Homestead mailing list

["Marie McHarry" <mmcharry AT dtnspeed.net>]

<<Nothing that is reported here as quotes of Bush (real or postulated) is 
untrue.  Tresury bonds are NOT real assets and thus they more closely
resemble 
IOU's than what, outside of Government-Speak, any responsible financial
person 
would call an asset.  It's like so many issues discussed now of days ...
tell 
the truth and if that runs amuck of someone's fantasy, then it's
"bashing.">>

As I listened to Bush go through his paces over the Treasury bonds, I
wondered what the Chinese and Japanese were thinking. If you're going to
renege on your loans, do you stiff a bunch of foreigners on the other side
of the Pacific Ocean or the old folks who, if they are no longer allowed to
vote you out of office, turn into urban guerillas and assassins? I suppose
it depends on how well-armed the Chinese and Japanese are at crunch time. 

The Chinese may be in much better shape than us by the time Social Security
hits the crunch. Since they can march to the major remaining oil fields and
take them over, they may have a lot more oil and gas than we do. They
certainly have a lot more people than we do, and more of them are studying
useful things like engineering.

Every debt is just an IOU, but can you imagine our economy suddenly ignoring
those IOUs? Not likely as long as the US maintains that it's the world's
superpower, or even when rivaling powers appear. We may end up in the same
class as Argentina, but it won't be an end lightly accepted by any of the
parties.

Marie