I just finished reading Peter D. Schiff's new book, The Real Crash : America's Coming Bankruptcy-How to Save Yourself and Your Country. Mr. Schiff documents the build-up of the USA's federal government debt of over $100T, when off budget and contingent liabilities are included on our government's balance sheet.  This incredible debt obligation has been confirmed by a number of sources.

Mr. Schiff makes the point that our government leaders including the central bankers at the Federal Reserve have created the internet/telecom (Dot-Com) bubble, the housing bubble and now a "Government Bubble".  Our nation is now in the process of bursting the "Government Bubble".  Mr. Schiff offers many solutions to our nations ills.  Many of them are quite logical and are based on common sense.  However, I don't see our ideologically divided nation lead by the two major political parties ever agreeing to resolving the issues in the manner described by Mr. Schiff.  However, his solutions are an interesting read.

The bottom line of the book is that the US government is leading our nation to a financial disaster because of its continuing failure to properly manage its financial obligations. The leaders of both parties share responsibility for this situation.   Nobody is putting forth solutions that will fully address the problem.  Everyone must do their best to protect themselves and their families from the government's failures.

The time has come to Defuse the DEBT BOMB! The time for action is now.

TPM

It is hard to believe the amount of US Presidential Campaign advertising that I have seen, actually partially seen, in recent days.  It seems like every half inning of the Washington Nationals baseball games there is a campaign advertising spot for one of the candidates.  The Summer Olympics broadcast also has a large number of campaign spots.  I have gotten really good at hitting the channel change button on my TV remote as soon as one of the campaign spots begins to play.

Most of the ads are negative advertising about the other candidate.  They don't talk about real substance and difficult issues, hard to do in less than one minute.   But at least we need to hear some summary points as to how they will lead the country through the government restructuring process that is needed.  

I think these guys are wasting their money.  Who wants to watch and pay attention to this stuff hour after hour, day after day.  Once you seen one or two spots they become very annoying. 

This is another example of how dysfunctional the US political process has become.  How about we spend a fraction of the advertising money and set up a group to really work on Defuse the Debt Bomb.  Listen to the voice of a young person that is likely to be crushed by our nation's building debt in the video on my home page.  The situation is absurd.  But the politicians want to run attack ads instead of explaining how they will lead us out of our debt crisis.

Stop.  We don't need any more Presidential campaign advertising this year.

TPM