… Despite the Obama administration touting a budget deficit of “only” $680 billion in 2013, the GAO’s more accurate accounting shows a total government cost of $3.8 trillion on total revenue of $2.8 trillion.
In other words– the administration wasn’t exactly honest with the American people– the deficit was more like $1 trillion, not $680 billion.
But it gets worse.
The GAO added up ALL the US government’s assets in 2013. Aircraft carriers. The highway system. Land. Cash and financial assets. The total is $2.97 trillion. The liabilities, on the other hand, total $19.88 trillion. This includes the official public debt, plus all sorts of IOUs and loan guarantees.
This means the net EQUITY of the US government is -$16.9 trillion [poster note: yes negative folks. GE.]
Moreover, the US government’s cash position is a mere $206 billion… roughly 1.1% of its public debt. This isn’t enough to cover net interest payments for the next year.
Unlike a savvy investor who borrows cheap money to purchase productive assets, the US government borrows money to pay interest.
via Sovereign Man and H/T to ZeroHedge where we saw it first
…December 23rd 2012 a New York Newspaper Printed the names and addresses of every Licensed Pistol Permit holder in two Counties [poster’s note: Rockland and Westchester] and another County is being posted shortly! This is a massive privacy breach and the latest in a series of over the top emotional reactions to the latest shooting tragedy in Sandy Hook CT meant to intimidate the lawful and prey on peoples fears to exploit the gun grabbing agenda.
In an article title “The gun owner next door: What you don’t know about the weapons in your neighborhood” the paper linked to an interactive map titled: “Map: Where are the gun permits in your neighborhood?” where you can search neighborhoods to see who received a legal permit to own a hand gun license listed by name and address…
We lost the republic long ago. Within Remus’s lifetime, loyal constitutionalist patriots have gone from the majority to a tolerated minority to a designated hate group and now, presumed terrorists. Meanwhile, the collectivists—the Democrat Republican Progressive establishment—are openly consolidating their power, strutting on the national stage like Mussolini in front of a mirror, their witless minions shouting down deviations from DC’s two party one-party line.
DC has taken on the classic structure of totalitarianism: feuding official fiefdoms with fuzzy and overlapping authorities, all burrowing into the formerly private lives of the populace, legal cover provided by a Byzantine tangle of laws and impenetrable codes, a form of lawlessness in itself, as it’s meant to be. In this pervasive fog and fear they needn’t be lawful other than by their own calculations. Continue reading →
“…For the past four years, the Obama administration has created a Franco-German welfare state whose sole purpose is to forge a majority political coalition wedded to the Democratic Party.” The explosion of food stamps, the bailouts — all translated into an ‘I got mine, not gonna worry about anybody else‘ mentality that has ruptured this country into two camps: There are those who pay and there are those who expect the payment without any effort on their part…
… I’ve spent days analyzing the bill… and frankly, it’s a joke. You can read the 200+ pages yourself if you like, but here are the important points–
As we’ve discussed before, US government spending falls into three categories.
1. Discretionary spending is what we normally think of as ‘government.’ It funds everything from the military to Homeland Security to the national parks.
2. Mandatory spending covers all the major entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare.
Then there’s (3.) interest on the debt, which is so large they had to make it a special category.
The latter two categories are spent automatically, just like your mortgage payment that gets sucked out of the bank account before you have a chance to spend it. The only thing Congress has a say over is Discretionary Spending. Hence the name.
But here’s the problem– the US fiscal situation is so untenable that the government fails to collect enough tax revenue to cover mandatory spending and debt interest. In Fiscal Year 2011, for example, the US government spent $176 billion MORE on debt interest and mandatory spending than they generated in tax revenue.
In Fiscal Year 2012, which just ended 6 weeks ago, that shortfall increased to $251 billion. This means that they could cut the ENTIRE discretionary budget and still be in the hole by $251 billion.
This is why the Fiscal Cliff is irrelevant. The automatic cuts that are going to take place don’t even begin to address the actual problem; they’re cutting $110 billion from the discretionary budget… yet only $16.9 billion from the mandatory budget.
Given that the entire problem is with mandatory spending, slashing the discretionary budget is pointless. It’s as if the US economy is a speeding train heading towards a ravine at 200 mph, and the conductors are arguing about whether they should slow down to 150 or 175.
