent on a car (I haven’t looked at car prices, but I’ll bet they are going up as a result of this policy, much like college tuition or anything else subsidized by the government). After each transaction, the government goes that much further into debt and society as a whole has one fewer, functioning car, and as a result is that much poorer. It’s a persistent fallacy that prosperity comes through destruction (e.g “World War II got us out of the Depression!”). Need I go on?

The media reports on this numbskull plan as if it’s a pretty swell idea. It’s working! Look at all the people in the showrooms! In reality, Cash for Clunkers is really nothing a handout to political interests (car companies and unions) and a bone for thoughtless consumers. It’s corrupt corporate welfare. It is an attempt to “goose” one sector of the economy. Since sales will fall off if it is discontinued, expect it to continue for a long time. The government doesn’t have any money and is going further into debt to pay for this handout. Its costs, like all the other debt the government is taking on, will be paid through the debasement of the dollar.

When you hear of a government program like this, it’s wise to ask questions like: Does the government have the Constitutional right to do this? What does it cost? How will it be paid for? Does it really benefit everyone or just a small number of people? What powers is the government assuming, and will it lessen my political and economic freedom? The last question is particularly important to get us beyond looking at immediate self-interest (“hey, I need a car, this is great!”). It’s easy to be corrupted by the state.

Everyone complains that the government spends too much and bureaucracies overregulate us. They do this inch by inch, program by program.

One other thing about the health care situation… When the wife and I returned from Russia a few years ago, we connected through Atlanta Hartsfield International airport. During the layover, we were struck by the juxtaposition of the trim bodies in St. Petersburg with the obese girths of the Americans waddling through the Atlanta airport.

People have long had easy access to doctors in our dollar-fueled economy. They have insurance through their employer that pays for most of their doctor visits (a relic of government laws stretching back to WWII). People can stay fat and know that the doctor is always there to provide low-cost medications to alleviate high cholesterol and other aches and pains that are often caused by carrying around an extra bowling ball or two in their gut or fanny. Given that health care rationing is inevitable even if we are spared Obamacare, I doubt many will feel the same way when it takes a year to get an MRI like it does in Canada. Just as people started saving when they realized that their house wasn’t a source of wealth any longer, they will probably start eating better and exercising when they realize that it will keep them out of an unpleasant health care system. Americans will be forced to do more in the area of prevention. I suggest everyone start doing it right now.

Of course, prevention isn’t 100%-effective. Accidents happen. People get cancer and have heart attacks despite healthy living. However, in general it’s a truism that eating right and exercising is healthier than being sedentary and overweight. A lot of medications would not have to be prescribed. People would get sick less often. They’d have fewer aches and pains. They won’t be tooling around the grocery store in those motorized carts because they’re too out-of-shape to walk the aisles.

Paul says in 1 Tim 4:8 that while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way. This is true and we shouldn’t make idols of our bodies. At the same time, when I see an obese preacher, I wonder how they can have self-control in their spiritual life if they lack self-control in their eating and exercise habits. I say this not as a superior life form: I’ve been 30 pounds overweight and I’m now about 15 points overweight. A box of donuts has often sounded tastier than chicken and fruit. However, one way we can love our neighbors is by staying out of the cluttered health care system once it becomes heavily rationed. We can show that our belly isn’t our god. We can have self-control.

It’s not rocket science to know that eating right and exercising (and I might add, using the means of grace) are part of living a healthy lifestyle. The trick to eating better and exercising is to find things that motivate you to do both.

Programs like Weight Watchers help you understand what you are eating. This motivated me. Weight Watchers has a formula where you count points based on the number of calories, fat, and fiber in a food. You get a certain number of points per day based on your weight, and can use the points in any way you please. You soon find that it’s better to spend 8 points on lean meat and lite bread than 12 points on a sliver of cake if you want to avoid your stomach growling all day. Weight Watchers remains with you after you move on from it. I still use its concepts. It’s second nature to do the math in my head (using the formula) on just about any food.

