Video: Military funding could be slashed by $1 trillion – Paul Craig Roberts

(RussiaToday) – Congressmen Ron Paul and Barney Frank are sending a letter to US President Barack Obama with a proposal to cut the military budget by a trillion dollars. As the economy and the budget deficit continues to worsen, it seems that this is a very logical place to start cutting out funds. Paul Craig Roberts says that while passing this initiative would be great, he is skeptical that it will pass because Congress would lose too much campaign money.

The Ecstasy of Empire – Paul Craig Roberts

(Infowars) – The United States is running out of time to get its budget and trade deficits under control.  Despite the urgency of the situation, 2010 has been wasted in hype about a non-existent recovery.  As recently as August 2 Treasury Secretary Timothy F. Geithner penned a New York Times column, “Welcome to the Recovery.”

As John Williams (shadowstats.com) has made clear on many occasions, an appearance of recovery was created by over-counting employment and undercounting inflation. Warnings by Williams, Gerald Celente, and myself have gone unheeded, but our warnings recently had echoes from Boston University professor Laurence Kotlikoff and from David Stockman, who excoriated the Republican Party for becoming big-spending Democrats

What collapsing empire looks like – Glenn Greenwald

(Salon) – As we enter our ninth year of the War in Afghanistan with an escalated force, and continue to occupy Iraq indefinitely, and feed an endlessly growing Surveillance State, reports are emerging of the Deficit Commission hard at work planning how to cut Social Security, Medicare, and now even to freeze military pay. But a new New York Times article today illustrates as vividly as anything else what a collapsing empire looks like, as it profiles just a few of the budget cuts which cities around the country are being forced to make. This is a sampling of what one finds: Read More Here

Ron Paul: On the Bloated Intelligence Bureaucracy

(C4L) – I have often spoken about the excessive size of government, and most recently how waste and inefficiency needs to be eliminated from our military budget. Our foreign policy is not only bankrupting us, but actively creating and antagonizing enemies of the United States, and compromising our national security. Spending more and adding more programs and initiatives does not improve things for us; it makes them much much worse. This applies to more than just the military budget.

Recently the Washington Post ran an extensive report by Dana Priest and William M. Arkin on the bloated intelligence community. They found that an estimated 854,000 people hold top-secret security clearances. Just what are all these people up to? By my calculation this is about 11,000 intelligence workers per al Qaeda member in Afghanistan. This also begs the question — if close to 1 million people are authorized to know top secrets, how closely guarded are these secrets?

Economy

(Alternet) – Poverty: It’s Not Just for Black Urbanites Anymore! – And of course it never was. – Read More Here

(NYDailyNews) -Japanese PM Naoto Kan warns of Greece-level ‘collapse’ under debt pile – Read More Here

(Money&Markets) – Debt Facade Cracking in U.K. as Sovereign Contagion Spreads – Read More Here

REPOST – (MarketOracle) – Debt Can Never Be Repaid, By Bankster Design

You really have to hand it to the banksters. As was painstakingly detailed in the book Creature from Jekyll Island, the banking elite devised a brilliant plan in November of 1910 on Jekyll Island in which to take over control of the United States, steal the wealth from the taxpayers and the resources from the country. Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – Analyst to Money Managers: Take Your Cell Phones with You on Vacation; Greece Could Default in August

Greece will eventually default on its debt because the country is highly indebted, Carl Weinberg, chief economist at High Frequency Economics, said on CNBC this morning. Read More Here

(MailOnline) – Doomed Labour’s £1.3 TRILLION last spending spree revealed: As the economy nosedived, your millions were wasted on grandiose schemes – Read More Here

(InfoClearingHouse) – One Bank Ruled Them All; Trichet’s Powergrab – Mike Whitney – Read More Here

(BusinessInsider) – The Stunning Crash And Burn Of Las Vegas

There are quite a few U.S. cities that are complete and utter economic disaster zones in 2010 (Detroit for example), but there is something about the demise of Las Vegas that is absolutely stunning. Read More Here

