YOU WANT TO BUMP UP YOUR CREDIT LIMIT?
(Sam, your full faith and credit score….is kinda iffy!)

Standard & Poor has just marginally downgraded Uncle Sam’s credit rating. Nor very drastically, but it’s the first faint hint that his ability to continue borrowing (to cover all those markers of his) is no longer going to be without limit.

So, reality is beginning to rear its inconvenient truth, which is, that credit card junkies may have the appearance of affluence, but, they seldom actually achieve it in the long run, ending up living on food stamps and dumpster diving or panhandling for spare change instead.

Whether that reality will finally start penetrating the financially-challenged brains of those currently wandering the halls of Congress is a good question. Based upon their record to date, and their continuing useless debts about how and who to tax, and how to spend the revenues from those taxes…. it’s doubtful. Both parties seem to be stuck in the old mindset of ….don’t lower the water….raise the drawbridge….instead. Neither ever seems to find tax rates or spending programs they don’t like. For both of these parties creating –deficits – is a worthwhile political pursuit.

The Democrats justification for them is the necessity of making things “fair” for everyone. The Republicans justification for them is the necessity of making things “more fair” for some. Both of them based on the false assumption that our GDP will always have an upward straight trend line; and, if not, the Treasury can run its printing presses 24/7/365, so there will always be enough dollars to cover all their bills (never mind that such dollar bills will diminish in actual value in direct proportion to the volume of these in circulation).
But here’s the most inconvenient truth of all….the largest of Uncle Sam’s creditors is not China, or the UK, or Japan, even combined. The largest group of creditors is….ourselves! And, frankly, as lenders, we’re doing a lousy job of controlling his spendthrift habits. So the next time he comes begging for us to bump up his credit limit, again, let’s just say…..You want to bump up your credit limit? Sam….your full faith and credit score….is kinda iffy!

CENTURION