Now HERE'S a headline for you:
US Treasury Shows Actual 2003 Federal Deficit at $3.7 Trillion
Please read the whole article carefully. It would be a REAL eye-opener (assuming that the person reading it wants his or her eyes opened) to anyone unfamiliar with these commentaries or the analysis contained in The Privateer. But if you ARE a regular reader of these commentaries and our newsletter, the surprise will not be so great.
To illustrate this contention, here's a quote from the story linked above:
"Misleading accounting used by the U.S. government, both in financial and economic reporting, far exceeds the scope of corporate accounting wrongdoing that has received partial credit for recent stock market turbulence. The bad boys of Corporate America, though, still were subject to significant regulatory oversights and the application of GAAP accounting to their books. In contrast, the government's operations and economic reporting have been subject to oversight solely by Congress, America's only 'distinctly native criminal class.'"
"America's only 'distinctly native criminal class'"? This is a quote from Samuel Clemens (aka Mark Twain)
Now here's a link to a commentary we did back in August 2002:
It's True Because I Say It's True - Gold This Week - August 2, 2002
Here's another quote from the story linked above:
"The bogus accounting understated the actual deficit for decades and even allowed for claims of budget surpluses in the years 1998 to 2001. While there were extensive self-congratulatory comments between the President, Congress and the Fed Chairman, at the time, all involved knew there never were any actual budget surpluses. There hasn't been an actual balanced budget, let alone a surplus, since before Johnson and his cronies cooked the bookkeeping."
We stated more than two years ago (see the link above) that the US government was (without rival) the biggest book cooker in the US. For many years now, we have been pointing out (and we hasten to add that we have not been alone), that the official US budget deficits (and the budget "surpluses" of 1998-2001) were one (amongst many others) of the results of this book cooking.
None of the above should, of course, diminish in any way the impact of a report that the REAL US Federal deficit for fiscal 2003 was $US 3.7 TRILLION! Nor should it diminish the impact of the FACTUAL statement that this $US 3.7 TRILLION was more than the SUM TOTAL of all wages and salaries earned in the US in fiscal 2003. If the IRS had confiscated 100% of these wages and salaries, the US government would STILL have run a deficit.
The US is now in the midst of the full on presidential election campaign. The latest polls we have seen give Mr Bush a 51% - 46% lead over Mr Kerry. The candidates in this campaign, and sadly, far too many of the voters, like to pretend that "issues" are very important in the decision and so must and will be discussed and debated at length. In reality, of course, any REAL and especially FUNDAMENTAL political issue will be kept as far away from the light of day as the manipulators of the political campaign can manage.
The US occupation of Iraq has aided this process greatly, by pushing the "issue" of the literal safety of Americans to the top of the agenda. With the Australian government under Prime Minister Howard being a "staunch" US ally in this endeavour, the same is true in the Aussie election campaign. In both nations, a scare campaign is running full force with the incumbents claiming that if they are voted out, Americans and Australians will be much further exposed to the depradations of the "terrorist hordes".
Meanwhile, the domestic financial and economic debacle, which the Iraqi adventure was designed to deflect attention from, is receiving no attention at all. Aussie stock markets are at all time highs. On the US stock market, the major indices have been rescued from the edge of the precipice over the past month, with the Dow (for example) having risen more than 500 points in an almost unbroken string since mid August.
While American (and to a lesser extent Australian) voters are being assured by ALL the contending parties that no stone will be left unturned to protect their literal physical "safety" (an impossibility - as the bombing of the Aussie embassy in Indonesia once again demonstrates), their financial and economic safety is being more than undermined, it has been utterly destroyed. Neither on the "hustings" nor in the mainstream media is this being analysed, debated, or even mentioned.
As most of you reading this have long since learned, if you want to know what is REALLY going on and if you want analysis and debate which DOES focus on fundamental issues, the internet is your premier choice, without a close rival. Mr Walter Williams, the author of the report linked to at the beginning of this commentary, deserves the profound thanks of both his countrymen and everyone else who is not afraid to look at the REAL state of affairs in the US. Unless and until genuine discussion and debate on issues such as the one he raises - issues which REALLY matter - see the light of day, the profound financial danger being faced by Americans and by everyone else affected by what happens in the US (which is everyone else on earth) will continue to grow.
Because this danger is being so assiduously ignored/suppressed, none of it is (yet) reflected in world markets. After dipping below the $US 400 level as US markets resumed after the Labor Day weekend, spot future Gold has closed the week with a $US 3.40 rise on the day and a smaller rise on the week. It still remains more than $US 10 below the level at which it began 2004.
The profligacy of the US government has LITERALLY passed all bounds. The unviability of a global financial and monetary system which uses the US Dollar (the world reserve currency) as its "foundation" is a CLEAR and PRESENT danger. The clearer and more dangerous it becomes, the more desperate become the efforts to block any discussion, debate, or even thought about it. And as for any debate about "fixing" the problem, that has been ruled totally out of bounds, never more obviously than now in the middle of the election campaign.
It should by now be abundantly clear that the global financial system as it is presently constituted is not "fixable". It is terminally broken. The only fundamental choice is to scrap it. It is not necessary to discover a "new" system, it is merely necessary to re-discover - and re-implement - one which works and which has been proven to work. This is, of course, a financial system based on Gold as money. In such a system, a situation in which a government borrows in one year more than the sum total of the wages and salaries which ALL its citizens earned over that same year is quite simply impossible.
That's the solution, but the political (and economic) problems which lie between the present position and any attempt to implement that solution are immense. In the meantime, Gold held as insurance is mandatory. Unlike the "Department Of Homeland Security" which guarantees insecurity, the Gold Standard DOES work.