As IF Times

The topic on which the most virtual ink was spilt over the past few weeks was the drama surrounding the passage of the spending bill in the US Congress.  This spending bill included many provisions which required an increase in the mythical debt ceiling.  As long as I’ve been paying attention, (and it’s been over 40 years) this melodrama is played  out on a regular basis with the associated handwringing and forecasts of doom by the TV experts.

Unfortunately, the debt problem continues to expand without any chance of ever being resolved by the people elected to take care of these kinds of things.  Let’s be clear about this: in my view, the debt will never be repaid.  That’s not to say that some level of debt isn’t acceptable, but it depends on circumstances and of course a robust economy.  What’s occurring now is the real life version of the Wimpy character in the old Popeye cartoons:  “I’ll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today”, except that Tuesday never comes.  It’s the US debt twist on Waiting for Godot, now known as Waiting for Tuesday.

Most cannot even comprehend the amount of debt that is at issue.  At the moment, the figure is north of 31 trillion dollars.  Courtesy of labnol.org, some perspective is given as to just how large this number is.

Their illustration of how much constitutes one trillion dollars shows the scale of debt that’s been accumulated.  They show that if one were to have spent one million dollars every single day since Jesus was born, they still wouldn’t have spent a trillion dollars.   And we’re talking an order of 30 times that!

So when people are in anguish about how this will be repaid, they should stop worrying; it will never be repaid.  It’s like death, why worry about it; it’s going to happen.

As long as politicians are placed in elected office by way of popularity, no one will ever vote for austerity…at least not their own.  Politicians are notorious for one common trait; they love to spend OPM, other peoples’ money.  Recently, Rand Paul made a speech in front of Congress in which he cited an incident from American history which illustrates just how this process of debt accumulation began.

During a session of Congress in 1884, a proposal was put forth to give money to the victims of a fire in Georgetown. The sum of $20,000 was passed by the house to help the victims.  Upon campaigning the next year, Davy Crockett encountered a citizen and the following is a summary of the conversation as copied from the site semissourian.com:

“Several years ago I was one evening standing on the steps of the Capitol with some other members of Congress, when our attention was attracted by a great light over in Georgetown. It was evidently a large fire. We jumped into a hack and drove over as fast as we could. In spite of all that could be done, many houses were burned and many families made homeless, and, besides, some of them had lost all but the clothes they had on. The weather was very cold, and when I saw so many women and children suffering, I felt that something ought to be done for them. The next morning a bill was introduced appropriating $20,000 for their relief. We put aside all other business and rushed it through as soon as it could be done.

“The next summer, when it began to be time to think about the election, I concluded I would take a scout around among the boys of my district. I had no opposition there, but, as the election was some time off, I did not know what might turn up. When riding one day in a part of my district in which I was more a stranger than any other, I saw a man in a field plowing and coming toward the road. I gauged my gait so that we should meet as he came to the fence. As he came up, I spoke to the man. He replied politely, but, as I thought, rather coldly.

“I began: ‘Well, friend, I am one of those unfortunate beings called candidates, and–‘

” ‘Yes, I know you; you are Colonel Crockett. I have seen you once before, and voted for you the last time you were elected. I suppose you are out electioneering now, but you had better not waste your time or mine. I shall not vote for you again.’

“This was a sockdolager… I begged him to tell me what was the matter.

” ‘Well, Colonel, it is hardly worth-while to waste time or words upon it. I do not see how it can be mended, but you gave a vote last winter which shows that either you have not capacity to understand the Constitution, or that you are wanting in the honesty and firmness to be guided by it. In either case you are not the man to represent me. But I beg your pardon for expressing it in that way. I did not intend to avail myself of the privilege of the constituent to speak plainly to a candidate for the purpose of insulting or wounding you. I intended by it only to say that your understanding of the Constitution is very different from mine; and I will say to you what, but for my rudeness, I should not have said, that I believe you to be honest….But an understanding of the Constitution different from mine I cannot overlook, because the Constitution, to be worth anything, must be held sacred, and rigidly observed in all its provisions. The man who wields power and misinterprets it is the more dangerous the more honest he is.’

“I admit the truth of all you say, but there must be some mistake about it, for I do not remember that I gave any vote last winter upon any Constitutional question.

” ‘No, Colonel, there’s no mistake. Though I live here in the backwoods and seldom go from home, I take the papers from Washington and read very carefully all the proceedings in Congress. My papers say that last winter you voted for a bill to appropriate $20,000 to some suffers by a fire in Georgetown. Is that true?’

“Well, my friend, I may as well own up. You have got me there. But certainly nobody will complain that a great and rich country like ours should give the insignificant sum of $20,000 to relieve its suffering women and children, particularly with a full and overflowing Treasury, and I am sure, if you had been there, you would have done just as I did.’

