AMERICA’S POTENTIAL DEBT DEFAULT:

How unprece­dent­ed would default be? The United States has nev­er failed to repay a debt in its his­to­ry. But it has twice altered the repay­ment terms, notes a study by Carmen M. Reinhart of the University of Maryland and Kenneth S. Rogoff of Harvard University. In 1790, when the infant repub­lic took over the states’ colo­nial-era debts, it deferred some inter­est for 10 years. A more per­ti­nent case occurred dur­ing the Great Depression. In 1933, President Franklin D. Roosevelt deval­ued the dol­lar by 41 per­cent against gold. This helped end the vicious cycle of bank fail­ures, defla­tion and default that had wors­ened the eco­nom­ic down­turn, but it cre­at­ed anoth­er dilem­ma. Since the Civil War, bor­row­ers in the United States, includ­ing the gov­ern­ment, had rou­tine­ly issued bonds that allowed the hold­er to demand repay­ment in gold or its dol­lar equiv­a­lent, based on the price of gold when the bond was issued. Devaluation would have dra­mat­i­cal­ly raised, in dol­lar terms, the bur­den of repay­ment. So in 1933, Congress repealed the gold clause, a deci­sion the Supreme Court upheld in 1935.

at: http://​www​.wash​ing​ton​post​.com/​w​p​-​d​y​n​/​c​o​n​t​e​n​t​/​a​r​t​i​c​l​e​/​2​0​0​9​/​0​1​/​0​9​/​A​R​2​0​0​9​0​1​0​9​0​2​3​2​5​.​h​tml

So as this new dead­line on the debt ceil­ing looms, we are left won­der­ing what will hap­pen ? The President has already com­mit­ted to giv­ing more than most Democrats are com­fort­able with . Democrats are not pleased when they con­sid­er what the details of those con­ces­sions could poten­tial­ly mean to the lives of actu­al peo­ple who ben­e­fit from Medicare,Medicaid and Social Security.Americans whom have worked and con­tributed, with the promise that when they retired those enti­tle­ments would be there.

President Obama is forced into a cor­ner either way. On the Morning after his elec­tion Republican awoke to the real­i­ty that a black man would be occu­py­ing the white house, they decid­ed they would do every­thing in their pow­er to destroy his pres­i­den­cy, even if it includ­ed destroy­ing the coun­try . It is evi­dent the repub­li­cans who wrap them­selves in the American flag, pre­tend­ing to hav­ing a monop­oly on patri­o­tism, did not care of the con­se­quences to the coun­try .What mat­tered was that Barack Obama has to be stopped.

Their High Priest ‚the Ultra right-wing wind bag, Rush Limbaugh artic­u­lat­ed the way for­ward for the repub­li­can minor­i­ty. they want­ed Obama to fail, Senators , Congressmen and women com­menced to par­rot that refrain ‚when some­one dared to point out to them that it would mean the fail­ure of the coun­try, they argue that the President’s agen­da was so lib­er­al , so un-American that it would be a good thing for those poli­cies to fail because if enact­ed it would be tan­ta­mount to the Destruction of America.

Those were the same argu­ments made when FDR was enact­ing his agen­da, the same argu­ments made when Slavery was abolished,On every occur­rence of a pro­gres­sive agen­da that includ­ed the peo­ple , repub­li­cans resort to fear mon­ger­ing and race bait­ing to scare the pop­u­la­tion into dissent.

In Obama’s case they chose a path that was trav­elled before , they sought to make Obama different.

The car­i­ca­ture and the car­toon depic­tions at the tea part ral­lies were rem­i­nis­cent of a time that most intel­li­gent peo­ple thought were behind America. They con­spired to de legit­imize his pres­i­den­cy on the argu­ments he was born out­side of America, any­one under­stand­ing how American Government works , under­stands the tiered sys­tem of clear­ance that obtains, in order to move up the fed­er­al ladder.

At every step seri­ous back­ground checks are done . Does any­one in their right mind believe that under any cir­cum­stance, America would allow an imposter, an ille­git­i­mate Manchurian can­di­date to occu­py the white house ?

The tea par­ty peo­ple embraced this fal­la­cy and to this day they con­tin­ue with their racist igno­rant cam­paign to make the President an outsider.

Unfortunately Barack Obama con­tin­ues to smile with them as if he real­ly believes they want to work or com­pro­mise .Even Republicans with com­mon sense, which is an oxy­moron these days , are afraid to men­tion the word com­pro­mise, when it is men­tioned in the same sen­tence with the name Barack Obama.

I nev­er thought I would see the day when Orrin Hatch of Utah would be viewed as a mod­er­ate. Such is the puri­ty test with­in what used to be the repub­li­can par­ty. That Party is now dom­i­nat­ed by racist ide­o­logues ‚who wrap them­selves in the American flag, pre­tend­ing to care about fis­cial pru­dence, a fis­cal matu­rit­ry that came about as as soon as Obama took office.