One of the consequences of our bubble economy was that people were eating out a lot during the boom. It’s surprising to see the extreme unhealthiness of most restaurant food. Check out the calories and fat in the foods at your favorite restaurant. It’s really hard to imagine how a restaurant can squeeze 141 grams of fat into a single burger, or 128 grams of fat into a chicken and broccoli pasta, and yet they manage it (a McDonalds hamburger has a paltry 9 grams of fat by comparison).

Exercise is the same as food: find something that motivates you. The best exercise is the exercise that you can and will do regularly. You may have to change it up every few months. Some people like to run. I don’t. Some like to power-walk or bike. Some like going to a gym with an ipod. Some like classes. There are tons of workout DVDs. My wife and I are doing P90X right now. It is kicking our behinds on a daily basis, but we have grown to like it and the instruction. I like its focus on ensuring that one gets plenty of protein. To survive it though, you have to follow the nutrition plan… French fries and pop tarts just don’t give you the fuel to get through it. The P90X people have other programs too, including a less-strenuous version of P90X called Power 90. It isn’t easy either, but real exercise isn’t. Get a heart monitor so you can ensure that you really are exercising. And get busy.

“Obamacare” is a disaster in waiting. There is no way that tens of millions of people can be added to a system while achieving cost savings (unless there is heavy rationing). The cost estimate I’ve seen for Obamacare is $1.6 trillion. As Ron Paul has noted, you can triple that with most government programs (case in point, Bush’s prescription drug plan). The U.S. simply doesn’t have the money for “national health care.”

Few have noted that the existing system, although preferable to Obamacare, is also doomed. Fewer indeed have noted that the health care system is already largely socialized; more than half of health care spending is Medicare, Medicaid, etc. And even fewer than that have noted that Medicare and Medicaid account for the majority of the unfunded entitlements (i.e. the difference between benefits promised and what will be collected in taxes and premiums). Medicare, not Social Security, is the largest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world.

In fact, according to these guys, Medicare’s future liabilities are $89 trillion. Let me repeat that: $89 trillion. To give you some perspective on how massive that sum is, total federal tax receipts for 2007 and 2008 averaged around $2.5 trillion a year (so far this year, receipts are down over 30%). Obviously there is no way the U.S. will ever pay for future Medicare liabilities. It couldn’t do it if it taxed everyone 100% of their income. The figures keep climbing, too. The government is adding another ~$2 trillion to the debt this year alone.

What the government should do is repudiate (or at least restructure) its current debt. It should use this framework to overhaul the health care system. The government should phase out all entitlements– all of them– because all of them are unconstitutional, unsustainable, criminal Ponzi schemes. For all of you who were expecting your Social Security and Medicare benefits, well, what can I say? The government already spent the money and then some. Don’t shoot the messenger. The treasury is empty except for a colossal mountain of IOUs. It is simply immoral for us to find more foreign government suckers to buy our debt (which we can’t ever pay back) just so we can have our “right” to costly health care. We don’t have a “right” to ride the backs of Chinese peasants who are forgoing their own consumption to fund ours.

So I’ve outlined what the government should do. What will it actually do? I’m guessing that it will do what it always does and take the path of least resistance (i.e. the one that’ll get politicians re-elected). The Republicans and Democrats will compromise on an awful non-solution or things will remain as-is. In either case, the government will keep trying to find suckers — the Chinese government, the Japanese government, mom’s mutual fund, etc. — to buy escalating piles of treasury debt. The promises will remain: “Don’t worry folks, your programs are safe.” Eventually there won’t be any more suckers to buy our debt, or perhaps escalating unemployment will trigger massive inflation as the government encourages the banks to start lending out their reserves (the reserves they gave the banks in exchange for worthless “toxic” assets). Don’t be surprised to see a full-fledged dollar crisis and massive inflation. Things will get ugly in a hurry. Eventually rationing will begin in earnest. People will slowly realize that all that Social Security and Medicare they were expecting just isn’t going to be there. Their money won’t buy anything. They’ll have full health care, but they won’t be able to get in to the doctor or get the treatment they want.

