Subprime Nation

Our whole country is headed into the situation that brought about the sub-prime mortgage crisis. Our trillion dollar-plus deficits have turned the country into an upside down mortgage. From The Corner:

Former U.S. comptroller David Walker has long been a leading advocate of fiscal sanity, and I called him today to get his take on the latest CBO budget-deficit projections ($1.2 trillion for next year, trillion-plus deficits for years to come). "If trillion-dollar deficit numbers for several years in a row don’t wake up Washington and America to the nature of our fiscal problems, then I don’t know what will," he says.

Walker says, "For the first time in the history of the U.S., the federal government owes more in liabilities [including unfunded commitments for Social Security and Medicare] than American households are worth." And that gap is widening, he says. "The fiscal hole is getting deeper, and household worth continues to decline."

This is really scary stuff, especially if you care a whit for the country our children will inherit. It's time, finally, to seriously start thinking about having the treasury buy as much gold as it can afford to over time to give our currency some stable value. It's painful in the short run, but may be the only thing to save us.