GE Note: I have it from a very, very close & reliable source that this accident was mentioned on local Ocean County / Lacey Township NJ OEM and police dispatch radio frequencies, but that it was kept very quiet… Ocean County OEM, Sheriff and local municipalities were deliberately NOT putting it over the radios, but were instead instructing each other to call on cells phones and land lines.
credit: Chicago Tribune
… On October 29, 2012, Oyster Creek declared a Notice of Unusual Event followed by an Alert due to high water levels in the intake structure. Elevated intake structure water levels are of concern as excessive levels can flood certain plant components and render normal cooling systems inoperable. No safety systems were adversely affected by the high intake level. The site also experienced a loss of offsite power. Both emergency diesel generators started as designed and supplied power to the emergency electrical busses. Shutdown cooling and spent fuel pool cooling were temporarily lost but subsequently restored, after the busses were reenergized. At 9:59 a.m. EDT on October 30, the licensee restored one line of off-site power via a start-up transformer. Oyster Creek terminated the Alert at 3:52 a.m. EDT on October 31 when water level dropped below 4.5 ft and off-site power was fully restored…via NRC
This past Wednesday, nobody reported that a squadron of 8 Israeli F-15 jets dropped 4 two-ton bombs on the giant Yarmouk missile factory on the outskirts of Sudan’s capital Khartoum. Which is just as Israel wanted it. Because what otherwise would be a provocative incursion tantamount to war (if only Sudan wasn’t a complete basket case of a country), was really nothing short of a dry-run for an Israeli attack on Iran. At least according to the Sunday Times… via ZeroHedge.
Here in Chicago, I regularly meet with a group of friends who call themselves “The Think Squad”; these are men and women who are prominent members of the black community in Hyde Park and the City’s south side. None of them supported Barack Obama’s presidential bid in 2008 but most begrudgingly voted for him because they freely admit race-pride was their motivating factor. These people knew Obama when he was a state senator and saw him do absolutely nothing for blacks in Chicago back then…and they similarly saw Obama do nothing for blacks (or any of his constituents in general) as a United States Senator. The Think Squad has always seen through Obama and continues to speak out about his failings. Expect them, and other blacks coast to coast, to become even more vocal about the “magical first black president” after he loses in November and the anger of “how much that punk wasted” really comes to a boil and people no longer feel intimidated or threatened when the Obamas have left the White House for Hawaii next January. That’s when people will REALLY let it all fly, once the Obamas are no longer even a vestigial presence in Chicago and people have no fear at all in talking about what a sham their marriage is and how the two of them benefitted from affirmative action and white guilt their entire lives. Continue reading →
Ann Banhardt on The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, Sept 24, 2012.
Wobbly audio quality in parts of first half, but worth the perseverance.
I love Ann, I do, but she tends to the dramatic in her presentation. The facts she lays out are, however, stark and I fear on the money. Go here for Ann’s site and her youtube channel
The survivalist knows things could go on like they are for the rest of his life, after all, ships get scrapped with their full compliment of life boats all the time. They zigged when Murphy’s Law zagged and good on them. But if you’re reading this you’ve already fled the “everything’s going to be okay” crowd. Next up will be the “everything’s going to be okay in six to eight weeks” crowd. They’ll matter even less then than now, come a real catastrophe there are more dangerous crowds to stay away from. Chief among them is the “Official crowd“. More crowds to avoid are upcoming but this crowd is well positioned to dominate at the outset so it deserves the first look. Continue reading →
… none of our “experts” really know what they are doing, and they are definitely not looking out for our best interests. The blind are leading the blind and we all need to finally admit that the emperor is not wearing any clothes. Unfortunately, most Americans will repeat the mantra of “if that was true I would have heard about it on the news” until it is way too late. Most people are waiting for the “authorities” to tell them what to do instead of thinking for themselves… via SHTFPlan.
and here too:
… Once people understand that the economy has been collapsing and will continue to collapse, then the next step for most of them is that they want to get prepared for the storm that is coming. So where should someone get started? Well, the truth is that no two people are facing the exact same set of circumstances, so preparation is going to look different for each individual. But there are certain core principles that we can all benefit from… via Economic Collapse Blog
People who want to take guns away from citizens often argue that it’s dangerous for citizens to have guns. They will say, “innocent people will get shot in the crossfire” in the event an armed civilian uses a gun to stop an armed criminal.