And the lies will continue until the bitter end.

[T]he Lord commanded that those who proclaim the gospel should get their living by the gospel. But I have made no use of any of these rights, nor am I writing these things to secure any such provision. -1 Cor 9:14-15a

If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. -Romans 12:18

Liberals and progressives like to talk about harmony and peace and unity, and yet their philosophy is by its nature divisive because it involves spending other people’s money. It involves the use of involuntarily-provided funds. If I have a bad experience at a restaurant, I can avoid it. However, I have to continue supporting government-funded schools. I have to continue paying for other people’s abortions. I resent this greatly. If you talk to people, they resent their money being used against their will, too. They resent having to bail out GM. They resent bailing out banks. They resent lazy state workers in their plush offices. It wouldn’t bother them if they didn’t have to pay for it. Harmony is the fruit of emulating the Apostle Paul. Resentment is the fruit of liberalism.

If it were only that easy to just blame liberals, though. Alas, we have seen the enemy… Let me explain.

The state of Ohio has a $3.2B deficit. The majority of Ohio’s budget is for Medicaid and Education. Revenues are declining and the bills for all the big spending are coming due now that the bubble has popped. Half of the people I know have jobs that are either directly or indirectly funded by the government. My own family is included. One sister works in health care and says “Help Medicaid!” Another, a former teacher, is averse to education cuts. Another works at a library: “Don’t cut library funding!” I responded that the state is deeply in the red, and cuts around the edges won’t get it done. Deep cuts are needed. They listen, but they still don’t want their favorite program cut.

This is why I have resolved, as much as possible, to never again work for the government or in a heavily-regulated industry (i.e. one that will get bailed out when it gets in trouble). It is corrupting. Those who support limited government make exceptions for their pet area. It’s usually an area that benefits their own wallet or one where they have emotional attachment. Their defenses always stumble over the same rock: they want funds that many people, in some cases most people, would never voluntarily supply. This will always create disharmony and resentment. Everyone is ripping everyone else off, and no one is happy about it. The guy who wants his car company bailed out doesn’t agree that farmers should be subsidized. The farmer doesn’t agree that bankers should get a bailout. The banker doesn’t agree that college professors should live high on the hog at the expense of others. And so on.

They’re all correct. They just need to apply it to themselves. Until this is done by enough people, the budget problems will continue. It’s easy to blame “liberals” — they fully deserve it — but budgetary problems and resentments will never cease until “conservatives” and “libertarians” stop being part of the problem by desiring to protect their own state-funded filthy lucre. This is what really props up big government.

The late libertarian, Harry Browne, ran a memorable campaign for president in 1996. I didn’t agree with Mr. Browne on everything, but among his keen insights was a question: “Would you give up your favorite program if it meant you never had to pay income tax again?” It’s a question more people need to ask themselves.

Beware the corrupting influence of the state.

We don’t burn our draft cards down on Main Street / Cause we like a livin’ right and bein’ free. -Merle Haggard

The late libertarian Harry Browne once called the Defense Department “the Post Office in battle fatigues.” I believe his point was that people often romanticize the military brass, but really these are just government bureaucrats.

After World War II, the Cold War arose, and conservative-minded folks became suspicious about opponents of war. Didn’t they want to fight communists? This divide deepened in the 1960s, when all the dopey hippies came along preaching free love and flying high. My late father, a WWII vet who fought under MacArthur, despised hippies. He rightly saw them as irresponsible cretins. When I was young in the 1970s, America was still fighting aggressive communism. Those who opposed the fight were distrusted, especially those who told us that if we were just nicer to dictator xyz, then they’d listen to reason and we’d all sing Kumbaya together (we see their descendants today who think Obama some sort of demigod). Middle American conservatives don’t like these people. They distrust those who oppose military involvement. They prefer Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh.

