Never Before Debt Default Fallacy

Okay folks, I get it...  Everyone wants to believe that the United States has never defaulted on it's financial obligations, but this fallacy goes too far when news organizations, such as Fox News did today, perpetuate the lie in print:

(red underline added by me)

Article here:  http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011/07/20/senate-republicans-show-flexibility-in-debt-debate/

Above, Fox News perpetuates this idea that the United States has a perfect debt repayment record, but a simple Google search reveals the error in this assertion.  In 1979, for instance, due to error more than anything else, the Treasury Department was late making payments on T-bills, resulting in late payments in excess of $100 million.

And of course, lets not forget the Joint Resolution To assure uniform value to the coins and currencies of the United States, signed in 1933, which refuted the concept of the Gold Standard.  Again, Google it if you want to know more -- I've posted about it previously.

My point here is that if the media is pushing lies and misinformation such as this, they are doing more harm than good.  Use your brains and think about what they give you -- don't just accept it as truth without questioning.

World Debt Apocalypse

Okay folks, in light of the massive looming debt crisis here in the United States, I'm inclined to do a little writing.

Most of us have read at least a little about the 14 + trillion dollar “debt ceiling” that the idiots in Congress are arguing over of late. It would seem that there is argument over whether that's a lot of money or not, whether they should be allowed to borrow more, and what the impact would be if this limit isn't increased.

I'm not really sure that I care to get into all of that at the moment because, quite frankly, I don't see a good end to it regardless of what happens. I did, however, do a little reading on debt in general.

So, when you and I go into debt, generally there is someone to whom we owe money, and the prevailing logic would be that this person or entity has money in abundance, and thus would have little or no need to incur any debt of it's own.

Of course, this is a logical fallacy. One being able to lend money has no correlation with one's own ability to stay out of debt.

In terms of the world debt situation, there seem to be very, very few countries that have little or no debt, and those countries are, in fact, not the kind of countries anyone would flock to for a loan. Inversely, even China (the largest single holder of U.S. treasury debt) has a national debt of it's own, officially equivalent to around 400 billion dollars (although I've read some articles pegging it closer to one trillion).

If every country on the planet owes money to another (or to many others) and no single one on the planet has any actual money to pay any of them, doesn't that kinda look like a really bad scenario waiting to happen? With all of this massive debt laying around, I would think that someone out there would have to have a shit-ton of money laying around, or at least a giant, debt-free, warehouse full of IOUs. But, thanks to the inventors of fractional reserve banking, this simply is not the case.

I've posted about this sort of thing before, but I can't speak out enough about it. Here's another, easy to find but probably often ignored, link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fractional-reserve_banking

This system, simply put, allows for a situation to exist where there is more debt in existence than there is actual currency with which to repay it. This is what leads to what I said above – everyone owes but nobody has any!

I guess I'm not supposed to have an opinion on that, huh... I'm just supposed to shut up and go to work. Speaking of which... 

Greater Cincinnati Water Works

Or doesn't, perhaps...

In any event, I am once again subject to the whimsy of the water utility from Cincinnati, and am already being punished for it.

Last night we received our first quarterly bill from GCWW. It is a partial bill, and we were told we'd get it, so that wasn't a surprise in any of itself. For 21 days service, we were billed $44.71, which I think is extremely high but, again, I knew it would be. The icing on the cake, however, is yet to come...

The previous tenant hadn't paid HIS last bill... and GCWW tells me I have to do it.

After explaining that I do not own the house, the guy kindly informed me that it may not be my responsibility to pay it, but if I want my water to remain on, SOMEONE will have to pay it.

After doing a little research, I decided to call PUCO, the utilities commission here. Sadly, not enough research apparently because PUCO doesn't do anything with this particular water utility because it is a municipal system (I didn't realize that), but they did tell me that I can call the mayor's office and complain.

