That is $1,000,000,000,000.00 – or, if you spent a million dollars a day, enough money to last you 2,739 years. So, if you were Caesar, made immortal, and started spending it on the day you were born, you’d still have enough money for 630 years. A nice chunk of change, but not nearly the limit:

The federal deficit has topped $1 trillion for the first time ever and could grow to nearly $2 trillion by this fall, intensifying fears about higher interest rates, inflation and the strength of the dollar.

The deficit has been widened by the huge sum the government has spent to ease the recession, combined with a sharp decline in tax revenues. The cost of wars in Iraq and Afghanistan also is a major factor.

The soaring deficit is making Chinese and other foreign buyers of U.S. debt nervous, which could make them reluctant lenders down the road. It could also force the Treasury Department to pay higher interest rates to make U.S. debt attractive longer-term.

“These are mind-boggling numbers,” said Sung Won Sohn, an economist at the Smith School of Business at California State University. “Our foreign investors from China and elsewhere are starting to have concerns about not only the value of the dollar but how safe their investments will be in the long run.”

The Treasury Department said Monday that the deficit in June totaled $94.3 billion, pushing the total since the budget year started in October to $1.09 trillion. The administration forecasts that the deficit for the entire year will hit $1.84 trillion in October.

Ok, liberals, pay attention. Suppose this ultimately $2 trillion dollar deficit got the economy moving again – ok, so we’ve now got $2 trillion debt on top of the debt we already had…and given the nature of things, we’re bound to hit another downturn, at which time you’d naturally call for another stimulus package. This would certainly be long before all of the debt piled up is paid off and, likely, before the additional debt we’ve piled up was discharged. In other words, before we’re back to square one on debt, the “need” for additional debt will arrive. How many times can you do this before it just becomes impossible, supposing that this time it is, indeed, possible? When do we actually pay off the debt between economic downturns?

I won’t hold my breath waiting for answers.

From the WSJ via Pajamas Media:

In December 2008, forecasters surveyed by the Wall Street Journal predicted the jobless rate would hit what then seemed a very high 8.1% at the end of 2009. Surveyed again this past week, forecasters now anticipate year-end unemployment of 10%. That suggests 775,000 more Americans will join the ranks of the jobless in the next six months. Because most Americans depend on their paychecks for their shopping, a weak job market and lousy wage growth have cast an ominous shadow over consumer spending and the overall economy.

Officially, predictions are for the recession to end in late 2009 – which prediction I can only figure is either wishful thinking, or some bizarre assertion that “not immediately getting massively worse” is “recovery”. To be sure, we could very well see a quarter or two of allegedly positive growth in GDP – but expect full analysis of such GDP growth to be entirely in government spending with only trivial amounts of new GDP coming from wealth creation.

And therein lies the problem with the linked quote – we’re expecting a rise in consumer spending to pull us out of this, and the people who see the flaws in Obamunism are noting that Obama’s policies will keep consumer spending low, thus short circuiting a recovery. But we shouldn’t be looking for consumer spending to drive us out of the ditch – we should be looking for making, mining and growing things to move the economy. We can punch up consumer spending in a lot of ways and, perhaps, get some GDP growth…but until we, as a people, start making, mining and growing more of our own things – ie, more of our own wealth – we’re just going to be spinning our wheels. We shouldn’t be buying manufactured goods from China, food from Argentina or importing oil from Arabia…we should be doing all this on our own.

We must learn the lesson – we’re in this mess because we bought the scam that money managing was the way to wealth. We can’t get genuinely rich by, as it were, taking in each others laundry. We have to produce something – and production ultimately means things out of our own soil and made by the sweat of our own brow. Unless we’re willing to put in a bit of sweat equity and get a bit dirty, we’re just going to push ourselves further and further down the hole. Obama wants to spend us in to wealth, more sensible economic gurus want us to privately consume our way in to wealth – I want us to earn a living.

Former comedian and failed radio host Al Franken, had some bizarre things to say about Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor.

Franken told Sotomayor that she was “the most experienced Supreme Court nominee in 100 years.” He said her story is inspirational and one in which “all Americans should take great pride in.

“Interestingly enough, many others are seeing Sotomayor for what she really is…

Sonia Sotomayor will begin her confirmation hearings next week with some of the highest levels of public opposition of any Supreme Court nominee in the last two decades, according to a new poll by CNN and the Opinion Research Corporation.

