Bailout, or Blowout? Financial "Rescue" Plan Turns into Mad Spending Spree

Friday, October 03, 2008 by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger Editor of NaturalNews.com (See all articles...) Tags: national debt, health news, Natural News

(NaturalNews) As the United States of America stands on the verge of irrecoverable bankruptcy, U.S. Senators have decided to orchestrate a final "blowout" spending spree by dressing up the financial bailout plan with so much bloated pork that no lawmaker can resist its lure. The so-called "rescue plan" (renamed from "bailout plan" by Washington language police) has now ballooned into a 450-page overstuffed pork sandwich, featuring layer upon layer of outlandish expenditures tied to the bill like too must ballast on a sinking ship:

• Tax breaks for NASCAR race tracks
• Big handouts to Virgin Island rum makers
• Yet more tax breaks for Hollywood film producers
• Gifts to companies researching wool
• Huge tax breaks for companies like Microsoft and GE

... and many other handouts yet to be discovered in its 450 pages of pork.

What began as a financial bailout bill to save the future of America's economy has become a free-for-all financial blowout that will only accelerate its demise. What's astonishing here is that even on the verge of financial collapse, Washington lawmakers are incapable of coming to their senses. They offer the same solution to every problem: Spend more!

"This is how Washington works,'' said Keith Ashdown, chief investigator at Taxpayers for Common Sense. "A big pot of pork is their recipe for final passage."

A big pot of pork

A big pot of pork, unfortunately, is exactly what Washington doesn't need right now. With the jackals of hyperinflation already nipping at their heels, Washington policymakers need to be slashing spending with great expediency. To restore confidence to the U.S. dollar and prevent a cascading sell-off of U.S. debt by foreign nations (which would lead to the abrupt ruin of the U.S. government), lawmakers need to be reeling in wasteful spending, balancing their books and opposing the kind of free-for-all blowout spending practices that got us into this position in the first place.

Wasn't it a Bohemian financial policy of unbridled spending and endless debt that brought us to the precipice of global financial collapse in the first place? And yet, standing right on the edge of the cliff, with nothing but nothing but disaster beneath them and the sand eroding from under their feet, all these Senators can think of is how to spend more money!

It's like a heroin addict who decides to get clean, and then suggests the best way to accomplish that is to start shooting up. "I'll get clean," he promises you, "right after this next hit."

An Empire of Debt: $488 billion more for war

U.S. lawmakers are addicted to spending in the worst way. Just like heroin addicts, they will get their fix at all costs, regardless of the harm caused to their family, friends or countrymen. They will spend away all the money in the world, mindlessly, recklessly, without a second thought, as long as it keeps them in office for just one more term. Just one more hit...

Last night, the U.S. Senate quietly passed a $600+ billion spending bill, which earmarked $448 billion in Pentagon funds (war money). This was all done under the cover of the much larger $700 billion financial bailout bill, which managed to keep people distracted from the $448 military spending bill.

Earlier this week, the Federal Reserve quietly, and without any vote, magically created another $620 billion in money and flooded it into the banking system. There was no debate. No vote. No public announcement at all. Just endless, silent money creation at every turn, seemingly conducted without any awareness or concern of the consequences.

And there was certainly no warning of how this would erode the savings accounts and retirement funds of taxpayers. In fact, nothing resembling the truth ever makes it out of Washington these days. This $700 billion pork-barreled bailout scheme is being sold to the American people as a taxpayer benefit! The government is doing us all a favor, didn't you know? And we should feel so fortunate that they're doing it with our money, too.

The Government vs. the People

It's often said that the first casualty of war is the truth. Right now, the U.S. Government is in a financial war, and amid all the propaganda, deception and manipulations of the mainstream media, there's simply no room for something as big as "the truth."

But what is the truth, really?

The truth is that you're watching the boldest, most outrageous swindle that's ever been conducted in the history of the world.

The truth is that you're a witness to the last, sad chapter of a military empire that's fast headed towards financial self-destruction.

The truth is that U.S. debt spending has now entered an escalating geometric progression from which no nation has ever returned in one piece.

Two weeks ago, it was a few hundred billion dollars in fake money and debt spending. This week, it's been nearly a trillion dollars already. Next week, it may be another trillion. With each passing week, the crooks in Washington will tack on another trillion dollars (or more) to the national debt, like heaving two-ton cars onto the back of a cripple who can barely walk to begin with.