(MineWeb) – U.S. asset managers worried Obama could confiscate gold

Speaking at the FT Silver conference in London yesterday, lead-off speaker John Levin, HSBC Bank’s Managing Director, Global Metals and Trading (HSBC is one of the world’s top precious metals traders and its vaults in the U.S. and Europe hold huge holdings of gold and silver bullion) recounted conversations with some of the U.S.’s top asset managers controlling massive amounts of capital asking if HSBC had the capacity in its vaults to store major gold purchases. On being told that the bank’s U.S. vaults had sufficient space available he was told that they did not want their gold stored in the U.S.A. but preferably in Europe because they feared that at some stage the U.S. Administration might follow the path set by Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1933 and confiscate all U.S. gold holdings as part of the country’s strategy in dealing with the nation’s economic problems. Read More Here

(NYDaily) – Gov. Paterson: Shutdown over budget would cause ‘unimaginable chaos,’ crime in New York

Gov. Paterson went into full doomsday mode Thursday, warning of chaos and anarchy in the streets if the government shuts down.
“It would create unimaginable chaos around the state and the greater metropolitan area,” Paterson said on WCBS Radio 880 this morning. Read More Here

(AP) – Retail sales drop 1.2 percent in May

Retail sales plunged 1.2 percent last month, the Commerce Department said Friday. It was the largest decline in eight months. Read More Here

(BusinessInsider) – Social Security Payouts Are Already Crippling The Government This Year

There is enough published information from the Social Security Trust Fund to make some observations for the first six months of 2010. The data on FICA/SECA tax receipts and benefit payments: (all amounts in $billions) Read More Here

(PakAlert) – Warning Signs Of Full Spectrum Collapse Are Everywhere

The sovereign debt crisis in Greece and many other European nations has, at least for the moment, opened a gap in the wash of financial disinformation that has prevailed in the mainstream media for the past year. The average American is now more aware of the terrible costs of living in an artificially driven and widely manipulated “global economy”, and has also been exposed (at least for the moment) to the very real frailties in our own markets, which have been hidden or downplayed by the government as well as disingenuous establishment economists. Events in the EU, however, are only a glimpse of the greater and more imminent threats we face in the near future. In this article we will look at some of the latest and most disturbing moves by governments and financial institutions, as well as tell-tale signs in our own local cities, which signal that a full-spectrum collapse of world markets and possibly our own currency is not only in progress, but nearing completion.

Economy

Video: Max Keiser – GLOBAL BREAKDOWN: Gerald Celente’s latest trends – Video Link Here

Video: Schiff & King Discuss Gold & Silver: Panic Gold buying in Germany – Video Link Here

(L.A.City) – Controller Greuel Releases Audit Showing City Can’t Find 45% of Items Purchased with Taxpayer Funds – Read More Here

(Telegraph) – Hedge funds bet big on the falling euro

Hedge funds that made millions from the implosion of America’s subprime market are betting on a similarly dramatic collapse of the euro. Read More Here

(Infowars) – The 750 Billion Euro Bluff

The Germans recently approved their portion of the €750bn European bailout fund, and I think that’s all the money we will see. It’s highly unlikely that the EU has the capital to pull off the entire thing, unless the ECB starts printing money à la full-blown quantative easing. They are just trying to bluff the speculator vultures, so that they won’t start circling Portugal, Ireland and other weak EMU economies. But I think eventually the vultures will smell blood. Read More Here

(ABC) – Video: Clarke and Dawes ask the million dollar questions

John Clarke and Bryan Dawe calculate the cost of the European debt crisis. – Video Link Here

(BusinessInsider) – Will Trichet Let A Deflationary Depression Happen So He Can’t Be Accused Of Bailing Out Greece? – Read More Here

(Telegraph) – City fears of ‘Great Depression Mark II’

Leading City experts have started raising the prospect of “Great Depression II” amid worries that the European economic crisis could trigger a deeper bout of chaos. Read More Here

(EconomicPolicyJournal) – 32 States Have Borrowed from the Federal Government to Make Unemployment Payments; California Has Borrowed $7 Billion

