Paving with dollars

TheAnchoress mentions in this article that the US posted a surplus last month. This itself is true. Unfortunately, this is no more a surplus than the surplusses our household used to run every March 15th. At my previous blue-colored employer, yearly bonuses were handed out on March 15th. That month, I usually managed to draw in significantly more money than I had allocated for monthly expenses that month.

The catch? I was still paying off Christmas and the various other debts I had run up over the last year or so. I just sent that bonus money straight off to Mr. Credit Card, and called it even. The Federal Government may have had a surplus in December, but they (like me) had already spent the money.

What scares me is that the $114 billion added to the "on the record" federal debt is really the tip of the debt problem in the US. There's billions of new debt in pseudo-governmental agencies (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, etc.) and in the state and local governments. The trade deficit topped $600 billion last year, and that has to come back to our nation one way or the other. And let's not even go into consumer debt.

I can't dwell on this much, or I get to sounding too negative, and then my wife starts accusing me of being a right-wing nut job.

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"Paving with dollars"- I used to wonder if the Federal Reserve was dedicated in printing enough new US Dollars to allow people to pave their driveways with them. Now, I'm much less negative, I simply know they are. :)