In fact, only one nominee had a higher level of opposition: Harriet Miers, who was appointed by President George W. Bush in 2005. Miers later withdrew her nomination under questions about her qualifications from both the political left and right.

Make the GOP trusted, again:

Voters now trust Republicans more than Democrats on eight out of 10 key electoral issues, including, for the second straight month, the top issue of the economy. They’ve also narrowed the gap on the remaining two issues, the traditionally Democratic strong suits of health care and education.

The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that voters trust the GOP more on economic issues 46% to 41%, showing little change from the six-point lead the party held last month. This is just the second time in over two years of polling the GOP has held the advantage on economic issues. The parties were close on the issue in May, with the Democrats holding a one-point lead.

Given how badly we screwed up with our Congressional spending binge, it has really been quite an effort by the Democrats to so quickly make everyone forget about our errors. I want to give a vote of thanks to you Donks out there – we promise to make our Congressional majority a painless for you as possible…if you consider “root canal” to be painless.

There are, indeed, some things worth fighting against – some things of human creation which must be destroyed. All cultures are really not equally valid – some must be rooted out till not a brick stands on a brick.

In a previous chapter I have hinted at something of the psychology that lies behind a certain type of religion. There was a tendency in those hungry for practical results, apart from poetical results, to call upon spirits of terror and compulsion; to move Acheron in despair of bending the gods. There is always a sort of dim idea that these darker powers will really do things, with no nonsense about it. In the interior psychology of the Punic peoples this strange sort of pessimistic practicality had grown to great proportions. In the New Town which the Romans called Carthage, as in the parent cities of Phoenicia, the god who got things done bore the name Moloch, who was perhaps identical with the other deity whom we know as Baal, the Lord. The Romans did not at first quite know what to call him or what to make of him; they had to go back to the grossest myth of Greek or Roman Origins and compare him to Saturn devouring his children. But the worshippers of Moloch were not gross or primitive. They were members of a mature and polished civilization abounding in refinements and luxuries; they were probably far more civilized than the Romans. And Moloch was not a myth; or at any rate his meal was not a myth. These highly civilized people really met together to invoke the blessing of heaven on their empire by throwing hundreds of their infants into a large furnace. We can only realize the combination by imagining a number of Manchester merchants with chimneypot hats and mutton-chop whiskers, going to church every Sunday at eleven o’clock to see a baby roasted alive. – G K Chesterton, The Everlasting Man

And so the Romans warred upon the Carthaginians until Carthago delenda est; and the Spaniards warred against the Aztecs until their idols were all cast down; and we warred against Hitler until he shot himself in his bunker…there are still, today, things we must fight against, most importantly the Islamo-fascism which beheads people for no rational reason, abuses women and sends children off to blow themselves up. Do not ask me, at least, to try and understand the wicked – I only wish to destroy them.

And no, its not Social Security:

Freshman Rep. Alan Grayson (D-Fla.) lost $3 million in a stock swindle between 2000 and 2005, a Florida television station reported this week.

According to Orlando’s Local 6, Grayson was an investor in a Ponzi scheme run by the company Derivium Capital. The scheme allowed Grayson and other investors to turn over stock to Derivium in exchange for cash loans and redeem the value later if the stock prices increased.

The station cited court filings indicating that Grayson transferred about $29 million in stock to the fund, taking out about $26 million in cash. A South Carolina court ruled earlier this year that Derivium shareholders were owed about $270 million in lost profits and that Grayson’s share of that would be about $34 million.

The moron in question is on the Financial Services Committee. Feel safe? No thought that, perhaps, Grayson was in on this and new what was going on?

Geesh:

Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (Ill.) and other Democrats on Sunday said they support an investigation into whether the CIA withheld information from Congress about a secret counterterrorism program on the direct orders of then-Vice President Dick Cheney.

Uh, Durbin, you brainless twit, the Vice President can’t order anyone to do anything. I don’t know if he can even order lunch without the President’s say so. So, you’re “let’s get after the evil, wicked, nasty Dick Cheney” gambit might play with the kook left, but its asinine to the rest of us.

We can’t get these fools out of power soon enough.