EconomicPolicyJournal.com has learned that 32 states have run out funds to make unemployment benefit payments and that the federal government has been supplying these states with funds so that they can make their payments to the unemployed. In some cases, states have borrowed billions. As of May 20, the total balance outstanding by 32 states (and the Virgin Islands) is $37.8 billion. Read More Here

(SFGate) – Courts quash cuts, add to state’s budget woes

Designated cuts to health and human services that were rejected by federal courts alone have resulted in $4.5 billion in lost savings over the past three years, according to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration. Read More Here

(TIME) – Florida Braces for Oil Spill, Impact on Tourism Industry

Like an environmental version of the hurricanes that ravaged the Gulf States in 2005, the epic spill from the Deepwater Horizon rig seems almost certain to foul every coastal corner it can. After paralyzing Louisiana’s commercial fishing industry, it is threatening Florida’s $60 billion tourism business. Read More Here

(WSJ) – AIG Executives Won’t Face Criminal Charges

The decision brings to a close a criminal investigation that, while mostly under wraps, was widely followed. The September 2008 bailout of AIG was one of the biggest and most shocking of the financial crisis, as trading by a noninsurance unit brought down one of the most iconic financial companies world-wide. Read More Here

FLASHBACK – (TIME) – Scandals The Looting of Greece

The plot was an audacious one. To create the pool of crooked money, PASOK leaders had for three years ordered state-managed corporations such as the Post Office, the Organization of Urban Transportation and the State Pharmaceutical Co. to transfer large bank deposits — the country’s money, in effect — out of the big national banks into the Bank of Crete, then the / smallest private bank in the country. There, Koskotas says, he arranged for the government deposits to draw an exceptionally low rate of interest, only 2% or 3%. Bank savings accounts in Greece routinely draw 15% interest. The excess interest earned on the government deposits was siphoned off and went straight to the politicians, he says. In addition, protected and encouraged by Papandreou, Koskotas secretly plowed Bank of Crete funds into his magazines and newspapers. Read More Here

(LewRockwell) – Sell in May and Run Away . . . Fast

Stock markets all over the world are falling. The first market to begin falling was China’s. It peaked in early August of 2009. It struggled back, though not to its August peak, but is now falling. The decline is accelerating. It is down by about 25% in 2010. Read More Here

(MoneyAndMarkets) – Massive Currency and Debt Devaluations Lie Ahead

The run-up in the stock market from March 2009 until last month was sharp and rewarding … for some. But there was one problem, it came with disproportional risk. You see, the stock market rose to an extent that it was pricing in perfection … a V-shaped recovery … a return to normal.

That overly optimistic view on the world can make for an ugly ending Read More Here

(WashingtonsBlog) – The Giant Banks, Federal Reserve and Treasury Have All Blackmailed America

As I wrote last October:

Congressmen Brad Sherman and Paul Kanjorski and Senator James Inhofe all say that the government warned of martial law if Tarp wasn’t passed. And Rahm Emanuel famously said:

Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.

Last year: Read More Here

(RTTNews) – Massive Demonstration In Romania Protesting Austerity Measures

The demonstration by some 20,000 people, who gathered in front of the government headquarters in capital Bucharest to protest planned government wage-cuts, was one of the largest mass protests that the Eastern European country witnessed since the fall of Communism in 1989. Read More Here

(Examiner) – CAFR: US agencies have billions, trillions in investments while crying budget deficits

Gerald Klatt and Walter Burien are unrecognized heroes. These individuals are national leaders who have communicated how government agencies conceal American taxpayers’ money in surplus accounts that collectively total trillions of our dollars. The data is found in government agencies’ Comprehensive Annual Financial Reports (CAFRs). Read More Here

(SofiaEcho) – Greece prepares for massive new strike

Massive general strikes by the Greek public sector will all but paralyse much of the country as Greek trade unions launch another 24-hour general protest against planned additional austerity measures. Read More Here

(GardenHarvest) – Severe Poverty Growing Rapidly

The percentage of Americans living in severe poverty – with incomes less than half of the federal poverty line – has reached a 32-year peak. A recent analysis of 2005 census data by McClatchy Newspapers found nearly 16 million Americans living in deep or severe poverty, defined as a family of four with income of $9,903 a year or less and an individual living on less than $5,080 a year. Read More Here

Growing Homelessness in America – Stephen Lendman

In the world’s richest country, the trend is shocking, disturbing and appalling. In its 2009 report on “Hunger and Homelessness in US Cities,” the US Conference of Mayors stated:

“Hunger and homelessness (are) at record levels in US cities,” citing an overall 26% demand increase over the past year and 19% more homelessness. Yet worsening conditions leave millions on their own and out of luck because Washington has other priorities excluding them.