I wonder what they’ll say about what just happened in NYC?
According to reports, a laid-off women’s clothing designer named Jeffrey Johnson, 58, decided to shoot his ex-boss. He pulled out a .45 pistol and did so – and was himself almost immediately gunned down by a gaggle of city cops. Problem is, the cops ending up shooting more people than the gunman. Eight people were shot – by the cops. (news story here.)
Will the people who demand citizens be disarmed because “innocent people might get caught in the crossfire” now demand that cops be disarmed, for the same reason? If not – why?
Will the “reckless” cops – who clearly can’t shoot straight – be held civilly and criminally responsible for shooting innocent bystanders – as a citizen surely would be? If not, why?
Don’t forget that cops – as a matter of law – are under no obligation to protect any individual from harm. They are law enforcers – not protectors.
Protection – of our individual persons – is ultimately up to us. Provided, of course, we are permitted to do so.
And provided, of course, that we aren’t caught in a cop crossfire.
July 27, 2012 – Dozen Symptomatic H3N2v Cases At LaPorte County Fair, Recombinomics
WSBT spoke with several parents off camera who said at least a dozen children who had similar symptoms as the pigs and other sick children were treated at local hospitals and doctor’s offices. Continue reading →
In New York this week, the U.N. Conference on the Arms Trade Treaty continued trying to draft a treaty to impose worldwide controls on small arms, including civilian-owned firearms.
The NRA has made clear its opposition to any treaty that includes civilian firearms, and continues to note that a majority of the United States Senate stands with American gun owners in opposition to such a treaty. We have led the effort to mobilize opposition to the treaty in Congress, and not only a bipartisan majority of the U.S. Senate, but also 130 House members, have voiced strong opposition to the treaty. Ignoring that reality, U.N. conferees are working to regulate not only civilian small arms, but also ammunition and firearm parts.
Anti-gun treaty proponents continue to mislead the public, claiming the treaty would have no impact on American gun owners. That’s a bald-faced lie. Continue reading →
The chart below is all you need to know about today’s report. Non-seasonally adjusted U-6 surged from 14.3% in May to 15.1% in June. Add that in with the total lack of job creation and the second wave of the “Great” recession appears to be right over the horizon.
An independent global think tank, LEAP/E2020, recently reported the opinion that “this second half of 2012 will really mark a major inflection point of the global systemic crisis;” “The shock of the autumn 2008 will seem like a small summer storm compared to what will affect the planet in several months.”
In fact LEAP/E2020 has never seen the chronological convergence of such a series of explosive and so fundamental factors (economy, finances, geopolitical…) since the start of its work on the global systemic crisis. Logically, in our modest attempt to regularly publish a “crisis weather forecast”, we must therefore give our readers a “Red Alert” because the upcoming events which are readying themselves to shake the world system next September/ October belong to this category. Continue reading →
The Justice Department’s Fast and Furious was the first part of an under-the-radar gun control stunt where legitimate gun dealers were coerced to sell guns to Mexican gang straw purchasers. When these guns were used in crimes the source would be “discovered” and “prove” the case against the “easily availability of guns” in the US. But whistleblowers within the BATFE—and yes, there are honorable people in the BATFE—leaked the operation. The affair was taken up by a House investigative committee. For a useful timeline and summary, see Sen. Grassley’s article here. Continue reading →
The word “privatization” is a loaded term these days. Unions and big government worshippers scoff at the idea of any public services being in the hands of ruthless, greedy capitalists. The left has the distorted view that people in the private sector are driven primarily by their desire to cut costs and throw workers out on the street. To them, government workers are angels sent from heaven to do God’s work like picking up the neighborhood trash or maintaining a public pool filled with the bodily discharges of kids whose derelict parents decided to drop off and go shopping for a few hours. On the right, conservatives who supposedly hold high regard for market forces and Ronald Reagan’s classic declaration “government is the problem,” typically have a favorable view of privatization schemes. Continue reading →
The Pew Center has released its annual summary of US pension and retirement health care (under)funding.