This was my own thinking on wars for a long time– I favored every war up until Iraq. It was then that my views started changing. I still can’t stand hippies, but I took a second look at the serious anti-war libertarians (as opposed to the liberal posers who’ve suddenly quieted down since their guy was elected). If we don’t trust the government in anything it does domestically, why should we trust its foreign policy wisdom? Perhaps the things they do there backfire. Perhaps they are motivated by non-altruistic concerns.

Consider these problems with wars:

• People get killed. Our soldiers, their soldiers, and civilians. It sounds simple, and it doesn’t mean that there aren’t instances where wars can save lives, but the fact that people are being killed should invite questions about the necessity of any war.
• Wars waste a lot of money. The government spends huge amounts of money to create weapons. Then it uses those weapons to blow up bridges and buildings in other countries. Then it spends still more to rebuild all those homes and bridges. Where does this money come from? It is stolen from the private sector. Debt and inflation attack the savings that could have funded real investment. A labor force that could have produced useful items instead is diverted to produce things that will be blown up. (This gives lie to this idea that World War II “got us out of the Depression.” This conventional wisdom is a fallacy, as historians like Robert Higgs have pointed out.)
• Wars divert resources from the private to the public sector. Any dollar moved from the private realm to the public realm enervates private society and strengthens the the public sector.
• Government grows bigger and more powerful on the heels of popular support for wars. This leads to new laws that expand government and lessen social and economic freedom. The late conservative Paul Weyrich noted that one should never give to your friend power that your enemy might one day inherit. If Obama’s popularity persists, will anyone be surprised if its administration eventually use all the new security powers given it by the Bush Administration to persecute all you 2nd-Amendment “terrorists” out there with your guns, or you unpatriotic elements who won’t hire unrepentant homosexuals? It wouldn’t surprise me. As we continue toward a cashless society, it becomes easier to ensure that no transaction goes unnoticed. We usually are told it’s all about “national security.” I guess it’s all just a coincidence that it eases auditing and taxation, and eliminates privacy.
• Randolph Bourne put it this way: “War is the health of the State. It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate cooperation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. … Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion bitter and satirical. Loyalty — or mystic devotion to the State — becomes the major imagined human value. Other values, such as artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed, and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them.”
• Empires are brought down by expensive wars. The US is, conservatively, $65-100 trillion in the hole now depending on which estimates you believe. Debt and inflation always accompany wars. The U.S. simply does not have the money to be blowing stuff up in Iraq or to be occupying bases across the globe. Necessity will eventually force many of these troops home in lickety-split fashion. Empire is the last stage before collapse.

I am not anti-war in blanket fashion, but I hate big government. I do not trust the state. Why should I?

Why should you, my conservative friends? I am not saying that all wars are evil. But be very skeptical.

When Peter Schiff goes on TV and spreads his bearish message, it’s never long before he’s called “Dr. Doom” and people joke about what a downer his message is. The idea seems to be that if you see a train wreck coming, you’re either suicidal or a doom-and-gloomer who needs to lighten up. Most Christians I’ve talked to seem content to “trust God” and do nothing. Many Christians have bought this triumphalist idea that “we’re America” and economic laws don’t apply to our “shining city on a hill.” Or they believe that something will turn up. I call it Mr. Micawber Syndrome.

Of course, we do need to trust God, but that doesn’t free us from acting. If you are mowing the lawn and you see a tornado coming, you don’t keep mowing and “trust God.” You run into the basement and then trust the outcome to the Lord. God works through means. A lot of warning bells are sounding. Will you heed them?

Folks, you need to get prepared now, mentally and materially and tell others who will hear to do the same. This brief talk provides a good start on practical ways to prepare for economic disruption. It won’t tell you to build a bomb shelter out by a creek. It isn’t going to tell you to buy a shack full of emergency meal kits. It will tell you to get a few months of canned food ready and start rotating it and making it a part of your lives. My brother-in-law has started a garden and learned to can. These are good ideas. Even if nothing happens (which I doubt very much), you’ll be prepared for temporary disruptions. You’ll have new skills.