“At a time of historic economic crisis, the issues of hunger and homelessness in America are more prevalent than ever.” Cities are hard-pressed to handle them, and planned budget cuts and revenue shortfalls will strap them well into the future.

Economy

(RollingStone) – The Feds vs. Goldman

The government’s case against Goldman Sachs barely begins to target the depths of Wall Street’s criminal sleaze – Read More Here

(EconomicCollapseBlog) – Will The Gulf Of Mexico Oil Spill Be An Economic Disaster That The Gulf Coast Will Never Recover From? – Read More Here

(EconomicCollapseBlog) – How Is The U.S. Economy Supposed To Succeed When Our Politicians And The Big Banks Are Making Billions Of Dollars Betting Against It?

Most people around the globe think of America as a great “capitalist” economic machine, but the truth is that the U.S. financial system is essentially one massive betting parlor at this point. In fact, there has been a whole lot of easy money made in this betting parlor over the past several years by our politicians and by the big financial players down on Wall Street. So how did they make all of this money? They did it by betting against America. Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – Covert Economic Agenda Beneath Immigration Reform – Shamus Cooke

How convenient for Goldman Sachs. Just as most working people were demanding that the Goldman bosses and other Wall Street criminals either be massively fined, jailed or worse, the nation’s attention is suddenly forced to react to the racist immigration law in Arizona. And although the two incidents are not directly related, they represent a trend that is likely to increase in the months and years ahead. Read More Here

(YahooFinance) – Video: Congress Refuses to Outlaw Insider Trading For Lawmakers

Even a cynic can find Washington’s hypocrisy shocking at times. The Wall Street Journal reports today a House bill that would force lawmakers to make greater disclosures on financial transactions and disallow them from trading on nonpublic information is going nowhere fast.

That’s right. Members of Congress are currently allowed to profit on insider trading! View Video Here

(WashingtonPost) – Illegal Immigrants cost feds more than $10 billion a year

A report that found that illegal immigrants in the United States cost the federal government more than $10 billion a year — a sum it estimated would almost triple if they were given amnesty — has drawn criticism from immigration advocacy groups. Read More Here

(WashingtonPost) – Effort to expand audits of Fed picks up steam in Senate

A contentious effort to expand audits of the Federal Reserve that sailed through the House despite heavy criticism appears to be picking up steam as the Senate considers broad new financial regulations. Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – Cutting Public Debt: Economic Science or Class War?

In The Bullet no.345, Ingo Schmidt showed how the credit rating agencies have sparked an assault by international bondholders on the sovereign debt of Greece, where workers are being made to pay heavily for the fiscal crisis of the state. Read More Here

(WashingtonsBlog) – The Fed Must Be Audited: The Fraudulent Practices of the Federal Reserve

In March 2004, when Alan Greenspan was Fed chairman, he suppressed the opinions of those Fed officials who knew that there was a housing bubble.

Congressman Alan Grayson points out that – because the Fed unilaterally decided to hand out half a trillion to foreigners without any Congressional oversight, and that Bernanke testified that he didn’t know who got the loot – the Fed must be subject to an audit. Read More Here

(GlobalResearch) – Greece: Poverty and Social Implosion in the Wake of the Financial Bailout – Finian Cunningham

“This is not our debt, but we are being made to pay for it,” said one angry Greek worker, explaining why he like thousands of other Greeks are taking to the streets in protest at their country’s bail-out plan.
The so-called rescue package of €110 billion ($143 billion) facilitated by the European Union and International Monetary Fund (IMF) is not just aimed at shoring up Greece from total economic collapse. At stake too is the solvency of several other Eurozone countries – Belgium, Ireland, Italy, Portugal and Spain – and even the euro currency itself. Read More Here

