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It's an overall concept I've designated as the Democratic Bankruptcy Paradox: The paradox by which every democracy eventually goes bankrupt-regardless of the people's will and intention of keeping it from going bankrupt. That's why it's a paradox: The citizens of a democratic state are supposed to control its destiny. They obviously do not want their nation to suffer bankruptcy-yet in spite of their will and intent, democratic states always go bankrupt. Always. This post will outline my proof of why this is so. I will first explain the logic of my Democratic Bankruptcy Paradox theory, and how it is derived from a rather recently articulated problem in philosophy called the discursive dilemma, or sometimes the doctrinal dilemma; an aspect of group agency that has been used primarily in legal theory, but which I've realized has some fairly interesting-and radical-applications to macro-economics and public finance in representative democracies. I will then explain how the discursive dilemma, when applied to macro-economics and fiscal policy in a democratic regime, leads to the Democratic Bankruptcy Paradox. It is here that I will prove two general conclusions: * One: Democracies always act in a fiscally incoherent manner. * Two: Democracies always go bankrupt-without exception.  Finally, I will show how my Democratic Bankruptcy Paradox theory applies to the American case, and explain why the U.S. governments at the local, State and Federal level spend more than they bring in-even as their citizens uniformly oppose this state of affairs.

Excellent analogy.  My take on the fiscal cliff is that we have an agreement in place, signed off on by Obama, the Democrats and the Republicans.  Let's hold to it.  Hold the line.  And under no circumstances raise the debt limit.  Bring home the troops.  Make the spending cuts in the sequestration agreement.  Replace that idiot Speaker of the House Boehner with Representative Darryl Isa.  Freeze Obama with his own agreement, and then dig our way out of this by stopping the socialist spending spree. "In the movie Usual Suspects, Keyser Soze is confronted with the fact that his wife and children would be an impediment in dealing with his business competitors. In a way the House GOP finds itself in the same position as Keyser Soze. Our home has been invaded. Our family despoiled. And we are facing a never ending series of ever increasing demands from the criminals who have abused us. Sometimes the only way out of a dilemma is by clearing the table and starting again from scratch. At midnight on December 21, 2012 the United States will be faced with what is being called the "fiscal cliff." In short this cliff is composed of several parts. 1. The payroll tax reduction passed in 2010 will end. 2. The temporary tax rates passed under President Bush will lapse. 3. Obamacare's taxes will come due. 4. The Alternative Minimum Tax will expand to many more taxpayers. 5. Extended unemployment benefits will expire. 6. Some $78 billion in federal spending will be sequestered. 7. Medicare "doc fix" will expire. There are several sets of sacred cattle here. The GOP is primarily interested in protecting the tax cuts and Defense spending. The Democrats are primarily interested in preserving the social spending and free stuff for their base. This time around the Democrats, in their never ending paean to class warfare, are insisting that the Bush Tax Rates for the wealthiest Americans be allowed to expire. The GOP should not negotiate on this. This will put the GOP

Charged with 6 Espionage Act felonies, plea-bargained down to a single misdemeanor and recommended sentence of time served. Reading the linked court documents, it was a case that should have resulted in a verbal reprimand by the military commander. 

Nice bust. Snowden for President in 2016! 

Comment:  While researching the September 2008 financial collapse, a freind introduced me to Porter Stansberry (thanks Marux!).  I've been following Porter through the Daily Crux Report ever since, and, as extreme as his opinions appear, time and again he has proven to be drop dead right.  This latest presentation summarizes Porter's thinking and is buttressed with facts and quotes.  The first part of the presentation is a fictional press conference dated December 2012.  This about 15 minutes.  Porter then follows that with near 45 minutes of facts and quotes woven into a comprehensive summary of how we got into this mess and what the possible outcomes going forward.   The basics are simple enough: the combination of Government borrowing, spending, printing and regulating is killing the dollar.  Our currency is very special in that it's the world's reserve currency; a good fortune that has unfortunately resulted in our spending and borrowing way more than we produce.  On top of this dilemma, the financial crisis of 2008 resulted in the world's Banksters offloading their $Trillions of debt and losses onto the US Treasury; the taxpayers.  So now we have the taxpayers holding the debt of an out of control socialist government spending, borrowing, and regulating us into the dirt regulating.  And, these same taxpayers picking up all the losses of the World's most greedy and evil criminals - the Banksters.  At the center of it all is the Federal Reserve, a world Bankster cartel in control of our currency, and printing it out like there's no tomorrow.  Porter talks about that tomorrow, and what it might look like if we the people do not take back our government and our currency.   excerpt: THE FOLLOWING IS A FICTIONAL DRAMATIZATION OF A PRESS CONFERENCE BY PRESIDENT BARACK OBAMA, ADDRESSING THE AMERICAN PEOPLE, FROM THE EAST ROOM OF THE WHITE HOUSE Set in December 2012, this speech details what we believe The President might say on the day America's fore