The Tea par­ty cared noth­ing about fis­cal proper­i­ty when Bush 43^rd was President. after inher­it­ing a bal­anced bud­get from Clinton it took him two years to squan­der over a tril­lion dol­lars of sur­plus, start­ed two wars and put the American econ­o­my into a near depression.

Obama is still grap­pling with that mess today. The hyp­ocrites who call them­selves tea par­ty patri­ots did not care then.They care because a black man is pres­i­dent and no one wants to call it what it is .I nev­er dreamed I would see the day when Lindsay Graham of South Carolina and Orrin Hatch of Utah would be seen as moderates.Such is the lit­mus test ‚that once mod­er­ates, such as John McCain has been forced to the far right ‚toward the fringe, to ensure their polit­i­cal sur​vival​.One thing is cer­tain we know what repub­li­cans stand for .Democrats could learn a les­son or two about prin­ci­ples from them.

What well think­ing per­sons here, and around the world real­ized, was that the flames of American big­otry and racism were not extin­guished, they were mere­ly reduced to smoul­der­ing embers cam­ou­flaged with ashes.

It seemed that the President was some­how still drunk with the dis­be­lief of his ascen​den​cy​.It appeared he believed Republicans would be pre­pared to work with him , the first African-American President.

It seem the President is delu­sion­al in his belief that the Republican Party would want him a black man ‚to have any notable suc­cess to point to. It was evi­dent to any­one watch­ing ‚repub­li­cans were going to sub­vert every­thing they could , effec­tive­ly run­ning out the clock on his presidency.

President Obama, despite a major­i­ty in the house and senat,was unable to gar­ner any sup­port from repub­li­cans, for his sig­na­ture accom­plish­ment ‚the health care bill dubbed Obama-care, Democrats squab­bled amongst them­selves as they have always done , a move which sucked the good­will Americans had for the new Administration.The result of the dis­af­fec­tion was evi­dent in the midterm elec­tions, a dis­af­fec­tion Obama called a shellacking.

Mark you, the President did not yet artic­u­late a way for­ward , he had just tak­en office when the anti Obama onslaught commenced.But let’s get back to the issue at hand for a sec­ond , President Obama went into the dis­cus­sions mak­ing give­aways, some­thing Former President GW Bush would nev­er do. President Bush famous­ly stat­ed he nev­er nego­ti­at­ed with him­self, this was evi­dent through­out his two terms in office, on every issue he ram­rod Democrats, herd­ing them to sign onto his agen­da, if they resist­ed he would take to the air­waves and label them obstruc­tion­ists, lit­er­al­ly mak­ing them look un-American.

Tom Daschle stood in the way of the rad­i­cal right-wing assault on the Constitution ‚they made sure that all the mon­ey his oppo­nent need­ed was made avail­able to him. They poured untold mil­lions of dol­lars into South Dakota and suc­ceed­ed in unseat­ing Daschle, this was unprece­dent­ed in recent times, there was an un-writ­ten rule that the President would not go to the home state of the Majority leader to cam­paign against him.

Bush did that ‚unashamed and un apolo­getic. Democrats were rail­road­ed into sign­ing onto the Patriot ACT after September 11 at risk of seem­ing to sup­port ter­ror­ists if they dared even ques­tion what was in the ACT. hon­est mem­bers of the Democratic Party have con­fessed they nev­er even both­ered to read the volu­mi­nous Bill the Bush Administration’s Lawyers gave them , they just vot­ed Aye! Rights and Civil Liberties be dammed.

So where does this President find him­self? he made mam­moth offers to the Republicans,they slapped his hand away.They want con­ces­sions that would be so far-reach­ing there would be wide­spread civ­il war in the Democratic Party, a move that would effec­tive­ly seal the pres­i­den­t’s fate.

On the oth­er side of the coin if the coun­try goes into default , it will be a scar­let let­ter on his Presidency, Republicans cal­cu­lates that either way Obama looses.

There are numer­ous argu­ments being made detail­ing the con­se­quences to the econ­o­my in the event the Nation defaults on its debts, new­ly installed IMF chief Christine Lagarde said Sunday, quote ” there would be real nasty con­se­quences to the glob­al econ­o­my if the United States default­ed on its finan­cial oblig­a­tions, end quote.

Despite these pro­jec­tions and all of the assess­ments that have being in the pub­lic domain from qual­i­fied Economists and oth­ers, Republicans in the US Senate and the right-wing nut cas­es in the house, elect­ed under the tea par­ty ban­ner, con­tin­ue to play polit­i­cal brinks­man­ship with the American and glob­al Economy.

They have made a deci­sion that Ideological puri­ty is far more impor­tant to them that leav­ing a liv­able coun­try to their children.

mike beck­les:

have your say;