The American economy is tanking faster than President Bush's approval ratings, and in order to save this nation, it's of tantamount importance to stop the financial bleeding and take steps to stabilize our economy before it's too late.

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The LA Times ran an editorial today that cuts to the heart of one of our issues that have Americans on edge; we sit in fascination as inflation has skyrocketed, and everything we buy has gone up in price, and it’s a strange world when a gallon of milk is sometimes more expensive than a gallon of gas.

In this economy, failure is an option

By Peter G. Gosselin, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
July 20, 2008

WASHINGTON — The U.S. economy appears to be caught in a cycle of recurrent panic attacks. So many things have gone wrong, and so much anxiety has accumulated in the financial system, that nothing seems safe.

As a result, no sooner has one crisis seemed to recede than another has popped up, to be followed by another and still another.

* Nations with vast oil wealth gaining clout

*It costs what?! Calculating the CPI requires a lot of shopping around

*Americans may be losing faith in free markets

“We’ve gotten to that classic point in a financial crisis where it’s gone on for long enough we know there are losses. We just don’t know where they are,” said Joseph R. Mason, a financial economist at Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge. MUCH MORE

I am not attempting to create a panic when I write about this subject. People, by not being careful, can cause a “run” on a bank, where all of the depositor’s demand their money, and that action by itself can cause a bank to fail. Such measures are unnecessary for the time being, and I believe people can invest their money (if the have any extra) and make sound financial decisions by being apprised of the facts. The truth is many different answers, but it must be delivered with cautionary notes that people, through their own panic, could cause a financial institution to fail. That would be counterproductive at this time, and several banks are doing well, have raised all of their fees, and are having a “field day” with the American consumer. For the most part, your money in banks is fairly safe, and remember that only $100,000 is guaranteed by the FDIC, therefore, if you have that much in one bank, you might consider spreading the wealth and deposit in multiple banks to ensure that if a mass failures occur, you’re deposits are covered by federal insurance.

Further down in the Editorial, this sober statement was made, and it spells hard times for Americans across the board as we attempt to patch-up and repair an ailing economy:

“This thing simply hasn’t run its course,” said veteran banking consultant Bert Ely of Alexandria, Va. “We have a multiple-chapter housing saga that could go on well into the next decade.”

If this “housing saga” goes well into the the upcoming decade, Americans are in for rough times that may border on something akin to the Great Depression. Our federal policies as they regard our food supply and appropriate storage are severely lacking, they know it, but aren’t making a move to fix the problem. This could be manufactured, planned in the event of a national problem where martial law is declared and the government attempts to use food as a weapon. Bloggers and people across the nation have written in to Congress and the White House expressing their alarm at our current food situation. The floods that decimated much of the corn crop was predictable, and we know that global warming has raised hell with our food production - and it will continue to do so in increased frequency and severity.

Read the article “It’s a Class War, Stupid: Election season will be packed with distractions, but the real issue is a matter of life and death“. This piece was written by Matt Taibb, and it discuses an instance where Bernie Sanders sent out letters to his constituency to get their input on how the economy was impacting them on a personal level. Mr. Sanders admits that he didn’t expect a lot of feedback, but was surprised by the volume of mail and some of the stories rip at your heart and we have to ask ourselves, “what happened to America?” There is one story where a mother burned her dining room furniture, among other items. to provide heat for her family in the winter months. How can we look at ourselves in the mirror while this plunder of the average American is wrecking havoc across our entire country and our response is to tighten our belts and hope it gets better.

Bad news folks. It isn’t going to bet better, it’s going to become substantially worse, and our government knows it. This notion of sending billions of dollars in aid to other country while Americans are hungry is absurd. It can go on for a while longer, but eventually even those funds will have to be cut. We need to get on our own feet, protect American interests, and bring ourselves back to the position that we can help others without starving ourselves. We need to be a caring nation, but somehow, the “caring” for other nations superseded the needs of the average American, and we are quickly becoming “who” it is we are sending aid to, and the rapid decent into poverty is causing millions of American families to lose items they have worked year to accumulate, all to wind up in a pawn shops or sold in a paper to help and pay bills that seem to be growing larger on a daily basis.

We can see what’s happening, however, the burning question is, “what do we do about it?”. Anyone can write about he constant woes we face, but the time to discuss the problem is voided by the necessity to take the appropriate action that will help to stabilize an economy that only stays afloat from massive foreign loans, and if we default, they will be coming for their equity.