As of 2010, the total underfunding gap rose by $120 billion from the prior year’s $1.26 trillion deficit to a record $1.38 trillion underfunding. This number consists of $757 billion in pension promises, not backed by any hard cash, representing pension liabilities of $3.07 trillion and assets of $2.31 trillion. In 2000, more than half of the states had their pensions 100 percent funded, but by 2010 only Wisconsin was fully funded, and 34 were below the 80 percent threshold—up from 31 in 2009 and just 22 in 2008.
But that pales in comparison to the ridiculous spread between retiree health care liabilities of $660 billion and assets of, drum roll, $33 billion, or a funding shortage that is $627 billion, roughly 19 times the actual assets in the system! Just seven states funded 25 percent or more of their retiree health care obligations: Alaska, Arizona, North Dakota, Ohio, Oregon, Virginia, and Wisconsin. What this means is soon US pensioners will have no choice but to experience not only austerity unlike any seen in Europe, but broken promises of retirement benefits which will never materialize. The response will likewise be proportional. Sadly, it is only going to get worse: …. go here ZeroHedge.
Virginia Appeals Court Expands Use of Roadblocks. Court of Appeals in Virginia gives police a free hand in setting up roadblocks to search motorists not suspected of any crime.
Police in Virginia may block off roads to search and interrogate motorists as long as a vague “plan” is filed in advance, the state Court of Appeals ruled last Tuesday. Michael Anthony Desposito challenged his May 27, 2009 arrest at a checkpoint run by the Hanover County Sheriff’s Office on the ground that the department allowed its officers to run open-ended roadblocks in violation of the Fourth Amendment. Continue reading →
There is no doubt that the elite have always sought to carefully manufacture news and to control the beliefs of the masses through their interests in funding education and in owning media distribution channels for centuries. There is a wealth of history that chronicles the elite’s desires to control and sway public opinion by manufacturing news versusthe honorable journalism pursuit of reporting news in a fair and accurate manner. For example, in 1917, Congressman Oscar Callaway stated, as documented in the Congressional Record: Continue reading →
If Raoul Pal was some doomsday spouting windbag, writing in all caps, arbitrarily pasting together disparate charts to create 200 page slideshows, it would be easy to ignore him. He isn’t. The founder of Global Macro Investor “previously co-managed the GLG Global Macro Fund in London for GLG Partners, one of the largest hedge fund groups in the world. Raoul came to GLG from Goldman Sachs where he co-managed the hedge fund sales business in Equities and Equity Derivatives in Europe… Raoul Pal retired from managing client money in 2004 at the age of 36 and now lives on the Valencian coast of Spain, from where he writes.” It is his writing we are concerned about, and specifically his latest presentation, which is, for lack of a better word, the most disturbing and scary forecast of the future of the world we have ever seen….
…we have built-in defense mechanisms that seem to get in the way of accepting that our civilization is not only just three meals away from anarchy, but that government is not in any position to be able to help the citizenry much if at all, when disaster strikes…
For the past four years I have been covering the progression of the global economic crisis with an emphasis on the debilitating effects it has had on the American financial system. Only once before have I ever issued an economic alert, and this was at the onset of the very first credit downgrade in U.S. history by S&P. I do not take the word “alert” lightly. Since 2008 we have seen a cycle of events that have severely weakened our country’s foundation, but each event has then been followed by a lull, sometimes 4 to 6 months at a stretch, which seems to disarm the public, drawing them back into apathy and complacency. The calm moments before each passing storm give Americans a false sense of hope that our capsized fiscal vessel will somehow right itself if we just hold on a little longer. Continue reading →
Washington, DC, May 3, 2012—In 2012, Americans will pay approximately $4.041 trillion in taxes, which is $152 billion, or 3.9%, more than they will spend on housing, food, and clothing combined, according to a new study from the Tax Foundation.
In addition, an increasing proportion of government benefits now go to pay for those same basic expenses of low-income Americans…
I will fight when my liberty is truly threatened. But I have absolutely no trust in politicians to determine when this is the case. Which is why my reaction to this is, ‘Oh Crap!’
The U.S. Air Force is quietly assembling the world’s most powerful air-to-air fighting team at bases near Iran. Stealthy F-22 Raptors on their first front-line deployment have joined a potent mix of active-duty and Air National Guard F-15 Eagles, including some fitted with the latest advanced radars. The Raptor-Eagle team has been honing special tactics for clearing the air of Iranian fighters in the event of war.
