Tuesday, April 14, 2009

Magic Words In Politics

Dr. Thomas Sowell reports that our largest creditor, the People's Republic of China, has been selling our Treasury bonds this year. Our government's profligate spending and the subsequent creating of "money" out of thin air has spooked investor's around the world.

~~John Cronin~~

http://townhall.com/columnists/ThomasSowell/2009/04/14/magic_words_in_politics

China is the largest foreign holder of U.S. government bonds. But, instead of buying more of those bonds as our skyrocketing national debt leads to more bonds being issued, China has been selling some of its U.S. government bonds this year.

The Chinese are no fools. They know that all this unbridled spending-- even when it is called "investment"-- means that inflation is coming. That in turn means that the dollars with which U.S. government bonds will be paid off will be worth a lot less than the dollars with which the bonds were bought.

Governments around the world have played this game for centuries, robbing those who trusted them enough to buy their bonds. Like Bernard Madoff, they call it "investment."

Inflation also means that all the talk about how higher taxes will be confined to "the rich" is nonsense. Inflation is a hidden tax that takes away the value of money held by everyone at every income level.

Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered "five," Lincoln told them that the answer was four. The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.

It is too bad that Lincoln is not still around today. He might emancipate us all from our enslavement to words.

When you call something a "stimulus" package, that does not mean that it actually stimulates.

The way individuals, banks and businesses in general are hanging onto their money suggests that "sedative" package might be more accurate.

Read more at Townhall.com………

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