I started this article yesterday, and as with any disaster in the process of developing, new news is available, items that were missed the first time around were found that indicates the government is worried itself in regard the collapse of the dollar. This was actually published on July 17th, and I didn’t catch it immediately:

US Government to Intervene to Prevent US Dollar Collapse

In his testimony yesterday, Ben Bernanke, stated that “dollar Intervention should be done rarely” but that it “may be justified in disorderly times.”

The FT reported overnight that sovereign wealth funds are cutting their exposure to the dollar due to increasing concerns regarding the U.S. financial system and economy. Central banks internationally are doing likewise and western central banks have sharply decreased their gold sales and central banks in Asia, South America and the Middle East are becoming net buyers of gold again.

Due to the real risk of a run on the dollar, the U.S. government and many others are openly talking about intervention in currency markets to support the dollar by buying dollars and it is likely that this intervention might also take the form of selling gold, the anti dollar, in order to support the dollar.

Reuters’ Mike Dolan wrote yesterday that “Three days before the last bout of coordinated central bank intervention to calm world currency markets, the International Monetary Fund’s top economist opined: “If not now, when?” Many experts are now asking the same. MUCH MORE

In different press releases, Mr. Bernanke attempted to assure us that the majority of our banks are safe, and if you have less than 100K on deposit, you’re probably safe, but if you have more there isn’t a safety net that will protect you if your financial institution fails. I’m not an economist, don’t pretend to be, but I do read all of the advice and publications that are truthful on the matter, and besides, I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express last night, so my credentials in this matter have to be equal to or better than our President, who has shown us how to bankrupt the wealthiest nation on earth in just seven and a half years!

Without doubt or question, we are facing a financial crisis of unimaginable magnitude, and some will lose everything while others are poised to scoop-up what is lost by America’s former Middle-class. Joe Loserman accused Obama of “choosing to lose the Iraq War” because of setting a timetable with Iraqi Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki:

Lieberman: Obama choosing to lose Iraq war

WASHINGTON (CNN) — Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Barack Obama is choosing to lose the Iraq war by planning to withdraw American combat troops, a high-profile supporter of Republican candidate Sen. John McCain said Sunday.

Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a Democrat-turned-independent from Connecticut, said McCain’s support for bolstering U.S. forces in Iraq last year to subdue insurgents has made Obama’s expected visit to Iraq this week possible.

“John McCain had the guts to argue against public opinion, to put his whole campaign on the line, because, as he says, he’d rather lose an election than lose in a war that he thinks is this important to the United States,” Lieberman said on “Fox News Sunday.” MUCH MORE

When you’ve carefully poured through history, and saw the Soviet Union essentially bankrupt itself with their war in Afghanistan, a credible President would have handled Afghanistan in a different manner - followed through when he had the leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda cornered in Tora Bora, and fulfilled his promise to refuse to give terrorists safe haven in any country on earth. That evidently didn’t include Pakistan, and now we’ve got worse issues in Afghanistan than we do in Iraq, all compliments of the Bush administration.

John McCain just declared that “we’ve succeeded militarily.” Last week, he declared that “the surge worked.”; if that’s the case, then why wouldn’t we begin to withdraw our troops on a viable timetable and let Iraq handle their own business. The real question is whether we really won anything, and if we won, then why it is “Losing the War” if we begin bringing home our troops? It can’t be both ways, we either won, or Iraq is at a virtual stand-still, and order an only be maintained by a heavy US troop support mechanism. At any rate, bankrupting our own country in order to be able to declare victory doesn’t make an bit of sense at all, so Joe Lieberman’s attack on Obama rings hollow - like the soul of Joe “Benedict Arnold” Lieberman. I’m unaware why anyone would care what Loserman said anyway, as he’s as much a lame duck as the President is ever since he revealed that he was a Republican in disguise. Right after the November elections, look for Lieberman to be stripped of his Committee Chairmanships and authority as he’s treated with the same disregard that he revealed to the voters of Connecticut.

Russia is paying back the US for us helping in their losing the war by financing Bin Laden and supplying them arms to guarantee that Russia lost, and now Russia is giving it back to us in spades, arming Iran to the teeth, and Hugo Chavez is there weapon shopping even as I’m writing this article. In world politics, what comes around goes around, and Russia hasn’t forgotten the smack-down they got, courtesy of the United States. Now that we’re financially wounded, our enemies will attempt to take advantage of the situation, so it’s imperative that we as a nation get our heads out of the sand and come-up with a viable plan to salvage our economy and extract ourselves from a war that is bankrupting our entire nation.

After it’s all said and done, we still have to face the question of “what” we can do to save our faltering economy. Many of the answers are obvious, such as reducing our troop strength in Iraq and stop the bleeding of money that we can’t afford to be spending. Unfortunately, it goes much deeper than that. When President Bush pushed for huge tax breaks for the wealthy and corporations, he stated it was because they would be able to invest more in their businesses and therefore help the American economy.