” ‘It is not the amount, Colonel, that I complain of; it is the principle. In the first place, the government ought to have in the Treasury no more than enough for its legitimate purposes. But that has nothing to do with the question. The power of collecting and disbursing money at pleasure is the most dangerous power that can beintrusted to man, particularly under our system of collecting revenue by tariff, which reaches every man in the country, no matter how poor he may be, and the poorer he is the more he pays in proportion to his means. What is worse, it presses upon him without his knowledge where the weight centers, for there is not a man in the United States who can ever guess how much he pays to the government. So you see, that while you are contributing to relieve one, you are drawing it from thousands who are even worse off than he. If you had the right to give anything, the amount was simply a matter of discretion with you, and you had as much right to give $20,000,000 as $20,000. If you have the right to give to one, you have the right to give to all; and, as the Constitution neither defines charity nor stipulates the amount, you are at liberty to give to any thing and everything which you may believe, or profess to believe, is a charity, and to any amount you may think proper. You will very easily perceive what a wide door this would open for fraud and corruption and favoritism, on the one hand, and for robbing the people on the other. No, Colonel, Congress has no right to give charity. Individual members may give as much of their own money as they please, but they have no right to touch a dollar of the public money for that purpose

Indeed, from this event, Congress has been doing exactly this for the past 150 years, assigning public monies for all manner of issues that have nothing to do with the welfare of the nation.  It may start off as good intentions, but eventually it’s just intentions and ultimately as whims by whomever is in charge of the purse strings, because it’s always OPM.

What most do not understand is to whom all this money owed? Foreign nations of course, but the vast majority, over 24 trillion dollars of this debt, is owed to….Americans.  In case of default, neither Japan, nor China, nor the UK are going to come and collect pieces of the US as payment, though giving away DC is not a bad idea.  It’s the American people themselves who are owed the biggest chunk of debt.  This is in the form of debt that the public owns by way of pension obligations, insurance policies and other savings bonds.

In the case of any default, the brunt of the pain will be felt by people who will be denied pension payouts, insurance claims and even modest savings.  There are really only a few ways for this to be resolved.  They can just one day decide that pension obligations will not be paid, or at best, be severely reduced.  They can inflate the currency so that even if paid, the currency will have significantly reduced buying power.  A loaf or bread may cost you $300  for example. Another darker possibility is that the beneficiaries not be able to collect.  Suffice to say, this debt monster has been allowed to grow so much that repaying the sum is out of the question.  Rather than worry about the ability to pay, people should start to worry about what to do when they don’t.

link:  https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/5/2/another-era-as-king-charles-iii-takes-crown-canada-shrugs

In a few days’ time, arguably the biggest social event of the past half century will be celebrated in Britain, if not worldwide.  For the first time since 1953, The United Kingdom will coronate a new monarch, with the title of King Charles lll.  Charles of course, is the son of the now deceased Queen Elizabeth ll.

Charles has literally been waiting for this job since he was born, having not prepared for any other vocation.  All he had to do was wait.  And wait he did, for virtually the entirety of his adult life.  His mother, Queen Elizabeth decided not to relinquish her position as notional head of state for reasons only she knew. While she was only 27 at her coronation, her son Charles will be 75 upon his.  That he was so long in the on-deck circle kind of tells you that the Queen didn’t have a lot of confidence in her son.

As it happens, Elizabeth was quite beloved by her subjects and always exuded the epitome of Royal dignity and decorum. Her patented rotating arm wave was the subject of many comic emulators as was her formal British accent during speeches.  She was an anachronism and an iconic standard for British society even as her society changed dramatically during her reign.  It’s hard to dispute the popularity of the notion of a royal society given the wild popularity of the Downton Abbey television series.  People, especially Brits, love their traditions.

And speaking of anachronism, it may be amusing to look at the history of the Royal Family to give some perspective to their role in modern society.  It’s hard to believe in our modern times of rapid change in all things, but the Royal Family’s roots began with King Alfred the Great, the effective first King of England in 871 AD. Thus Charles lll is the 33^rd great grandson of the first King, known simply as “The Great” to his close friends.

Back in the day, you don’t get to be King of a realm unless you are able to marshall a bunch of men to conquer other men, so Alfred’s moniker of “The Great” was probably due to his prowess in the war business. Luckily for him, once he got ensconced in the leadership role, he was able to keep it unless someone else was able to beat him.

Thus for many generations leading up to modern times, the lineage of children continued to enjoy their privileged roles as scions of a Royal bloodline.  This is pretty remarkable when you consider that through the ages, people were constantly fighting over this issue or that piece of land. There was always a war to be fought with someone.  That one family could retain their power through the centuries is quite amazing.  The Windsors are the longest continuous line of ruling families in the world.  It’s a pretty good gig if you can get it.  To be conferred wealth, respect and power simply because of your parents is pretty much a life lottery win.  Also, pretty cool to have images of your family on the coin of the realm.

Of course, in modern times, the role of the British Monarchy, or for that matter, any Monarchy, is largely ceremonial.  No one expects these Monarchs to be hoisting broadswords into battle.  So if that’s not the case, how does any Monarchy retain their privileged positions atop a society?  The constituency of the British Empire has changed dramatically since the days of Alfred, but most significantly over the past 30 years.  People whom were once part of the far flung colonies now make up a significant portion of the native British population.

Will they continue to respect the throne and the traditions attached thereto?  When Kings or Queens wielded power, it was through their implied control of armies.  Such is not the case today as all governments are essentially some form of functional bureaucracies.  Policy is often made by these bureaucracies and not really by the elected representatives of citizens….much less than by ceremonial heads of state.

Access to information was also a former purview of Royal Families.  Not anymore. Information and intelligence is widely available to the masses and no one depends on the opinions of those who happen to be of Royal bloodlines.  In the case of Charles, his life under the microscope has revealed that he is as vulnerable to human foibles as any of us.  He comes in at time when the population is much less forgiving of such foibles.  In addition, his cause celebre is Climate Change.  Good luck on convincing those with actual facts.  It will be ‘amusing’ to see the direction in which the new King Charles takes the Monarchy and what becomes of the House of Windsor.