“China Puts US on eBay”

“China puts US on eBay – ‘Government sold separately’,” sales listing says. “Showing its impatience with the debt ceiling stalemate in Washington, China today took the extraordinary step of putting the United States of America on eBay,” jokes comedian and satirist Andy Borowitz.

“Officials at the online auction site said they believed it was the first time a major Western nation had been listed for sale there ‘if you don’t count Greece’.

“In Beijing, the Chinese Finance Ministry said that it had considered waiting until August 2 to see if the US would ever pay back its multitrillion-dollar obligations, but ultimately decided to cut its losses. ‘We think we’ll attract a buyer on eBay,’ the Ministry said. ‘Say what you will about the US, it’s still one of the top fifty countries in the world’.

“The sales listing for the US contains some interesting information, such as China’s description of the former superpower as being in ‘fair to average condition’.

“The listing also includes the stipulation ‘government sold separately’, which the Finance Ministry took great pains to explain. ‘We thought that including the government in the sale might turn off potential buyers’, the Ministry said. ‘Plus, the US government isn’t ours to sell anyway – it’s owned by the Koch brothers’.

“With no bidders in the first 24 hours on eBay, China admitted that it would be challenging to unload the US, but it still held out hope that a buyer would step forward: ‘We’ve got our fingers crossed for Zuckerberg’.”

Mark Anthony: “O, what a fall was there, my countrymen! Then I, and you, and all of us fell down…” Yes, when the US gets a haircut the ‘Great Global Haircut’ follows. Don’t gloat.

If Osama Bin Laden was indeed the perpetrator of 9/11 and his objective was to destroy America, he must be laughing all the way to a bank that is not bankrupt – if he can find one. The demented American response has done his work for him. Delilah Bin Laden has given Uncle Sam (son) a deadly haircut.

The damage has been done. America has been shown to be bankrupt. If the US doesn’t default next week, it soon will. Increasing the debt limit is a bailout. The problem is: who will bail out the bailer? Solution: make your own bailout by printing and borrowing more. Simple, but stupid. When debt becomes an addiction, it’s deadly.

Consider this scenario. The US doesn’t meet its debt obligations. It defaults. America’s credit rating falls. Interest rates rise. The economy goes into a tailspin. Greater recession, perhaps depression, ensue. The dollar takes a nosedive. Its viability as a reserve currency becomes questionable. Accumulated default increases indebtedness. Now America has to pay more on its multifarious, mind boggling debt. Raising more money and getting more loans become difficult for lack of credibility.

It starts selling gold from its reserves. Gold prices fall. Watch it. The present 1.3 percent growth rate falls by one percent – effectively zero. No growth, no new jobs. Joblessness increases. Unemployment rises to 15 percent from the present 10. Abject poverty – those earning $18,500 a year or less – increases from the present 10 percent to 15 – that’s about 48 million people in the richest and most powerful country ever, as many as in Pakistan. Real incomes decrease. Home loans defaults increase. Default on commercial real estate begins. Credit Default Swaps that insure against default go into a spin.

Banks, insurance companies and finance houses go under again. There’s no money for more bailouts. Homelessness increases. Prices rise. Food becomes dearer and scarcer. There is social dislocation, frustration, despair and anger. People revolt. There is civil unrest and disobedience. The world media variously dub it “People’s Uprising”, “Second American Revolution”, “American Awakening” and the “American Spring”. Government gets tough and clamps down. The world calls it a “hegemonic tyrannical dictatorship” that gets indebted over its head and causes a global economic meltdown.

The most powerful countries – China and Russia with “the most dangerous” Iran and Pakistan in support and perhaps a disenchanted Saudi Arabia and India in tow – unite to take action on the side of the protesters and attack America. Their demands: Obama must go. They recognise John Doe, the rebel leader, as the legitimate US president. Russia expels all US diplomats and invites ‘President’ John Doe to replace them.

If this sounds fanciful, consider this: transpose the name America for Libya, and China and Russia for America and NATO, and it sounds no longer fanciful. What double standards: what is fanciful for America is ‘realistic’ for Libya.

“The fact that we are here today to debate raising America’s debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. It is a sign that the US government can’t pay its own bills. It is a sign that we now depend on ongoing financial assistance from foreign countries to finance our government’s reckless fiscal policies. Increasing America’s debt weakens us domestically and internationally. Leadership means that, ‘the buck stops here’. Instead, Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren. America has a debt problem and a failure of leadership. Americans deserve better.”

The Senator who said these sensible words in 2006 is President of the United States of America today. Mr Flip Flop is now screaming for a massive raise in the debt ceiling. Hypocrisy personified. “Americans deserve better”, do they? What a hackneyed phrase uttered by every hypocritical politician. Americans deserve better certainly, for they are amongst the nicest but the most naive people in the world. Sadly, their successive governments have done them no credit and the world no good. They deserve a better economic philosophy based on living within one’s means that serves them and not the military-industrial complex, Big Business and Wall Street. They deserve a better political philosophy too – live and let live. One won’t work without the other.

More hypocrisy. The US dollar, privately owned by the Federal Reserve that is owned by about a dozen mostly Jewish-owned banks, carries the legend: “In God we Trust”. Do you? Do you really? Living in usury and forcing others to do so is akin to declaring war on God. Take that legend off: it is tantamount to mocking God.

Don’t rule out anything. Could you ever have imagined that America would go bankrupt? In this great global flux, anything is possible. The Leviathan is convulsing, morphing, crafting a new Social Contract, a New World Order. But disorder must come before order. So here’s another fanciful scenario: when it runs out of answers the US government gives a ‘Hail Mary’ pass to the military. Goodbye democracy. Welcome to the Third World of America.

The writer is a political analyst. He can be contacted at [email protected]