Sitting around a Pretty Big Table at Bullfeathers on Capitol Hill, we were well into a fourth pitcher of Sam Adams when the topic turned to the national debt. As it often does when we decide to discuss fiscal policy, we started calling out our favorite solutions to the Obama Administration's profligate spending hell bent on driving the nation into insolvency.
The local barfly on loan from the London School of Economics threw out the idea that we should do an asset sale.
Gold, mineral rights, what would work?
By consensus and by acclaim, we decided on a course of action that would eliminate the debt burden heretofore destined to destroy the country.
Under the influence of Stoli chasers, we recommend the sale of Alaska to the Chinese in the amount of the current debt owed.
More soberly, I sought to reference a third party source of discussion - we can't have been the first to think of this solution. Why not one of the blogs at The Motley Fool, a paragon of investment considerations?
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http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=302070&t=01006075034533164603
The Motley Fool
http://www.fool.com
TickRTapeKing channels Thomas Jefferson and proposes several approaches to change our economic fate in the United States. "We appear destined for larger crises in the future from historic debt levels, a loss of confidence in our institutions and leaders, negative changes to spending patterns, and out of control money printing by the Federal Reserve bank and Treasury Department."
Sell Alaska to China
China needs natural resources - Alaska has them. After Sewards Folly purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, exchanging this lightly populated, cold, far away land to China in exchange for the roughly $2 trillion in federal Treasury debt owned, would be a win, win for both sides. [Heck, even Sarah Palin ran when she had the chance.] I cannot dream up another legitimate way to cover the money we owe China. Alaska has lumber, a large fishing industry, huge metal and oil reserves and production, basically all needed ingredients for Chinas economic growth aspirations. They have already purchased chunks of Africa in an effort to secure the raw materials to fuel expansion. [I thought about throwing Hawaii in the mix; it may be closer to China. However, Hawaii doesnt hold the valuable and vast natural resources of Alaska, or a revenue stream big enough from pineapples and tourism to get close to the $2 trillion price tag we require. I am also partial to keeping Hawaii, as I honeymooned in Maui during the present lifetime.]
Perhaps selling Alaska (which is almost entirely federal and state owned land) is a little drastic; we could use it as tangible collateral instead for China, in case we cannot or do not wish to pay them back in gold-based Dollar bills in the future. While this may sound far fetched and off the wall, consider the alternatives. In 2009, China now owns a greater sum of U.S. assets than any country has owned of another, in all of human history! Most Americans do not yet realize our foreign debt size, but many of us send our first week or two of taxed income to the federal government each year to pay for the interest on the debt we already owe China, and the situation gets worse each year. Basically, we are starting to work for them! Trade wars with China appear all but inevitable as friction mounts over the direction of short-term monetary/Dollar value policies, rising rates of credit creation in the U.S., unmanageable deficit spending inherent in U.S.s current economic course, and the near universal odds of high inflation rates destroying the purchasing power of Chinas bond investments the next 5-10 years. In fact, it is not hard to imagine an actual military conflict between the U.S. and China to erupt in the next decade over related frustrations about the debt on both sides of the Pacific, if America does not change course drastically and support Chinas investment here. If you were given a black and white choice of giving up Alaska now, or having your children (and perhaps tens of millions of Americans) perish in a military conflict over Taiwan or Japan in 5 years, which choice would an honest, practical individual make? [After we sell Alaska, we can finally allow Puerto Rico to become an official state also, as Florida is getting full of people. We could use their resort landscape for commercial development and build political bridges to the rest of our natural sphere of influence in the Caribbean region. Plus, we could all keep the existing American flags with 50 stars, instead of having China sew new ones with 49!] Congress can work on the details, like how we repatriate Alaskans back home to the contiguous states, and properly appraise their private property sold to China!
The local barfly on loan from the London School of Economics threw out the idea that we should do an asset sale.
Gold, mineral rights, what would work?
By consensus and by acclaim, we decided on a course of action that would eliminate the debt burden heretofore destined to destroy the country.
Under the influence of Stoli chasers, we recommend the sale of Alaska to the Chinese in the amount of the current debt owed.
More soberly, I sought to reference a third party source of discussion - we can't have been the first to think of this solution. Why not one of the blogs at The Motley Fool, a paragon of investment considerations?
**********************************************
http://caps.fool.com/Blogs/ViewPost.aspx?bpid=302070&t=01006075034533164603
The Motley Fool
http://www.fool.com
TickRTapeKing channels Thomas Jefferson and proposes several approaches to change our economic fate in the United States. "We appear destined for larger crises in the future from historic debt levels, a loss of confidence in our institutions and leaders, negative changes to spending patterns, and out of control money printing by the Federal Reserve bank and Treasury Department."
Sell Alaska to China
China needs natural resources - Alaska has them. After Sewards Folly purchase of Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million in 1867, exchanging this lightly populated, cold, far away land to China in exchange for the roughly $2 trillion in federal Treasury debt owned, would be a win, win for both sides. [Heck, even Sarah Palin ran when she had the chance.] I cannot dream up another legitimate way to cover the money we owe China. Alaska has lumber, a large fishing industry, huge metal and oil reserves and production, basically all needed ingredients for Chinas economic growth aspirations. They have already purchased chunks of Africa in an effort to secure the raw materials to fuel expansion. [I thought about throwing Hawaii in the mix; it may be closer to China. However, Hawaii doesnt hold the valuable and vast natural resources of Alaska, or a revenue stream big enough from pineapples and tourism to get close to the $2 trillion price tag we require. I am also partial to keeping Hawaii, as I honeymooned in Maui during the present lifetime.]
Perhaps selling Alaska (which is almost entirely federal and state owned land) is a little drastic; we could use it as tangible collateral instead for China, in case we cannot or do not wish to pay them back in gold-based Dollar bills in the future. While this may sound far fetched and off the wall, consider the alternatives. In 2009, China now owns a greater sum of U.S. assets than any country has owned of another, in all of human history! Most Americans do not yet realize our foreign debt size, but many of us send our first week or two of taxed income to the federal government each year to pay for the interest on the debt we already owe China, and the situation gets worse each year. Basically, we are starting to work for them! Trade wars with China appear all but inevitable as friction mounts over the direction of short-term monetary/Dollar value policies, rising rates of credit creation in the U.S., unmanageable deficit spending inherent in U.S.s current economic course, and the near universal odds of high inflation rates destroying the purchasing power of Chinas bond investments the next 5-10 years. In fact, it is not hard to imagine an actual military conflict between the U.S. and China to erupt in the next decade over related frustrations about the debt on both sides of the Pacific, if America does not change course drastically and support Chinas investment here. If you were given a black and white choice of giving up Alaska now, or having your children (and perhaps tens of millions of Americans) perish in a military conflict over Taiwan or Japan in 5 years, which choice would an honest, practical individual make? [After we sell Alaska, we can finally allow Puerto Rico to become an official state also, as Florida is getting full of people. We could use their resort landscape for commercial development and build political bridges to the rest of our natural sphere of influence in the Caribbean region. Plus, we could all keep the existing American flags with 50 stars, instead of having China sew new ones with 49!] Congress can work on the details, like how we repatriate Alaskans back home to the contiguous states, and properly appraise their private property sold to China!