If it doesn’t recover, then the economy doesn’t recover – and its not about to recover:

…the next phase of the housing crisis is about to begin according to new analysis by hedge fund owner and value-investing guru Whitney Tilson. Since home prices peaked in 2006, the Case-Shiller Home Price Index has fallen 34%. This, of course, was driven by a huge spike in defaults and delinquencies among subprime borrowers as interest rates and payments reset.

In a recent update to his housing overview from last December, Tilson says the next phase will be driven by prime and Alt-A borrowers who owe more than their house is now worth. The catalyst will be ongoing job loss, falling wages, and rising interest rates. Add to this a huge wave of Alt-A loan resets over the next five years. The result: Home prices will fall another 10%, possibly more.

What’s worse is that according to new research, the likelihood of a borrower making a “strategic” decision to default — in effect, mailing the keys back to the bank and walking away — increase greatly depending on how deeply underwater they are and whether people they know have done the same. This means there is a very real possibility that home prices declines reaccelerate as hope is lost and it becomes socially acceptable to give up on your mortgage.

It does seem that at least some banks are wising up about foreclosures – for instance, I have a friend who is staggeringly behind on his mortgage, but there’s been no move on the part of the lender to even start the foreclosure process. It makes sense – why would a lender already saddled with a large number of foreclosed properties want to add another to the pile of houses which cannot be sold? Better, at least for the moment, to allow someone to live free – and at least maintain the property – than to foreclose on it. So, while a huge spike of foreclosures is still likely as the year winds down, there’s not as much of it as one might have feared. On the other hand, if someone owes $396,000 on his house and he notes that the larger house across the street just went for $167,000 and, in addition, he’s seen a much nicer, larger house with a pool offered for $166,000, just what is keeping him in his current home, supposing he can get financing (such as, through his as-yet unused VA Loan benefit?).

Well, that guy is currently in negotiation with his lender to try and “cram down” the mortgage amount to get the house to a price where it can be rented out to cover the mortgage, then he’s going to find himself swell, new digs and hope that he doesn’t get laid off, ’cause that would really screw the economic pooch…but, one can’t worry about hypothetical situations; sufficient unto the day are the problems thereof. But what of the guy who has recently lost his job, or had a pay cut, or who is still working but his wife got laid off? What is the point of keeping a house your massively upside down on with no prospect even in ten years of getting back to your old value? And what of the guy who is in fine economic shape but just can’t see himself paying off a 300k mortgage over 30 years in order to end up, at best, with a loss given the interest he paid? Time to walk – and I’ll bet that millions of Americans will do just that, thus driving home prices into further decline.

As I said pre-Spendulus, we’re broke – as a nation, we went on a spending binge financed by fiat money and now the bill has come due. At least half the dollar wealth of the United States is fictional – it never existed. We played a gigantic confidence game on ourselves – bought in to the largest ponzi scheme ever imagined. We have to clear the decks, assess what our real wealth is, return to hard currency and start to rebuild. This means, of course, that we’d have to put off massive, new government programs at least for a while and thus this doesn’t commend itself to Obama, et al.

And so, we’re going to pretend we’re not broke and its all just a temporary slump which we can fiscal stimulus our way out of and then the ponzi scheme can go on forever. Trouble, this will – indeed, already has – run up against the fact that people aren’t actually stupid. No one sitting on a house which has lost 50% or more of its value is going to sit around the living room staring at his Obama commemorative plates chanting “hopeychange” in the expectation that the wizard will pull equity out of his hat. No, it doesn’t work that way – people act with amazing celerity to economic circumstances. The best example I’ve ever come across of this is from the early days of Lenin’s regime in Russia – the decree went out dictating what the peasants would be paid for their crops…through a bureaucratic slip up, onions weren’t included in the decree, and all of a sudden Russia was awash in onions.

As I’ve also said before, economics isn’t alchemy – it isn’t an esoteric thing which only a few geniuses can figure out. Its something which just happens because people have to make a living, some how. You don’t have to have a plan for it – you just have to ensure that no one is defrauding others and that the medium of exchange is fixed. Do that, and people will just go about their business – creating wealth and consuming same. The longer we go along our current path, the worse it will get and the longer it will take to dig out of it. We were already over the cliff when Obama took office, and now he proposes to tie lead weights to us on our way down. We can be smart, or we can be fools – Obama advises folly.

Have at it, boys and girls.

Indeed:

We can believe what we choose. We are answerable for what we choose to believe. – Cardinal John Henry Newman