The fighters join a growing naval armada that includes Navy carriers, submarines, cruisers and destroyers plus patrol boats and minesweepers enhanced with the latest close-in weaponry…. (go here to Wired| Danger Room)
I am sure it is a total coincidence that, after 35 years of butting heads with Iran, this is occurring during a sputtering economy and within months of a Presidential election…
How do you pretend the economy is recovering and report a shiny 8.3% unemployment number?Simple – just add up the population within the city limits of Dallas, Salt Lake City, San Diego, Kalamazoo, Tampa, Mobile, Spokane, Nashville, Las Vegas, Roanoke and Cincinnati. Then take that number and double it. That will give you roughly the number of people needed to disappear out of the labor force to show the beginnings of a dramatic economic “recovery”.
Currently, there are nearly 88 million in the ever growing pool of persons not included in the labor force, up from 78 million in 2008. Oh, but the pain doesn’t stop there…
Collapse is an overused word, a telescoping of events better described as a decline. The buggy industry didn’t “collapse” when the first automobile dealership appeared—Studebaker made both, nor did the vacuum tube disappear the day the first transistor was manufactured. The Roman and Byzantine empires didn’t collapse, they were transformed in a surprisingly orderly, if not voluntary, manner over a long period of time. No, they weren’t mere reorganizations or downsizing, and yes there were catastrophic events within those episodes, but a critical observer of the time would would rightly understand them to be something other than collapse. Continue reading →
The Wall Street Journal recently reported that in 2011, the Federal Reserve purchased a mind-blowing 61% of Treasury debt issuance… When the U.S. needs money to fund its ever-expanding foreign interests, social welfare programs, or its war against dried flowers, it can obtain that money through a few different means. The least effective and most politically dangerous way for it to obtain money is to threaten American citizens with imprisonment if they don’t fork over their dough. Historically, Americans have refused to hand over anything greater than 20% of GDP through taxes regardless of tax rates or the threats the state makes against their person.
Since the state has trouble getting Americans to hand over their money, it generally turns to the much easier second option to finance itself: printing money. In today’s economy, the state prints money by issuing treasury debt. Normally it sells this debt to foreign nations, since this exports the inflation created by the issuance of new debt. However, there are natural limits to the amount of debt foreign nations are willing to hold.
“…The Israelis have bought an airfield,” a senior administration official told me in early February, “and the airfield is called Azerbaijan.…” via Mark Perry | Foreign Policy.
The economy is supposedly improving, but even if we took the falling unemployment rate at face value, there are too many signs that something is wrong. There are too many anomalies. I noted a few weeks ago the anomaly of collapsing gasoline and diesel fuel consumption, which started well before the current run-up in pump prices that is causing Obama to contort himself in unnatural ways. Falling fuel consumption ahead of a price spike isn’t consistent with a growing economy. Continue reading →
Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio has sent a letter to the Director of the U.S. Selective Service System headquarters in Arlington, Virginia requesting the agency to conduct an investigation into Barack Obama’s Selective Service registration form from 1980…via KTAR.co
… This past Friday afternoon brought a new executive order from the White House. It was titled, “National Defense Resources Preparedness.” This order sent the blogosphere and conservative news followers into a terrified frenzy. I even sent out an e-mail to many on my blast list with a link to the order on the White House website, because it is an alarming thing in light of the current communist administration in Washington. Continue reading →
This is a fantastic survey. There reportedly were 1800 self-selected respondents – visitors to the SHTF School website and, therefore, heavily biased toward the prepper / survivalist community. That said, I find this survey result very interesting. GREAT JOB by SHTF School! GE.
“… Over 1800 people completed our survival survey in the last two weeks. The feedback has been great and this is the first part of three in which we share the survey results with you. We started the survey with a “classic” question. How long have you been preparing / into survival? ….
More and more personal and household devices are connecting to the internet, from your television to your car navigation systems to your light switches. CIA Director David Petraeus cannot wait to spy on you through them. Continue reading →
Two days ago Obama held a press conference in which he openly prevaricated and disinformed the world about the true nature of his meeting with Israel PM Netanyahu. Today we find what was truly discussed, courtesy of Israel’s Maariv newspaper, Spiegel and Reuters, which all tell us that it was a simple case of quid pro quo, namely that Barack Obama would supply Israel with bunker-busters and refueling planes if Bibi promised to delay an Iran attack until after the presidential election. The implication is simple – avoid an oil price shock this summer and delay it until next winter when Obama will be safely in his throne for another 4 years, at which point US citizens can fuel their cars with combustible urine following nights of binging on Everclear in hopes of ending their sorrows with alcohol poisoning, or better yet, all be in possession of the heavily subsidized flaming half ton block of metal known as the Obama Pinto, er, Volt.