Today, we know know that was an absolute lie. Our corporations kept their increased profits, and then to add insult to injury, outsourced most of our high-paying jobs to other countries to increase their bottom-lines at the expense of our own economy. To save our economy, it’s time for the “Corapacy” to re-invest in America and bring our jobs home. We have witnessed first-hand that outsourcing is destroying the Middle-Class, and we have to stop it and force corporate America to again pay attention to their country of origin.

We must remember when Wal-Mart first started-up they were a boon to our economy. Sam Walton prided himself on carrying American goods and proudly supported “buying American” whenever possible. We need to return to that mentality and understand that when we build-up the economies of competing nations, we take away from our own, and Americans are being driven into poverty. It’s time to strip-away the absurd tax breaks to the wealthy and begin cutting down our deficit by returning to a system that was working well, but was destroyed by Greed and President Bush’s failed economic policies.

For those who have several hundred thousand dollars in the bank, they need to transfer some of those funds to local banks who tend to invest in their communities, not playing the global markets and using American money to bolster the bottom-line of the financial giants, but spread the wealth around to those institutions that will re-invest in their own communities and more of our money will stay at home and be available to Americans instead of being profiteered on the international markets.

We must accept, after God knows how many years, that for the most part, the “War on Drugs” has been an utter failure. We know that the prohibition against marijuana is just that, and it differs from the old prohibition against alcohol in only one way; marijuana is safer than alcohol, and we know that Americans are using it and are refusing to quit. They know the facts, are aware that it has several medical benefits, and is actually an anti-carcinogen. Legalize marijuana, tax it like we do alcohol, and stop the bleeding of billions of dollars that are reaching the Mexican Drug Cartels and the crooked politicians that support keeping the southern border open. Legalizing Marijuana will bring billions of dollars of revenue into the treasury - enough that it could be the one of the most important factors in saving our economy. Read “The Truth about Marijuana “ and Consequences of Legalization!” After marijuana is decriminalized, we can then ramp-up the war on drugs to attack those drugs that are really hurting people, i.e., meth, cocaine, heroin, and other drugs that physically maim or kill many of its users. Further, releasing the thousands, or hundreds of thousands of Americans that are imprisoned for nothing more than marijuana use will drastically deduce our prison population and also save billions of dollars.

Finally, we are still sending out billions of dollars in foreign aid, it’s borrowed money, and we are helping other countries while our own nation faces bankruptcy. What type of insanity is this? In order to help others, we must build ourselves back up and after we succeed in saving and revitalizing our own economy, then it’s appropriate to “spread the wealth” to least fortunate nations, but until we get ourselves out of the red, how does Congress justify sending aid to others while cutting our own social programs and destroying our Middle-Class?

No, I’m not an economist, but one thing is certain. Common sense, something that has been devoid in the Bush administration, can be used to solve several of our problems, and if we don’t stop the financial bleeding, there won’t be much of America left after we hit bottom and those that hold our debt begin demanding assets to back-up loans that we are bound to default upon if we don’t make drastic changes. The below graph shows where most of our debt is held, and believe me, if we don’t solve this issue, and fast, our country will be divided among those who have legal claims on much of America.

An $800 billion freebie, hidden in the national debt

Once a quarter, I like to update this pie chart showing who owns the national debt—mainly so you and I can keep our politicians honest. I’ll explain the $800 billion freebie below.

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We need to save our country, and to do that, we must take steps to begin the healing now, not after the dollar is worthless and America is reduced to third-world status. Don’t forget that impeaching Bush and Cheney, and prosecuting those who have raped and plundered the American economy will cause an instantaneous rise of the dollar, and if Congress won’t impeach for their multiple crimes, the least they could do is understand the profound effect it would have on our economy and what a gesture it would be to a global community that has also been harmed by the failed policies of the Bush administration.

William Cormier

Authors Bio:

My Bio is as varied as my life. In 2012, my twin sons murdered a Journalist in Pensacola, Fl., for 100K worth of "Magic The Gathering" playing cards and buried the body in my backyard. I was once a regular writer here, but PTSD from my son's actions took their toll. First, I lost everything I had. Second, I lost my fiancee. Third, I almost lost my life. Recovery has been a hard and lonesome road, and it isn't quite over yet. I will overcome this disaster as I have others, and return to college to resume my quest to receive a Bachelor's Degree in Journalism.

Admittedly, I have chosen to get back in the mix and do my duty to help destroy any chance that Trump may have of being elected to a second term.