_____________________________________________________________________________________________________

Friday, July 29, 2011

Why Defaulting on the National Debt Will Be Awesome!

What’s the matter, Gentle Reader, got the blues?

Getting repeatedly cornholed by The Party leaving you a little raw?

Tea Party says defaulting on our debts is a good thing and that makes you cranky?

Worried that America is about to become a bankrupt third world soccer playing shithole where Spanish speaking chickens wander the street and dysentery is the national pastime?

Well of course you are.

But you know, that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Becoming a Third World shithole, I mean.

You’ve got to look at the silver lining.

 

Now, now, quit sniffling.  I know it’s not easy seeing that the glass is half full.  You’re scared and nervous and thinking about getting stinkin’ drunk, aren’t you? 

Me too – well, minus the scared and nervous part anyway.

So how’s about you quit Bogarting the Victory Gin, Winston, and pass it over here?  If Oceana is gonna burn, we here at MiniStone say get out the Fiddles and Par-Tay!

What? 

Oh for crying out loud.  Look, don’t be a double plus ungood wet blanket.

Sure, there’s no doubt this permanent state of emergency can be depressing, what with the Default Crisis and all (heh heh, default crisis, see what I did there with the Orwellian 1984 pun? Double plus subtle, eh?).  We were just getting over Budget Crises 2011 or 2010: The Prequel or whatever episode it was.  And before that it was the Health Care Crisis and the Mortgage Crisis and, of course, there was the Bailout Crisis and the Social Security Crisis and the Medicare Crisis and who can forget my favorite, The Defense of Marriage Crisis?  There was the Election Crisis and the Birth Certificate Crisis and There’s A Stinky Black Man in the White House Crisis and well, hell, I forget, it’s all just starting to blur together.

Today it’s the Debt Ceiling Crisis.

Crisis, crisis, crisis!  It’s always something. What is it this week? War with Eurasia or war with Eastasia?  What’s next?  Show of hands, who really cares? I mean really? So long as they keep the conflict going, that’s the important thing.  It’s not the battles that matter, it’s the war. Got to keep fighting.  Hearts and minds you know.

And hey, so what if we default on America’s debt?

There are a lot of advantages to becoming a Third World country.  Really.

Think about it. No really think about it.  If we’re a Third World shithole, guess what?

No pressure! 

No responsibility! 

No expectations!

It’ll be awesome

Look at Russia, when they were the Soviet Union it was all ideology this and ideology that.  You’ve got to prop up puppet states, you’ve got to keep outspending the other guy, there’s sneakin’ and spyin’ and repressing to do. Hell your Olympic steroid budget alone can run into the billions.  Man, it just never ends. Being a superpower is hard.  Talk about hypertension. Nowadays, since Russia became a Third World shithole?  Nobody gives a fuck! Pass the Vodka, Tovarich!

Hey! Stop that. What’d I say? Quit your blubbering. Take another hit off the bottle and pass it around the burn barrel.  Stomp your feet, that’ll keep your toes from freezing. Mostly. Probably.

You know what the best part about default is?  The Debt

No really.

Seriously.  When’s the last time a Third World country paid back their debt? 

When’s the last time anybody actually expected them to?

Never!

Well, sure they’ll put our faces up on that Deadbeat Nation billboard outside the International Monetary Fund Headquarters.

So?

No, no, stick with me here, this will be great.  Really.  Screw the debt.  We’ll call it the Tea Party Child Support Plan, here’s how it works: We just don’t pay it.  Fuck China. It’s just that simple. Boom! That’s a trillion bucks in our pocket right there. Win! Let’s spend it on Victory Gin, smokes, and porn, who’s with me?  Seriously, what’s China going to do about it?  Repo?  Bawahaha! Go ahead! Joke’s on them!  Guess what we bought with the money we borrowed from Bejing? Anybody know? I’ll tell you, we bought cheap Chinese goods!  That’s right.  And then we broke them. You want your shit back? Look behind the return counter at Wal-Mart. Help yourself.

What about the money we owe to Social Security? 

That’s the best part, no more musty old people!  Think about it.  You ever hear of old people before Social Security? No, no you did not.  That’s right, Social Security causes old people!  No Social Security, no old people. We’ll live forever!  Get rid of Welfare and we’ll cure poverty too! Double Rainbow!

Besides, this is about jobs, isn’t it?

That’s what they keep saying, right? Jobs, jobs, jobs, where are all the jobs? Where are they keeping ‘em?

I’ll tell you where the jobs are, they’re in Third World countries. Hello!

Common sense, folks. If we become a Third World country, we’ll get jobs too!