Odd, I think, that I'm calling the mayor's office of a city in which I do not live nor pay taxes to complain about a utility that I always figured was a private corporation in the first place. Surprisingly, though, the person I spoke to there seemed to want to help me, but admittedly offered no advice on how to proceed in the matter. Apparently she'll call me back. :-/

So now I'm left with calling our landlord to discuss how to handle this bill as expediently as possible. It is my hope that we'll simply agree to deduct it from my next rent payment and I can get the thing paid in full immediately. If not, while I'm not in a hurry to start a shit storm, I have to wonder if this could somehow constitute a violation of our lease on their part...

I honestly don't see how it is that anyone has the right to take a debt incurred by one person and impose it upon another in this manner, but I'm dealing with the water utility and, all kidding aside, I have never had a particularly positive relationship with any water utility...  

A Ramble on Milestones

I feel like I'm hitting a couple of significant milestones this year, so I kinda feel like talking about that for a moment.

We all gauge the progress of our lives in different ways, on that much I think most people can agree. Some of us think of the passing of time in terms of what job we were working or which woman we were with at any given point on the time line, and I can only imagine that many people find a multitude of different, sometimes odd ways, to delineate the passage of time.

I have a few different means for measuring time that are significant to me today. The first is the measure of my marriage, which, in August, will reach eight years into my past. Reaching two years further would be the date when I met my wife. Yes, she and I have been together an entire decade. Another significant measure of time for me would be my son's lifespan, currently six years. So, in a four year period, I met my wife, married her, and had our first child.

In the six years proceeding, there are only a few other noteworthy milestones, but they're pretty big...

First, our move to Cincinnati (and the employment changes that came with it). Moving was a big change for me, going from the small-town mentality to managing my time in perspective of the larger city. That, and my employment change was massive – warehouse work is a huge culture shock to someone having worked a IT help desk for nine years previous. While I see the move as having been a very positive thing for my family, it was not a good change for me singularly, and it has brought about a number of various issues in my life that I have dealt with over time.

While dealing with the stress of preparing to move, and subsequently dealing with the new job and seemingly insane people I had to get used to working with, I note for the record that I quickly became “that guy” that drinks every night without a reason. Today, this milestone I see is a bit more approximate, but significant none the less... Accounting for days when I was ill, I can safely estimate that I have consumed an average of four alcoholic beverages every night over the past 2,000 nights. That's over one-million calories for anyone keeping score, meaning I could possibly weight in about 125 pounds lighter today had I never drank a drop of it.

And that isn't said in an effort to suggest that I intend to quit drinking... I'm simply too analytical to not see it for what it is, and it is a systematic change that has affected my life dramatically over the years.

So the fact is that I've effectively become a “functional alcoholic” in the last five or so years while adapting to a giant home and family change that then became an ugly, and belated fiscal policy change – another milestone, if you will. In many ways, our choice to move to Cincinnati forced us into bankruptcy, albeit not because of the move itself but my own estimation that we would at least make income equal to 70% of what we had made prior to the move.

We didn't, and still don't.

It took a few years, but we finally realized that we were going bankrupt two years ago and made a series of changes to our financial policy that have kept our main bills paid while discharging all the ones we couldn't afford anymore, including two cars, a house, and over $20,000 in credit card debt.

It also included a personal loan to my dad, which to this day I am frustrated at not having been able to repay...

So now I start to move into familiar territory...

Aside from my Dad's recent diagnosis with cancer (which I don't feel like discussing today), I also had a significant event among my circle of friends.  Four months ago I made a drive northward to visit two of them, the only two from my high school days that I have retained any concern for over the years. That said, I have come to recognize this event as a bit of a closure, in that I seem immensely less likely to see two friends again in the near future... and in a way, while we are still friends in the sense that matters, we are no longer friends in the manner such as we were 11-12 years ago...

Sure, it is common for friends to sort of move on after high school, but I guess I only realized it had happened to us after this one particular get-together. Both of these friends and I have had but a few actual conversations since that day, and one has been so far aloof as to post on Twitter that he has a new phone number but he has not bothered to tell me what it is – which kind of feels like a slap in the face to me, but in an odd sort of way I'm okay with it, if maybe a little irritated, because I figure I'm easy enough to reach that anyone that really wants to will call when they want.