It took the United States of America 230 years to accumulate roughly $5 trillion in debt. Washington has now doubled that in less than 30 days. We now stand at $9.8 trillion in national debt.

With the passage of this financial bailout bill, we will be facing -- at minimum -- $10.5 trillion in debt. And just to make sure we're properly drowned in it, Senators are throwing out tens of billions of dollars more to companies that made really bad financial decisions, like Ford Motors, which is one of the recipients in a $25 billion automaker bailout just announced yesterday.

And don't forget this juicy fact: These financial bailouts aren't limited to U.S. companies, either! If the bailout bill passed, Treasury Secretary Paulson will have full authority to dish out hundreds of billions of dollars to bail out FOREIGN banks, too!

$10 trillion in debt quickly becomes $12 trillion. Then $15 trillion, then $25 trillion. At some point, it all becomes too absurd to track, because there is no nation in the world that will keep pumping useless dollars down the U.S. government financial tar pit. And that means the U.S. will soon run out of willing lenders, just like the heroin addict who can't get any more "emergency" loans to go out and buy more drugs.

Even though I know most consumers simply cannot fathom what's about to happen to them (and their money), I cannot overemphasize this point: The United States government is now on a track to financial annihilation. You are witnessing its suicide march into debtors' demise. Sure, it may be able to string itself along for a while longer, perhaps by terrorizing other nations and extorting money from them to prop up the empire (read the history of the Roman Empire, folks), but in the end, there is no way out of $10 trillion in debt other than to either declare bankruptcy (at which point nobody will loan you money anymore) or hyperinflate the currency to bail yourself out (at which point the currency becomes worthless and the taxpayers are wiped out).

Take a guess which one your esteemed leaders in Washington are pushing for? It's the hyperinflation, of course. Because in the end, they'd much rather lose YOUR money than THEIR power.

I think even the Senators secretly realize this now. Behind closed doors, they know the game's up. This blowout spending spree is their last, desperate chance to bring home a few hundred million dollars to their home states before the federal government becomes completely insolvent. It's really a financial looting of Washington, and the vultures have moved in now in an attempt to scurry away with all the scraps of U.S. dollars they can carry.

Either way, the U.S. dollar is headed towards rapid devaluation. International investors are either laughing their heads off or shaking them in disbelief, wondering what kind of madness has gripped U.S. lawmakers today, and whether their own nations will be safe from the aftershocks of U.S. fiscal failures.

What to expect in the days ahead

The financial bailout bill will be approved by Congress, then signed by the President. For the subsequent 24 hours or so, the stock market will surge upwards as part of a false rally based on the passage of the bailout bill. During this surge, gold will plummet in value, along with gold mining stocks and other precious metals companies.

After the false high in the markets, investors will come to their senses, and we'll see the beginning of a long, slow decline in the value of stocks, coupled with an accelerating inflation of the U.S. dollar (which will sap spending power from those holding dollars in savings or retirement accounts). The price inflation of real goods (food, fuel, etc.) will rise at an alarming pace over the next two years, dampening economic activity.

The early months of 2009 will see a wave of post-Christmas bankruptcies by retailers who suffered a terrible Christmas season. (When consumers can't take unlimited cash out of their homes like they were ATM machines, they tend to spend less on Christmas gifts.)

For more analysis of what's coming in 2009, join my Mindful Wealth Email List: https://www.naturalnews.com/MindfulWealthRegi...

In any case, the economic outlook of the United States of America won't be pretty. Burdened with endless debt, unbridled spending and a cascading implosion of financial institutions, the U.S. is almost certain to endure, at the very least, many hard years of a bona-fide economic depression coupled with runaway currency inflation. That's actually a best-case scenario. I won't describe the worst-case scenario because it makes people uncomfortable to even fathom such possibilities.

This is what the banking bailout measure will deliver: A decade (or more) of economic struggle, an erosion of the value of the U.S. dollar, and the decline of America as an economic superpower in the world.

The beginning of the end of the American Empire is now upon us. From here, it's simply a matter of how long its demise can be stalled, and how broke the People will end up before Washington legislators spend every last dollar they can scrounge up and ferret away.

When the music stops, don't be the one left holding U.S. dollars.