Regardless, if we don’t get taken out this time, we’ll assuredly go down within a few years or less. First it will be the collapse of the Euro currency, then the mighty tsunami wave of sovereign default will wash over our shores. The entire Western finanacial paradigm is held together with bandaids and bailing wire so to speak via red hot, unsecured, unregulated derivatives between faceless counterparties. They’ve turned high finance into a casino albeit a crooked one relative to the little people who are trapped within their criminally disposed paradigm.

Thanks for further input to the discussion.

Carl Nemo **==

“The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for the payments of pension and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion shall not be questioned”

Of course they are twisting the original meaning of this amendment, just like the commerce clause in forcing us to buy health insurance. All the 14th says is that the validity of the public debt should not be questioned. Meaning it does exist as valid public debt, not that it must continue into perpetuity.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_public_debt

There’s quite a bit of hollow financial ‘promises’ that are “off the books” so to speak and will never be fulfilled…ever!

Carl Nemo **==

I don’t know where Bill Clinton, Geithner et al. get the idea that this “Reconstruction Era” amendment has anything to do with the government defaulting on its debts. Geithner comes up with “debt shall not be questioned”…say what?! This guy is exemplary of a sitting ‘village idiot’, our Secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He must have his Goldman Sachs brain plugged in…! / : |

All it makes reference to is the now archaic conditions of debt related to the post civil war era (Confederate financial losses), slaves etc. The amendment is linked to the “Reconstruction period” post Civil War and has nothing do with this debt monstrosity they’ve created in our modern times.

following extract of the intent of the 14th amendment:

“Validity of public debt
Section 4 confirmed the legitimacy of all United States public debt appropriated by the Congress. It also confirmed that neither the United States nor any state would pay for the loss of slaves or debts that had been incurred by the Confederacy. For example, several English and French banks had lent money to the South during the war.[48] In Perry v. United States (1935), the Supreme Court ruled that under Section 4 voiding a United States government bond “went beyond the congressional power.”[49] …extract from Wiki article

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fourteenth_Amendment_to_the_United_States_Constitution

I’ve spent a bit of time reading and rereading the 14th and all I can say this is typcial b.s. from the lips of Bill Clinton et al. of the same stripe.

We need massive cuts in expenditures both in the present and future along with a Constitutional amendment that mandates a balanced budget and plan to reduce the public debt over time…period!

Carl Nemo **==

If no debt-limit deal can be reached, that will be fine: Obama can invoke the constitutional requirement for the US to honor all its debts. Then at the end of 2012, the Bush/Obama tax cuts will automatically expire, so Obama will get his revenue increase. All the House Republicans can do here is dig their own political graves. Even Grover Norquist has said that letting the tax cuts expire will not violate his “no tax increases” pledge. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel, and it’s a train about to crush the GOP!