The financial crisis has propelled the Federal Reserve into an excruciating political dilemma. The Fed is at the zenith of its influence, using its extraordinary powers to rescue the economy. Yet the extreme irregularity of its behavior is producing a legitimacy crisis for the central bank. The remote technocrats at the Fed who decide money and credit policy for the nation are deliberately opaque and little understood by most Americans. For the first time in generations, they are now threatened with popular rebellion. Share this article RELATED ALSO BY Obama's False Reform ECONOMIC POLICY WILLIAM GREIDER: Congress should step up its investigations of the roots of the financial crisis and slow down the rush to weak solutions--especially the empowerment of the Federal Reserve. Bucking the Banks ECONOMIC POLICY CHRISTOPHER HAYES: How can we expect the experts to reform the financial system when it's experts who got us into this mess to begin with? » More During the past year, the Fed has flooded the streets with money--distributing trillions of dollars to banks, financial markets and commercial interests--in an attempt to revive the credit system and get the economy growing again. As a result, the awesome authority of this cloistered institution is visible to many ordinary Americans for the first time. People and politicians are shocked and confused, and also angered, by what they see. They are beginning to ask some hard questions for which Federal Reserve governors do not have satisfactory answers. Where did the central bank get all the money it is handing out? Basically, the Fed printed it, out of thin air. That is what central banks do. Who told the Fed governors they could do this? Nobody, really--not Congress or the president. The Federal Reserve Board, alone among government agencies, does not submit its budgets to Congress for authorization and appropriation. It raises its own money, sets its own priorities.

One of the best articles a concerned American can read, VDH sums it all up and puts the dilemma we face in context.   excerpt: From Greece to California, the liberal dream is dead. This Fourth of July, what remains is the Founders' vision of a limited government; the idea of a population united by common values, themes, and ideas; a republican form of checks-and-balances government to prevent demagoguery, factions, and tyranny of the majority; the sanctity and autonomy of the nation-state; and individual freedom and liberty as protected through the Bill of Rights. Everything after and against that has proved a failure. Indeed, what makes this Fourth different from recent celebrations is the ongoing repudiation of almost everything antithetical to the Founders' views - the redistributive, all-powerful welfare state, the therapeutic arrogance that believes human nature can be altered by an omnipotent well-meaning government, the postmodern notion that nationhood and borders are passé, and the utopian idea that war can be declared obsolete and the need for defense transcended. From Greece to California such dreams are dead.

The article quotes at length from the email and is well worth reading. But keep in mind that the consensus position of all U.S. intelligence agencies that Iran had no nuclear weapons program had first been published (and promptly leaked to the LA Times) in 2007. So when Hillary composed this email in 2012, she had to know that there was no truth to the Iranian nukes myth. In other words, she was basing her advocated position on war against Syria on a lie.

If you follow the link to the Wall St. Journal/MCNBC poll results, you'll see that while the Syrian intervention got a bump in the polls from the publicity blitzkrieg waged by the Administration, the public is still more opposed than in favor of the action. Other poll results are even more troubling for the Administration, with a very muscular disapproval of Obama's handling of the Syria situation and even a drop in his favorability rating.  But the hearing today before the House Foreign Affairs Committee was a real fiasco, even though it's not over yet as of this writing. Kerry, Hagel, and Gen. Dempsey are having a much rougher ride than they did in the Senate committee. Their justifications for the Syrian strike are strictly looney-tunes. Example, Kerry's faux-impassioned argument that the planned military strike is not war, reminiscent of the Administration arguments when Obama launched his regime-change mission against Libya. Not war because no casualties on our side anticipated. As though in both Libya and Syria, no act of war were involved. Dempsey, to his credit, said as he has said before that it would be an act of war.  I turned off the TV because of boredom. But my sense is that if this stopped, it will be stopped in the House. 

Saker captures the same sense of comedy that I perceive in current U.S. foreign policy re Russia and the Ukraine. 

Robert Parry takes a break from the nuts and bolts of U.S. foreign proxy wars, steps back, and provides a broader view of what is happening to the balance of power within the Obama administration, and sees the neocons as regaining lost influence.

It's becoming more and more clear that the Obama Administration has no realistic plan for military operations in Syria. The only force there with a demonstrated ability to combat ISIL is the government of Syria and Obama will not partner with them because of that government's close ties with Iran Russia and because it is the end point of the planned Iran-Iraq-Syria pipeline.  

Excellent study of how we got into this problem that the socialist are now using to kill forever the American Dream: "..... Forty years ago, depository institutions handled mortgage credit risk very differently than they do today. Back then, the depository institution, which was typically a savings and loan association, held mortgages that were underwritten by its own employees, given to borrowers and backed by homes in its own community. These were almost always 30-year, fixed-rate loans, with borrowers having made a significant down payment, often 20 percent of the price of the home. Call this approach to mortgage lending "Method A." Today, mortgage loans held by depository institutions are often in the form of securities. These securities are backed by loans originated in distant communities by unknown borrowers, underwritten by mortgage brokers or other personnel not employed by the depository institution. The loans are often not 30-year fixed-rate loans, and the borrowers have typically made down payments of 5 percent or less, including loans with no down payment at all. Call this approach to mortgage lending "Method B." If you compare the two methods using common sense, then Method B does not pass a simple sanity check. In fact, the current financial crisis consists of banks that are up to their necks in Method B......"