Defaulting will kill jobs? Yeah, in Bolivia! Because all the jobs? They’ll come here! Tell me we can’t out Third World Mexico! USA! USA! Booyah!

What’s that? I can’t hear you over the clapping sound of my awesome logic! 

By this time next year we’ll be cranking out TV sets and computers and vacuum cleaners and those little shitty cars for consumers in India and Russia!  Made-in-America products will fill Chinese Wal-Marts. Let their kids suck on our lead painted toys for a change, that’s what I’m talking about!

Illegal Immigration. Fixed!  No need for a wall. No need for expensive border security.  Who the fuck sneaks into a third world country?  Nobody!  Viva la revolucion, Che! Now, who wants to help me pick these tomatoes? Hello?  Seriously, give it a year or two and Columbia will be buying cocaine from us!

Obesity Epidemic? Fixed!  No money to buy food, no fat people! Diabetes cured for free, right there, without any socialist medicine.

Evolution Debate? Fuck it. We can’t afford schools! Where you gonna teach it? Who’s the monkey now, Darwin!

Hey, here’s something I bet you didn’t think about: Peace!  Yep.  No shirt, no shoes, no credit? No war.  It’ll be just like the NFL lock out. You want to invade another country? Cash up front. Looks like you’ll need to find some corporate sponsors, bring in some advertising revenue, and sell those tickets.  Hot cheerleaders might help, just an idea.  

Yeah, but what if we need to buy something?

Well, we hit up our friends for spare change.  Starting with Israel. I think they owe us a $20 or two. 

 

See?  Just like the Tea Party says, defaulting on the debt is a good thing.

And remember, folks, anybody asks you, we’ve always been at war with Eastasia!

43 comments:

  1. Mmm, war cheerleaders! They're the best.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Excellent. Hate wearing freaking shoes anyway!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Why the heck not? I live in a frighteningly fertile area of the country, so I can grow my own food like the hippie chick everyone thought I was when I was younger. Then, when fools come to steal my veggies, they'll be surprised by my heavily armed minions. Easy peasy, barbecue for dinner! Poachers: taste just like chicken. No, pork.

    Ah, hell. I probably shouldn't have said that.

    ReplyDelete
  4. You are just the funniest damn blogger ever. I don't know how your wife can stand laughing so much.

    The scary part is all the truths behind all the laughs.

    Thank you again.

    ReplyDelete
  5. And what if the Chinese *do* invade us to get back the junk they sold us? Instant 1000% improvement in American cuisine! Not to mention all the jobs from the Chinese military bases. Heck, we're already mostly working for China anyhow, we can make it official!

    ReplyDelete
  6. I don't know how your wife can stand laughing so much.

    I remind her daily how lucky she is.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Twisted, smart and funny. My kind of guy.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You're hitting on me, aren't you?

    ReplyDelete
  9. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  11. It's ok, I speak Apple, or as you would say izorf soslkes boglerp

    ReplyDelete
  12. Cool. Then can we take chickens on the people mover?

    ReplyDelete
  13. Just getting on the People Mover will cost you two chickens.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Yeah i did not think about feeding all those sled dogs to pull the bus.

    ReplyDelete
  15. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I was wondering what delisting on Zerohedge meant...damn you autocorrect!

    ReplyDelete
  17. So, when NAFTA got passed I said, "Great, someday we'll all be as rich as Mexicans!" People laughed, but I wasn't joking. This is a very well written piece, good job!

    ReplyDelete
  18. I have to remember to read your posts when the rest of the household is awake. Trying to laugh hysterically quietly hurts too much.
    Just the post I needed...the speech by Mr. Boehner tonight had me so torqued I could hardly breathe.

    ReplyDelete
  19. Jim, you're a genius.

    What's the first thing a container ship captain checks before he leaves port? He checks to make sure the Bill of Lading for his cargo's shipping fees have been deposited. No cash and he isn't leaving port and burning fuel.

    Now all those cheap chinese goods will stay in China because nobody will take lousy American credit to pay for goods or shipping.

    We'll have to make stuff here!! Using American labor and materials because nobody's going to sell us shit when we already owe them money.

    Plus we get to have daily colorful street festivals to distract foreign tourists while we pick their pockets!!

    Now where did I stash those bamboo flutes......

    ReplyDelete
  20. Yeah, and what is the rest of the world going to do if we don't pay our debts? Kick us off the planet?

    Hilarious, oh blogger-master! You were definitely on one of your brilliant rolls tonight.

    Steve Buchheit's war cheerleaders are the best and AKjah's sled dogs pulling our buses are pretty darn funny too.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Today your blog MADE a lady smile ... some things (like smiles) are still made in the USA! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  22. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  23. Wow, war cheerleaders, great idea. When I was a marine all we had were gunnery sergeants.