Today billionaire Eric Sprott told King World News that a staggering 500 million ounces of paper silver traded hands during the takedown in the metals this week. Eric Sprott, Chairman of Sprott Asset Management, had this to say about what took place the day of the plunge in gold and silver: “I can only imagine it’s the same forces that for the last twelve years have been at work in the gold market, trying to keep the volatility very large on the downside. As you are aware, we hardly ever get days when you get an intraday $100 rise in gold. When we look back at what happened (on Wednesday) we saw huge sell orders in gold and silver.”
“When I look at the silver market in particular, in a 30 minute span we had sellers of 225 million equivalent paper ounces, in a market that in one year the silver miners only produce 800 million ounces. So again, it’s the paper markets overwhelming the physical market. It’s stunning to me that on a day like Feb. 29th we traded 500 million ounces of silver. No rational person could believe it had anything to do with the real market for silver.... Continue reading →
…So why aren’t Democrats making the case that the spike in prices is a good thing? Isn’t this basically our energy policy these days? How we “win the future”? If high energy prices were to damage President Barack Obama’s re-election prospects, it would be ironic, considering the left has been telling us to set aside our “dependency”—or, as our most recent Republican president put it, “addiction”—for a long time…
Farmland values in the Cornbelt are rising as fast as anytime in the past 35 years, but may be showing some indication of deceleration. Bankers throughout the five-state region in the Chicago Federal Reserve District report a 22% increase in the value of good farmland over the course of 2011. But in the seven-state Kansas City Fed District, the value of farmland rose 25% in the past year, reports FarmGateBlog…
Higher prices for grain have spurred the most significant demand for land since the 1970’s. Farm land, oil, grains…the price inflation is coming.
The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones…via USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map
The Cato Institute is singing the praises of gun ownership. The conservative think tank has released a report, “Tough Targets: When Criminals Face Armed Resistance from Citizens,” that makes the case that law-abiding, gun-toting citizens routinely thwart criminal acts. “The vast majority of gun owners are ethical and competent,” say the authors. “That means tens of thousands of crimes are prevented each year by ordinary citizens with guns.” Continue reading →
We lost the republic long ago. Within Remus’s lifetime, loyal constitutionalist patriots have gone from the majority to a tolerated minority to a designated hate group and now, presumed terrorists. Meanwhile, the collectivists—the Democrat Republican Progressive establishment—are openly consolidating their power, strutting on the national stage like Mussolini in front of a mirror, their witless minions shouting down deviations from DC’s two party one-party line.
People who want to take guns away from citizens often argue that it’s dangerous for citizens to have guns. They will say, “innocent people will get shot in the crossfire” in the event an armed civilian uses a gun to stop an armed criminal.
The word “privatization” is a loaded term these days. Unions and big government worshippers scoff at the idea of any public services being in the hands of ruthless, greedy capitalists. The left has the distorted view that people in the private sector are driven primarily by their desire to cut costs and throw workers out on the street. To them, government workers are angels sent from heaven to do God’s work like picking up the neighborhood trash or maintaining a public pool filled with the bodily discharges of kids whose derelict parents decided to drop off and go shopping for a few hours. On the right, conservatives who supposedly hold high regard for market forces and Ronald Reagan’s classic declaration “government is the problem,” typically have a favorable view of privatization schemes. 
For the past four years I have been covering the progression of the global economic crisis with an emphasis on the debilitating effects it has had on the American financial system. Only once before have I ever issued an economic alert, and this was at the onset of the very first credit downgrade in U.S. history by S&P. I do not take the word “alert” lightly. Since 2008 we have seen a cycle of events that have severely weakened our country’s foundation, but each event has then been followed by a lull, sometimes 4 to 6 months at a stretch, which seems to disarm the public, drawing them back into apathy and complacency. The calm moments before each passing storm give Americans a false sense of hope that our capsized fiscal vessel will somehow right itself if we just hold on a little longer. 
The Grey Enigma 