The talk will tell you to get your, er, personal security in place. I’m a believer in concealed carry. If you can do in your state, then get your license and get in the habit. As the dude from Argentina will tell you, the place you’re likely to get attacked isn’t inside your castle, it’s outside your castle. Also, you’re doing a public service by creating a more dangerous world for criminals to inhabit. You can carry a lot more places than you might think. Oddly, in Ohio they put a silly exclusion in so you can’t carry in churches unless the church expressly allows it (hint hint, elders and deacons), whereas with most establishments you CAN carry unless prohibited (unless you’re drinking there) or unless (surprise surprise) it’s a government facility.

The collapse that seems likely won’t be a post-apocalpytic world where we wander through junkyards with shotguns. It’ll be more like Argentina. Savings accounts and retirement plans will be wiped out by a monetary crisis (debts will probably go with it, which is good for debtors and bad for creditors). The government will default on its bonds via inflation. Social Security, Medicare, and other government programs will show themselves to be Ponzi schemes and empty promises (You know all that FICA money they collected from you? Well, they’ve spent it.) There will be a period of crisis where things could get ugly, but then reality will set in. A lot more businesses will close. Office parks and buildings will be abandoned. Cities will see revenue sources dry up. We’re seeing it already. Tax receipts are WAY down. Capital-intensive businesses that can create stuff to export won’t be started because savings are depleted. The personal debt spigots — credit cards and home equity loans — are drying up as people’s credit limits are reduced or eliminated altogether. The government’s deb spigots are being slowly turned off by those who are tired of lending to our spendthrift government. The government, meanwhile, is busy attacking the foundations of prosperity (savings and production). They are spending like madmen. Due to the lack of work, and to escape taxation, people will start more of a subsistence style of living. They’ll grow their own food, make their own clothes, and do odd jobs for the neighbors. This has already started happening. Crime is going to more prevalent. The standard of living will be much lower. Material things will start looking shabbier because people can’t replace them. It’s going to be a long road out of what Mr. Schiff calls “our phony economy” based on debt. Those who saved and acted wisely won’t be spared; inflation will see to that, as will (likely) a more aggressively criminal government.

You get the point by now. Maybe it won’t be all bad, though. Maybe we’ll be blessed to see government and education bureaucracies collapse. Maybe we’ll have more freedom. Maybe we’ll be forced to learn how to make things and grow things again instead of just consuming things other countries make. Maybe people will realize that we don’t have “rights” to things that burden the backs of people in other countries (i.e. our creditors who are going to be paid back in devalued dollars). Maybe the government and popular culture will become more irrelevant. Maybe people will stop believing the false prophets (and false profits) in Washington. We can hope.

It’s a good idea to get in shape, too. That doesn’t guarantee our health, but in a world where health care is going to be rationed it’s best to try to stay out of the hospital.

We got used to a boom world and thought it was normal. The bust is now upon us. Get ready and spread the word as the opportunity permits. Don’t be the proverbial person battling someone at Walmart for the last bottled water on the shelf. Plus, if a panic hits, the last thing you want to be doing is helping to increase the panic by picking that moment to start hoarding resources. There will be a million people jamming the stores. They won’t need a million and one.

And remember: you’re probably going to need extra to help those who are blindsided or who foolishly refuse to prepare. A church can be a great blessing if its members are exhorted to be prepared. It may be worth talking about with your pastor, elders, and/or deacons.

Here’s a thoughtful article on McDonalds, one of my favorite dining establishments. The article makes keen points about elitist snobbery and the moral aspects of capitalism. A sample:

One of the reasons that the elites loathe places like McDonald’s, or Wal-Mart, or Target, or any of these places that cater to Everyman – and you might suppose that the champions of the workers and peasants would love these places – is precisely their capacity to rob the rich of their distinctive social markers. One day it was a sign of class and distinction to drink a latte; the next day, every construction worker is doing it.