Fact is, I grew tired of being ignored and forgotten when I need a friend around that same time, and I have since given up on the idea that anyone really wants to listen to me talk about my troubles.

So I guess the odd thing is that most days I feel happy when I go to sleep and happy (if maybe a litltle groggy) when I wake up. That is pretty damned amazing considering how much I complain about nearly every person and everything that irritates me throughout every day... I kinda wonder if there will eventually be a day when I will look into the past and say that 2,000 days have passed since I started feeling happy inside again.

Truly Sad...

I found this particular CNN poll very sad...

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2011/07/04/poll-1776-date-puzzles-some-americans/

The article reads that, of 1,003 adults polled, only "58 percent [are] aware their country declared independence in 1776." Further, only about 3/4 of those polled knew from which country the United States declared independence.

Tonight, as I fall into a drunken sleep, I can only think of how this is really sad... that these people are seriously that stupid...

Two Hundred and Thirty Five Years

Using a more modern definition, one might see the United States as a sort of Empire. No, not the same manner of empire as that which was maintained by the British from circa 1580 to 1997 (a span of over 400 years) which entailed establishing colonial authorities across the globe, but one that executes it's authority via cultural, economic, and military influence without directly commanding the affairs of each individual country.

Actually, in many ways, America's “empire” is similar to that which it previously was subservient, in that, for a long time, there has been little or no real political rivalry, and we have commanded the world economy, in a manner of speaking, for decades. Problem is that we seem to be trying to copy what the British accumulated in two centuries while only being at it for less than one, and doing it without the same colonial enterprise that the British utilized.

This, combined with our lack of a King or other such solitary leader, somehow makes the United States less of an empire...

This gigantic military and economic power is precisely that which will bring about our downfall, and further, is exactly what the drafters of the Declaration of Independence and Constitution wanted us to avoid. Our President, not Obama specifically but the authority of the office, has risen to be something very similar to a King, which today can even wage limited warfare without the approval of another authority. People often credit the President with having accomplished things (or not) that are totally outside of the power of the executive branch, and in some way they are often correct simply because some manner of [probably corrupt] behind-the-scenes pressure seems to be in use to effect change. Further, the pomp and splendor of state dinners and other political and diplomatic events has certainly surpassed that to which British Kings were accustomed in the 16^th and 17^th centuries, something I believe says a lot about how detached they are from the laborers of the country – the knuckledraggers that actually do all of the work.

Fact is, the United States maintains a significant military presence in at least nine different countries, three of which are considered combat zones (Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya). In Japan and South Korea also reside a heavy man-count, I presume to counter threats from North Korea. In all, nearly a quarter of our active-duty personnel are stationed in other countries, some of which today seem nonsensical, including our so-called combat zones. Mind you, Congress hasn't formally declared war on another country since our June 5, 1942 declaration on Bulgaria, Hungary, and Romania during World War II. Since then, lesser designations and possibly Constitutionally-questionable military actions have been authorized and funded by Congress, but never an admission that a state of war actually exists.

In many of the most important ways, the Executive Branch today operates independently of the other branches of government, and in many other ways may pressure the other branches to bend to it's will. No one man controls the country, but the President and his administration has a number of officies that tend to function without direct oversight of any other government body. Politically, economically, and internationally, the behavior of our government is in direct opposition to the core values supposedly espoused by the founding fathers, yet many of us continue to blindly accept it based on some concept of the greater social good... a concept that wouldn't even exist had we not spent ourselves into a debt oblivion that is crushing everything in sight under it's weight.

In closing, yes, I love my country. I love it for what it was prior to World War I, for what it could have been had it held fast to principles of non-intervention and, dare I say, isolationism, and for the fact that I still have the right to speak out against it when I deem it necessary.

Of those, one (at least partially) remains. When it is totally gone, there will be nothing left of America as far as I'm concerned.