By Doug Casey, Casey Research
As you know, the so-called Super Committee recently tried to come up with a plan to cut the deficit by $1.5 trillion and failed completely. To anyone who understands the nature of the political process, the failure was, of course, as predictable as it was shameful. What's even more shameful, though, is that the sought-after $1.5 trillion cut wasn't meant to apply to the annual budget but to the total budget of the next 10 years – a fact that is rarely mentioned.
Now whenever the chattering classes talk about cuts, it's always about cuts over the course of 10 years. Which is a dodge, partly because most of the supposed cuts will be scheduled for the end of the period, but also because new programs, new emergencies and hidden contingencies will creep in to offset any announced cuts. So the numbers below aren't a worst case; they're the rosiest possible scenario. People have thought I was joking when, asked how bad the Greater Depression was going to be, I answered that it would be worse than even I thought it would be. But I haven't been joking.
To sum up the situation, given its financial condition and the political forces working to worsen it, the US government is facing a completely impossible and irremediable situation. I'm going to try to illustrate that here. But because I'm a perpetual optimist, not a gloom-and-doomer, I'm also going to give you solutions to the purely financial problems – albeit with some good news and some bad news. The good news is, there actually are solutions. The bad news is that there is zero chance that any of them will be put into effect.
The problems are one hundred percent caused by the US government, not by bankers, brokers or the real estate industry – although they have been complicit. Recall what government is: an organization with a monopoly of force within a certain geographical area. Its purpose is, ostensibly, to protect the inhabitants of its bailiwick from the initiation of force. That implies three functions: an army to protect against aggressors coming from outside of its borders; police to protect citizens from aggressors inside its borders; and a court system to allow citizens to adjudicate disputes without resorting to force. Assuming you're going to have a government, it's important to limit it strictly, lest it get completely out of control – it's got a monopoly of force, after all – and overwhelm the society it's supposed to protect.
Here I want you to distinguish government from society. They are not only two totally different things, but are potentially antithetical to each other. This is because the essence of government is force, not voluntary cooperation. Everything that people think the government provides (beyond some forms of protection) is really provided by society or with resources the government has taken from society. It's critical to understand this, or you won't see the slippery slope the US is now sliding on.
Is there any chance that the US government can reform and go back to a sustainable basis at this point? I'd say no. Its descent started in earnest with the Spanish-American War in 1898, when it acquired its first foreign possessions (Cuba, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, etc). It accelerated with the advent of the income tax and the Federal Reserve in 1913. It accelerated further with World War I, when the government took over the economy for 18 months. The New Deal and World War II made the state into a permanent major feature in the average American's life. The Great Society made free food, housing and medical care a feature. The final elimination of any link of the dollar to gold in 1971 ensured ever-increasing levels of currency inflation. The Cold War and a series of undeclared wars (Korea, Viet Nam, Afghanistan and Iraq) cemented the military in place as a permanent focus of the government. And since 9/11, the curve has gone hyperbolic with the War on Terror. It's been said that war is the health of the state. We have lots more war on the way, and that will expand the state's spending. But the Greater Depression will be an even bigger drain, and it will likely destroy the middle class as an unwelcome bonus.
In all that time, from 1898 to today, there have been no substantial retrenchments of the US government, and the situation is getting worse, on a hyperbolic curve. Trends in motion tend to stay in motion until a genuine crisis changes them, and this trend has been gaining momentum for over a century.
Let's divide people into three classes – rich, poor and middle class. Rich people are going to be okay. They can bribe the politicians to change the laws, hire the lawyers to interpret the laws, the accountants to limit their liabilities, advisors to help them profit from distortions and travel agents to get them out of Dodge. They may get eaten later, but for the moment, don't worry about them.
The poor don't have much to lose, and the government is going to keep throwing benefits at them to keep them happy. That's a shame because it cements them to the bottom as poor people – but that's a topic for another day.
The real danger is to the middle class, and it's a serious matter because the US is a middle-class society. These are people who try to produce more than they consume and save the difference in order to grow wealthier. That formula has worked well up to now – but almost everybody saves dollars. What happens, however, if the dollars are destroyed? It means that most of what they saved disappears, and most of the middle class will disappear with it, at least for that generation. They'll be very unhappy, and they'll be up for some serious changes. I'll come back to those later.
The Budget
Take a look at the following pie chart of US government spending. It's cut into 10 slices, by function. The government used to break down and report its spending according to agencies – Defense Department, so much; Department of Agriculture, this much; FTC, that much. They've de-emphasized that and now seem to prefer reporting by function, because most of the agencies do many things. Actually, with thousands of agencies, departments, divisions, bureaus, units and contractors, it's impossible to figure out exactly who does what in the government. It's so large, so irresponsible and so unmanageable that the only solution is to abolish things wholesale. Bureaucracy naturally grows unless it's pulled out by the roots; reform, or pruning it back, is doomed to failure.
Denouement
My point is to make it very apparent that there really is no conventional solution to the US government's financial crisis. It's reached a stage where the government will have to start defaulting on some of its obligations. You decide which. The only questions are political; the economics are quite clear. Nothing will be done, as the Super Committee showed. I believe they would have done something if they thought it possible and knew how.
Actually, the situation is much more serious than what I've briefly illustrated. We've only discussed one aspect of the income statement, which itself is enough to bring down the whole structure, and soon. We haven't discussed the government's balance sheet. Estimates vary, but the US government has direct and contingent obligations that go far beyond its $15 trillion in accumulated borrowing. The present value of its Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, veterans, financial insurance and numerous unfunded liabilities might be another $200 trillion. Nobody knows, and it's probably impossible to calculate.
