Luis left this comment on my Schiff post and thought it worthy enough to highlight by itself:
Basically, all the talk we’re hearing this day is meaningless blah, blah, blah. There is no solution to the problem of the national debt that will not require changes that the nation will not willingly undertake.
The entitled class do not want their entitlements taken away, and the producer class is becoming fed up with working so that others don’t have to.
The resolution to this conflict will not be peaceful.
I am discouraged by what I see in our nation these days, we are a place where free contraceptives and abortions are a “right”, and a right to work is a bad thing to support.
We subsidize sloth and punish accomplishments, and “I want” is justification to take from others with the assistance of government force.
The Federal government’s unfunded liabilities total $121 trillion dollars, and our national debt is $16 trillion.
We have mined 5.3 billion troy ounces of gold in recorded human history, at today’s market value of $1,700/oz that translates to just over $9 trillion US. If we owned all the gold mined in the history of the world, we wouldn’t have enough money to pay off our debt.
We’re screwed, the politicos and the intelligentsia know it, and they have no clue how to stop the country from crashing, so what they do is throw gladiators in the arena to entertain the rubes in the Maenianum Secundum, in the hopes that they don’t notice the smoke rising from the fires consuming what was once a great nation, until it is too late to do anything but flee the flames.
We can’t “tax the rich” our way out of this mess, they know it, and the realists among us know it. Taxing the income of people who live off the benefits of their accumulated wealth in order to generate revenues to service a trillion dollar plus deficit, a $16 trillion (and rising) debt, and $121 trillion in unfunded liabilities is smoke and mirrors.
A trillion seconds ago, we were Neanderthals learning how to not be prey and becoming predators. Sixteen trillion dollars in debt may be the catalyst that turns the United States into prey in a hostile world.
Sadly, I am starting to believe that my parent’s sacrifice bought just a one generation dodge from the tsunami wave that is international Communism.