The Economy Explained, Maybe.

Ever heard of the IMF, the International Monetary Fund? Hmmm. How about a new Fiscal Commission in the U.S? Well, if you haven't, or if you have but didn't know what they are or what they meant, you probably will in the not too distant future, and you probably won't like what you hear. Ya know, pretty nearly everybody wants to get our national debt under control. Most of us aren't really sure why, but it seems to be the right thing to want to do. People who seem to be really smart say we need to do it, even Tea Partiers say so, so it must be true. The thing is, in order to do it, there has to be some pain. The Tea Party wants some folks, most klikely the politicians, to take a hit, politicians want some others to take a hit, probably the Tea Party. It even depends on which political party you belong to. It seems to me that the best way, the most fair way would be for everybody to feel the pain. You can be sure, that's the least popular approach. So what are we talking about? What pain? I don't pretend to be an economist, but the folks who are, say one way is to devalue the dollar. That makes us more competitive in the world, but it means that the price of everything we buy, will go up in price. EVERYTHING! That sucks, doesn't it? Instead of that, we could raise taxes. Now that really sucks doesn't it? There are other things that could be done, like raising the retirement age to 92 or something, but those alone won't do the trick. In fact we'll need to do several thing together, or at least that's what IMF is saying, because we're running out of credit. And it's not just us, it's most of Europe and most of the rest of the world. Except for countries like China. They're the ones holding all our debt, but if we default, they'll go under too. IMF explains it like our credit cards. They say our (USA) credit cards are all maxed out. Ahhh! Now I'm beginning to understand. I suppose we could get a mortgage on the White House etc, couldn't we? Or a second mortgage? I think they're saying the market for White Houses has crashed. We now owe more on it, then it's worth. Get it now? Oh, I do, I do.