    As an old fart I must confirm your analysis, old people are musty.

    ReplyDelete
  24. Pretty damned good. And living up there, you'll be in better shape then the rest of us down here, as long as you can stay warm. Maybe you'll even get independence like ol' Todd boy wants. Third world countries can't afford to preserve their unions.

    ReplyDelete
  25. As an old fart I must confirm your analysis, old people are musty.

    Like fine cheese.

    ReplyDelete
  26. Old farts are musty.....hey, I resemble that remark!

    ReplyDelete
  27. Four posts in five days?

    Who are you and what have you done with Jim?

    turge 1): v a turd surge, 2): n GOP

    ReplyDelete
  28. 'Spanish speaking chickens' are cute... ;)

    ReplyDelete
  29. Love, love, love this post! Funny yet this could become horrifyingly true. They should all be careful about what they are praying for. I keep wishing they would all leave and start their own country. Now that would be funny to watch.

    P.S. - My whole family has our passports out & ready just in case.

    DebinOH

    ReplyDelete
  30. Nothing wrong with soccer, and remember, the only things you need to play are something that rolls, and four rocks for goal markers.

    It's the ultimate low budget sport - just one notch above throwing a single rock back and forth!

    ReplyDelete
  31. And there are more advantages - like never having to take an Econ class since we paid no attention to anything taught there.

    And maybe Chad or Togo will send foreign aid.

    Or the Grand Duchy of Fenwick will invade us and then give us aid. (Points if you get the reference.)

    ReplyDelete
  32. But where is the Q-bomb?

    ReplyDelete
  33. All I'd really like to see are the faces of all the shitheads thought this was a good idea, when realize they fucked themselves...

    ReplyDelete
  34. "All I'd really like to see are the faces of all the shitheads thought this was a good idea, when realize they fucked themselves..."_Sean

    Walk on down to the soup kitchen in about six months. The people you talk about will be there in line but they will still be blaming whatever non-them group they are blaming today.

    The only infinite resource in the universe is stupidity.

    ReplyDelete
  35. Hitting the debt limit does not mean a default..... It's very dishonest to say that it does.

    ReplyDelete
  36. Ah, a denizen of an alternate universe where you don't have to issue new t-bills to pay off old t-bills is amongst us! Undoubtedly the unicorns are pink and t-bills just magically roll over through the brilliance of the Free Market Fairy there, instead of (duh) needing the money from issuing *new* t-bills to pay them off first. Meanwhile, back in this universe...

    ReplyDelete
  37. So, what you're saying then, ParatrooperJJ, is that I was way too subtle with the whole 1984 thing?

    ReplyDelete
  38. Sorry, Paratrooper JJ, but you're wrong (not to mention missing all of Jim Wright's points). Not having enough income to pay all of our bills in full IS seen as default. We might be able to pay off the bond interest, assuming the Treasury Secretary is allowed to prioritize payments (maybe not), but the feds would have to burn other creditors such as vendors of supplies and contractors. Credit rating agencies would drop our rating from AAA to something worse, directly leading to higher interest rates. An individual could declare bankruptcy in the exact same situation.
    Let me put it in terms you might be able to understand. Collecting taxes and selling bonds to pay _all_ of the government's bills is like deploying your parachute and landing safely. Collecting 75% of the money necessary to pay only some of the bills is like deploying streamers and hitting the ground at "only" 25% speed. Terminal velocity is about 160-200 mph, so that would be like hitting dirt at "only" 40-50 mph. That would have about the same effect on our government's credit rating. No creditor would trust the government was serious about paying all of our bills when due. Government bond interest rates would jump from near zero to a few percent, and keep rising. That means the interest payments alone on government debt would jump many billions of dollars per month, so we'd have to collect even more in taxes just to stay in the same place (or if the GOP no-taxes nuts have their way again, we'd go even deeper into debt, much faster than today). This is a pretty basic finance lesson. You don't have to believe me- read what Nobel-prize winning economists Michael Spence and Joseph Stiglitz have been saying. See for example http://castroller.com/Podcasts/ReutersUsBusiness/2456075-Nobel%20economist%20Michael%20Spence%20on%20US%20debt%20talks

    ReplyDelete
  39. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  40. I love Spanish speaking chickens and cheerleaders! *passing the bottle now*

    ReplyDelete

Comments on this blog are moderated. Each will be reviewed before being allowed to post. This may take a while. I don't allow personal attacks, trolling, or obnoxious stupidity. If you post anonymously and hide behind an IP blocker, I'm a lot more likely to consider you a troll. Be sure to read the commenting rules before you start typing. Really.