Economic Idiocy

Imagine that you are unemployed. (For some of you, it's not too difficult to imagine.) Now imagine that someone comes up to you and says that they will provide you with $35,000 a year for just being you. (Pretty good deal so far, eh?) Now this same person gives you a credit card with a $500 limit. The rules of the card are this: your name is on the card, so you can use it whenever you need, but your name is not associated with the account itself, meaning that your name is not connected in any way to the card with respect to the credit rating. And your benefactor pays the credit card bill.

So let's recap: $35k in free money each year, a credit card with a $500 limit, paid for by someone else and you're not liable for the debt you rack up. Pretty sweet deal.

Now, you spend and charge, because you're having fun being You. But you find that the $500 limit is so...limiting. You ask your benefactor to increase the limit. They grudgingly oblige after you tell them that you are doing it just this once so that you can pay for your friend's transmission work. Well, that's a noble cause, so why not.

You find other noble causes on which to spend "your" money and to charge to "your" credit card. You continue to go back to your benefactor to request to increase the credit limit on "your" card. the benefactor always obliges. One day he surprises you by saying, "Since you are always spending your money on noble causes, I will give you the ability to raise the credit limit on your card whenever you feel that it's necessary."

This is the Best...Deal...EVER!

You continue to be noble to friends, family, yourself (from time to time). You increase the credit limit as needed, because -- darn it -- you have friends in need! Eventually you get to the point where you still "make" $35k a year, but your credit card limit is $850,000. If you were personally responsible for the balance on that credit card, you would never have increased the limits so much. Since you aren't, though, why not?

The Federal Government just raised the Federal Debt limit to $12.1 Trillion a few months ago. They are not going to raise it again to $13 Trillion. I guess another $900,000,000,000 was needed...for healthcare?

The Federal Debt increased $400,000,000,000 between August 24, 2009 and October 24, 2009. That's $200 Billion a month; $6.7 Billion a day; $278 Million an hour; $4.6 Million a minute; and $77,160 a second.

Tell me again how spending $850,000,000,000 to provide healthcare to 15 million Americans (who already have available healthcare via Medicaid) will get us back to fiscal health?