Are We All Sheep?

I ask this question because as I look around at the kind folks that I work with, no one seems to care about what is going on in the world. No one cares that Iran just hit another milestone in the uranium enrichment process. No one cares that the war in Iraq, which we were duped into, has devolved into a civil war. No one cares that the government increased the debt ceiling to $9 trillion. No one cares about our monthly trade deficit. No one cares that every year we become poorer because our currency is being devalued at a faster rate than our rate of increase in income. My wife, bless her heart, doesn't want to know and I have a feeling that is the opinion of most people.

Why don't we care? Because we are just too busy living life. We have jobs that require more and more of our time. We have huge mortgages and consumer loans to make payments on. We have kids that require more and more of our time…and money. We no longer have time for ourselves, time to think, time to read, or time for good conversation with spouses and friends.

Take, for example, this statistic published by our esteemed government yesterday. Our monthly trade deficit improved to $65.7 billion. Improved? $65.7 million in the red? How is that an improvement? Well friends, January's deficit came in at $68.6 billion. See the improvement? Trouble is the improvement really doesn't exist. Let's break this down to a daily deficit and see if the picture clears a little for us. January deficit is $68.6 billion divided by 31 days equals $2.2129 billion per day. Wow that's a lot of money. Now look at February's numbers…$65.7 divided by only 28 days equals $2.3464 billion per day. Now I ask you, does that look like an improvement to you? Hardly.

This deficit, for those of you that may be wondering, has to be financed. The U.S. borrows this money from our suppliers, China and Japan, who by the way, reported record trade surpluses for the month of February. If we did not continue to borrow the money back from our suppliers, we would literally run out of money. There would be no money anywhere for anything, so we spend it in China and then turn around and borrow it back so we can play the same game next month. Fun eh?

So who cares? Well, not many people, that's for sure. Like I said earlier, everyone is too busy living their lives to worry about something as ridiculous as the trade deficit. But some day the population will care. When prices for the things we buy everyday at Wally World goes through the roof and the price of gasoline goes through the roof and all of these nice countries who sell us things cheap and then loan us our money back stop playing this game people will awaken from their dream. The dream was nice but reality will be a nightmare.

Only a few people in this once-great country will be prepared for the hardships that are just around the corner. Everyone else will suffer. Think Great Depression II.