So, the US government will go bankrupt. That's not the end of the world. Lots of governments have gone bankrupt, some of them numerous times – like almost all of them here in South America, where I am at the moment.
In fact, there's a temptation to look forward to it eagerly. After all, the state is the enemy of any decent human. One might hope that when they bankrupt themselves, maybe we will get to live in a libertarian paradise. But that's not likely the way things will come down; rather, just the opposite. Not all state bankruptcies are just temporary upsets. Most of the great revolutions in history have financial roots. Great revolutions are more than just unpleasant and inconvenient; they're extremely dangerous.
The French Revolution of 1789 was brought on by the financial collapse of the French government. It was a good thing to depose Louis XVI, but things didn't get better – they got much, much worse with Robespierre and then Napoleon. In Germany, the destruction of the German mark in 1923 set the stage for the Nazis – and then the Depression ushered them in. The collapse of the Czar's regime in Russia in 1917 seemed to be good news at first – but then things got worse, and they stayed worse for a long time.
The fact is that when a government collapses, especially when the government is providing all the things the US government does today, people want somebody to fix it; they want their goodies back. It's well known that over 50% of the US population are net recipients of state largess. And the degree of state support and involvement in the US is far, far greater than it was in France, Russia or Germany. After a period of chaos, it's always the people who are most political, who have the most rabid statist ideas who get the public's attention and rise to the top.
It seems highly likely that the US will get a savior, someone full of bravado, who assures the booboisie that he can straighten things out – if he is given sufficient power. Perhaps it will be an arrogant windbag like Gingrich, perhaps some general. The government won't wither away; it will reassert itself. I don't see any way around it, actually. We are already moving into a police state (evidenced most recently by the Senate's Nov. 2 vote allowing the military to indefinitely incarcerate anyone they accuse of terrorism). But at least it's a police state with a fairly high standard of living, one with Walmarts, McDonalds, and SUVs – at least for the time being.
But rest assured that if the situation evolves the way I expect, the standard of living will drop steeply, financial markets are going to become chaotic and the US will become a quite repressive place for some time – at least as long as the War on Terror lasts. I will bet you money on this. In fact, I am betting money on it.
So what can you do about it? Well, actually, there is nothing you can do about it. At least as far as changing the course of history is concerned. The best you can do is to speculate intelligently on further, new distortions that will be cranked into the system, as well as others that are inevitably going to be liquidated.
It seems to me that this is a trend that can no longer be turned around. The US government's budget is, in fact, the biggest thing in the world; it won't be turned around, because it is like a gigantic snowball rolling down a hill. It will only stop when it smashes into the village at the bottom of the valley. The best thing you can do is capitalize on it as well as you can and get out of its way while you do.
[If Doug is right and this trend cannot be reversed, the time to start preparing for what's ahead is right now. This free investor briefing will help you get started.]
Angelo: oops. I have added the link above.
So, the US government will go bankrupt. That's not the end of the world. Lots of governments have gone bankrupt, some of them numerous times – like almost all of them here in South America, where I am at the moment.
In fact, there's a temptation to look forward to it eagerly. After all, the state is the enemy of any decent human. One might hope that when they bankrupt themselves, maybe we will get to live in a libertarian paradise. But that's not likely the way things will come down; rather, just the opposite. Not all state bankruptcies are just temporary upsets. Most of the great revolutions in history have financial roots. Great revolutions are more than just unpleasant and inconvenient; they're extremely dangerous.
The French Revolution of 1789 was brought on by the financial collapse of the French government. It was a good thing to depose Louis XVI, but things didn't get better – they got much, much worse with Robespierre and then Napoleon. In Germany, the destruction of the German mark in 1923 set the stage for the Nazis – and then the Depression ushered them in. The collapse of the Czar's regime in Russia in 1917 seemed to be good news at first – but then things got worse, and they stayed worse for a long time.
The fact is that when a government collapses, especially when the government is providing all the things the US government does today, people want somebody to fix it; they want their goodies back. It's well known that over 50% of the US population are net recipients of state largess. And the degree of state support and involvement in the US is far, far greater than it was in France, Russia or Germany. After a period of chaos, it's always the people who are most political, who have the most rabid statist ideas who get the public's attention and rise to the top.
It seems highly likely that the US will get a savior, someone full of bravado, who assures the booboisie that he can straighten things out – if he is given sufficient power. Perhaps it will be an arrogant windbag like Gingrich, perhaps some general. The government won't wither away; it will reassert itself. I don't see any way around it, actually. We are already moving into a police state (evidenced most recently by the Senate's Nov. 2 vote allowing the military to indefinitely incarcerate anyone they accuse of terrorism). But at least it's a police state with a fairly high standard of living, one with Walmarts, McDonalds, and SUVs – at least for the time being.
But rest assured that if the situation evolves the way I expect, the standard of living will drop steeply, financial markets are going to become chaotic and the US will become a quite repressive place for some time – at least as long as the War on Terror lasts. I will bet you money on this. In fact, I am betting money on it.
So what can you do about it? Well, actually, there is nothing you can do about it. At least as far as changing the course of history is concerned. The best you can do is to speculate intelligently on further, new distortions that will be cranked into the system, as well as others that are inevitably going to be liquidated.
It seems to me that this is a trend that can no longer be turned around. The US government's budget is, in fact, the biggest thing in the world; it won't be turned around, because it is like a gigantic snowball rolling down a hill. It will only stop when it smashes into the village at the bottom of the valley. The best thing you can do is capitalize on it as well as you can and get out of its way while you do.
[If Doug is right and this trend cannot be reversed, the time to start preparing for what's ahead is right now. This free investor briefing will help you get started.]
Angelo: oops. I have added the link above.