Giordano Bruno: The Great Global Debt Prison

02-06-2011 • ZeroHedge.com

Wall Street analyst, Meredith Witney, recently stated in an interview with 60 Minutes that she believed 50 to 100 American cities would default in the midst of a municipal crisis in 2011. She was promptly lambasted by the rest of the MSM for her prediction. In my opinion, she was rather minimalist in her estimates, especially if the Federal Reserve does not commit to another round of quantitative easing (QE3) for the states (Bernanke denies this policy would be enacted by the Fed, though, which means there is a good chance it will be). To summarize, the U.S. is swimming in debt. Absolutely nothing has been changed for the better in terms of wealth destruction and liabilities since the credit crisis began, and the situation only looks more precarious with each passing quarter. Where Is The Debt Roller Coaster Taking Us? What is the most likely outcome of the conditions described above? The vital factor will be the continued Federal Reserve policy of fiat bailouts as a “counterbalance” to the evolving debt crisis. As is clearly explored in the Dickens novel we discussed earlier, staving off the effects of debt by creating more debt is a temporary solution that only leads to greater calamity down the road. Anyone who believes that fiat inflation actually “cancels out” debt instability is going to find themselves sorely disappointed. At bottom, government created stimulus is not a solution to corporate engineered debt burdens, but a reallocation of debt away from banks and into the laps of the American taxpayer. The Federal Reserve and our own Treasury have not paid off anything. They merely shifted the responsibility of payment away from the banks that created the problem, and handed that responsibility to us. On top of this, they have also set the dollar up for a crushing blow of devaluation. Here is where the prison bars enclose… If our historic debt is not being diminished, but only moved around while it expands, then this means that eventually our credit worthiness will come into question. In fact, it already has. Foreign investment in long term Treasuries has dwindled. Our own central bank is now the largest holder of U.S. debt, surpassing even China (Note: this news has so far been ignored by almost all mainstream outlets):