(USAWatchdog) – Inflation and Bailouts Go Hand in Hand

Pick a financial fire and you can be sure the U.S. government will hose it down with gallons of money. AIG, General Motors, Chrysler, insolvent states, FDIC, Fannie, Freddie and all the banks are just a few of the blazes Uncle Sam has sprayed money on

Now, the Federal Reserve is printing up another $105 billion to send to Greece to help with its debt problem. Is the bailout cycle getting ready to take another turn bailing out the Banks? Read More Here

(CNBC) – European Union, Currency Are Headed for Collapse: Gartman

The current European debt crisis likely will not end until the euro collapses as a currency and takes the entire European Union with it, said Dennis Gartman, hedge fund manager and author of “The Gartman Letter.”
“I think the whole thing will go down to defeat, the whole thing will eventually unravel,” Gartman said in an interview with CNBC.com. Read More Here

(SmirkingChimp) – US Government Now 96.5% of the Mortgage Market Q1, 2010

If You Were NOT Paying for Your Neighbor’s Mortgage, How Many Home Sales Would There Be?

The US government IS the US housing market. Read More Here

(ABC30) – Video: City of Fresno Declares Fiscal Emergency

The city of Fresno is facing a $30.6 million budget shortfall and the mayor announced she wants to cut hundreds of city jobs. Video Link Here

More than 50% of US Government Spending Goes to the Military

(GlobalResearch) – Recently, Live Science published a chart showing that the US spends about one-fifth of its budget on the military. But this aggregate view hides how Congress prioritizes spending, when you consider what is discretionary and voted upon each year. A more salient view of these figures segregates ‘discretionary’ spending from ‘mandatory’ spending. During the severe economic downturn of the past two years, how has Congress prioritized spending?

When it comes to discretionary spending, Congress gives 58% to the military. Here are US budget charts for the years 2009 and 2010, according to the National Priorities Project (NPP): Read More Here



MSM: U.N.’s Ballooning $732 Million Haiti Peacekeeping Budget Goes Mostly to Its Own Personnel

(Fox) – The United Nations has quietly upped this year’s peacekeeping budget for earthquake-shattered Haiti to $732.4 million, with two-thirds of that amount going for the salary, perks and upkeep of its own personnel, not residents of the devastated island Read More Here

Video: Gerald Celente – UK GDP as bad as Greece; Hedge funds affecting the Euro

(RussiaToday) – March 7, 2010 – The Greek debt crisis is bringing down the Euro’s value, but is that the only reason the euro is destabilizing? Recently, the United States Department of Justice is investigating major hedge funds, saying they may be at fault for this economic fall.

Obama’s Budget Revealed: Money for Wars and Weapons, While More Americans Face Joblessness and Hunger

(TomDispatch) – Send up a flare! The 2011 federal budget has sprung some leaks in the midst of a storm. Not sure there’s enough money for life rafts!  Forget women and children first!

Buffeted by economic hard times, the 2,585-page, $3.8 trillion document is already taking on water, though this won’t be obvious to you if you’re reading the mainstream media. Let’s start with the absolute basics: 59% of the budget’s spending is dedicated to mandatory programs like Medicaid, Medicare, Unemployment Insurance, Social Security, and now Pell Grants; 34% is to be spent on “discretionary programs,” including education, transportation, housing, and the military; 7% will be used to service the national debt.

A serious look at this budget document reveals some “leaks” — two in actual spending practices and two in the basic assumptions that undergird the budget itself. Ship-shape as it may look on the surface, this is a budget perilously close to an iceberg, and it’s not clear whether the captain of the ship will heed the obvious warning signs. Read More Here

Will Obama’s Record War Budget Lead to a US Victory in Afghanistan? Don’t Bet On it!

(GlobalResearch) – President Barack Obama has increased the Pentagon’s perennially-bloated annual spending spree to its greatest magnitude since World War II $708 billion. Congress eventually will overwhelmingly approve Obama’s war budget request for fiscal year 2011, which takes effect in October.

