Riders On The Storm ... Of Plunder

How can a nation go from a big surplus in the government budget to the largest deficits in history in only one presidency?

We had a post a while back that theorized or asked why the robber barons had disappeared, answering that question with a premise that it was because the plunder barons had taken their place.

The TARP hysterics, we surmised, were a knee jerk reaction from various quarters to the discovery that plunder had taken place so massively under our noses.

During these hysterics the congress mandated the creation of a government watchdog group tasked with overseeing the TARP, which is now saying:

A series of bailouts, bank rescues and other economic lifelines could end up costing the federal government as much as $23 trillion, the U.S. government’s watchdog over the effort says – a staggering amount that is nearly double the nation’s entire economic output for a year.

If the feds end up spending that amount, it could be more than the federal government has spent on any single effort in American history.

(Politico, emphasis added). This comes on the heals of the impossible to believe information we posted the other day about 100% of the GNP being used to pay our debt according to the Senate Budget Committee Chairman.

What a laugh that we once thought there would be so many people going to jail for this plunder that they might neglect torture prosecutions.

Little did we know that not only have we entered the age of plunder, but we had entered the age of no accountability just prior to that.

It figures, without accountability there is no justice and without justice there is no nation of laws.

The 23 Trillion figure quoted from Politico above has been countered and an economist on Morning Joe this morning estimated it at less than 1 Trillion, pointing out that the 23 Trillion figure is maximum potential, but not very likely at all.

The next post in this series is here.