As Defense Budget Soars, Security Firms Reap Huge Profits, Go Offshore to Avoid Taxes

(AntiFascistCalling) – The Obama administration is seeking to increase the obscenely bloated U.S. Defense Department budget to a whopping $708 billion for fiscal year 2011, 3.4% above 2010’s record level, The Wall Street Journal reported. Read More Here

MSM: Obama “Open” On Middle Class Tax Increases

(BusinessWeek) – President Barack Obama said he is “agnostic” about raising taxes on households making less than $250,000 as part of a broad effort to rein in the budget deficit.

MSM: Wars sending U.S. into ruin

(TorontoSun) – U.S. President Barack Obama calls the $3.8-trillion US budget he just sent to Congress a major step in restoring America’s economic health.
In fact, it’s another potent fix given to a sick patient deeply addicted to the dangerous drug — debt.

MSM: Pennsylvania State Capital Mulls Bankruptcy as a Budget Option

(Bloomberg) – Harrisburg, the capital of Pennsylvania, will consider Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection along with tax increases and asset sales as options to address $68 million in debt service payments due this year, the chairwoman of a City Council committee said last night.

Obama grows the drug war, with enforcement a clear priority

(RawStory) – It was not long ago when President Barack Obama’s new drug czar, former Seattle police chief Gil Kerlikowske, swept into Washington, D.C. and declared the “drug war” a public policy relic.

MSM: Huge Deficits May Alter U.S. Politics and Global Power

(NYTimes) – In a federal budget filled with mind-boggling statistics, two numbers stand out as particularly stunning, for the way they may change American politics and American power. Read More Here

MSM: Obama Budget Has $1.9 Trillion Tax Rise

(Bloomberg) – The Obama administration proposed to increase taxes on Americans earning more than $200,000 by close to $970 billion over the next decade and take in an additional $400 billion from businesses even as it retooled a proposed crackdown on international tax-avoidance techniques.

Video: California the canary in coalmine of US economy

State Controller John Chiang issued a stern warning Friday about California’s cash reserves, telling legislative leaders and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger they must act on nearly $9 billion in budget cuts the governor is seeking by March — or the state will run out of cash to pay its bills. — Denis C. Theriault Mercury News –

MSM: Obama wants to freeze discretionary spending for 3 years

“We are at war, and we’re going to make sure our troops are funded adequately,” one of the senior officials said.
(CNN) – President Obama will announce in Wednesday’s State of the Union address that he’s proposing to save $250 billion by freezing all nonsecurity federal discretionary spending for three years, according to two senior administration officials.

Obama to Nationalize Student Lending with Pending Budget Bill

(CNSNews) – A bill currently before the Senate would empower the Obama administration to nationalize the student lending industry, eliminating the federally subsidized private loans millions of university students rely on to finance their educations.

Color it Red: State Budget Gaps

In “Chart of the Day: State Buget Gaps 2010,” Credit Writedowns points us to a disturbing graphic in a recent report from the Congressional Budget Office, entitled  “Policies for Increasing Economic Growth and Employment in 2010 and 2011.”

As CW’s Edward Harrison notes,

this is not just about California. Come summer 2010, the most severe gaps will be closed via budget cuts or tax increases unless the Federal Government can pull a rabbit out of the hat.

Economic News

(AmericaHijacked) – More and More States on Budget Brink

California is hurtling into the budgetary abyss — and it’s not alone.
Across the nation, state tax collections in the first three quarters of 2009 posted their steepest decline in at least 46 years, according to a report this month from the public policy research arm of the State University of New York. Read More Here

(BBC) – Video: UK’s inflation rate jumps massively – Video Link Here

(CNBC) – Video: Jim Rogers- Except for Gold, Commodities Still Depressed – Video Link Here

(WorldNetDaily) – Forecast: Debt to dwarf GDP – Jerome Corsi

A blue-ribbon panel that includes three former heads of the Congressional Budget Office is telling President Obama and the Democrat-controlled Congress that the federal deficit must be cut now or the national debt within about two generations will be 600 percent of the gross domestic product. Read More Here

Obama Spreads War Flames to Engulf Middle East

As President Obama steps up the war that is inflaming ever wider sectors of the Middle East, USA continues its rapid slide toward Third World status. The two developments are not unrelated. Spending on war does not boost an economy as does domestic spending—and the Pentagon has been spending trillions on war.

MSM: Dollar Crisis Looms if US Doesn’t Curb Debt

(Reuters) – The United States must soon raise taxes or cut government spending to curb its debt, and failure to act will risk a crippling dollar crisis as investor confidence ebbs, a panel of experts said on Wednesday.

Obama to Seek $33 Billion More for Wars

(AntiWar) – When President Obama requested a $106 billion “emergency” was funding bill in early 2009, it was promised that this would be the last time the administration would ever seek such a supplement, and that they would instead simply increase the size of their regular defense funding bill to cover the wars.

Fitch: U.S. State and Federal Debt to Hit 94% of GDP

How fast is government debt growing in the United States?details how serious the situation is:

Fitch Ratings has issued the starkest warning to date that the US will lose its AAA credit rating unless acts to bring the budget deficit under control, citing a spiral in debt service costs and dependence on foreign lenders.

Sen. Hatch admits GOP ’standard practice’ was to run up deficit

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow believes she has found the smoking gun proving Republicans’ hypocrisy on health care and the budget deficit: an admission by Utah Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch that, during the Bush administration, “it was standard practice not to pay for things.”

Arizona’s Coming Government Collapse

Dear Fellow Arizonan,
We face a state fiscal crisis of unparalleled dimension – one that is going to sweep over every single person in this state as well as every business and every family.

Video: Obama, the Deficit, and Monopoly Money

(KurtNimmo) – Obama — or his teleprompter writers — think you’re an idiot. Obama can get on national television and claim without flinching (as many people do when they lie) that he “inherited” an astronomical debt from the last guy who increased the national debt more than the guy before him.

Bankruptcy and Fiscal Collapse: The Global Economic Crisis will experience a Tipping Point in Spring 2010

LEAP/E2020 believes that the global systemic crisis will experience a new tipping point from Spring 2010. Indeed, at that time, the public finances of the major Western countries are going to become unmanageable, as it will simultaneously become clear that new support measures for the economy are needed because of the failure of the various stimuli in 2009 (1), and that the size of budget deficits preclude any significant new expenditures.

MSM: Greece sees few glimmers of hope

(FinancialTimes) – With Greece’s budget deficit at record levels and the country’s banks exposed to troubles both at home and abroad, doomsayers are predicting that Greek banks will go the way of Iceland’s.

MSM: US needs plan to tame debt soon, experts say

(Reuters) – The U.S. government must craft a plan next year to get its ballooning debt under control or face possible panic in financial markets, a bipartisan panel of budget experts said in a report on Monday.

MSM: Paterson – ‘New York Has Run Out Of Cash’

Gov. David Paterson said Wednesday that New York has run out of cash and he’s directing budget officials to reduce state aid payments to schools, local governments and nonprofit service providers until things improve.

MSM: U.S. already $292 billion in the red this year

(Reuters) – The U.S. government racked up a gaping shortfall in the first two months of this fiscal year after posting a record budget deficit last year, congressional analysts said on Friday.

The Coming U.S. Budget Attack

The United States is moving backwards…fast. State budget cuts are decimating essential health and social services; public education is being destroyed; the social safety net is in tatters. To make matters worse, all of this is occurring when the loss of jobs stands at a twenty-six year high with no end in sight.

Obama and the fiscal crisis of the states

The class character of the Obama administration is clearly indicated by one statistic: President Obama has made available more than $12 trillion in cash infusions, loans and guarantees to the financial industry, but for state governments that are facing massive budget deficits, Obama has thus far provided only one quarter of 1 percent of that amount in federal stimulus funds—about $30 billion.

MSM: Dollar May Drop 20% More on Deficit, Harvard’s Ferguson Says

(Bloomberg) — The dollar will extend its drop versus the euro over the next two to five years, falling as much as 20 percent to an all-time low under a widening U.S. budget deficit, Harvard University’s Professor Niall Ferguson said.