Pickin on the President

I watched the President last night. The speech seemed pretty typical of other speeches given to us in the past. He stressed the importance of our staying the course, and gave his assurance that progress is being made. Tying the security of the United States to the war in Iraq, he pointed out that we are fighting these terrorists because they want to attack our country and kill our citizens, and Iraq is where they are making their stand. He pointed out that he thought it important to support the establishment of a democratic government in Iraq.

He stressed that we have the support of other countries, some thirty countries giving active support and some forty countries contributing money. A short description of the basic strategies for passing responsibilities to the Iraqi security forces was given. Again, he stressed the importance of not setting a date for withdrawal. Citing Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Palestine, and Libya, the President implied that the war was having a positive influence on the political climate of these neighboring countries.

Flipping from channel to channel after the speech, it seemed that the usual panning of the speech by the “experts” was particularly and unnecessarily harsh. The commentators were disingenuous, as they pretended to be concerned, that in an attempt to create linkage to the Second Iraq War, he invoked the 9/11 catastrophe several times. Now that is more than a little unfair. Everybody knows that the President has always been somewhat confused as to the differences between the War On Terror and the Second Iraqi War. Everyone listening knew what he meant. There were also complaints that he uses the term “terrorist” when he should have said insurgents. That is just not so. His words were carefully chosen. Since we have made it clear that we will remain in Iraq for some time to come, terrorists from all over the Middle East are coming to Iraq to get their “boot training”. I will concede that he could have included insurgents as well. Unfortunately, as to our influencing the politics of neighborhood countries in a positive manner, it is likely that this is an area in which the President may be deceiving himself and leading us down that road paved with good intentions.

It seems like everyone is picking on the president these days. It’s almost become a national pastime in the media. Just because he intends to dismantle Social Security, they accuse him of attempting to drive a wedge between the generations. They say he fails to insert a disclaimer pointing out the dangers of the stock market. Let’s be fair, the stock market isn’t exactly a power-ball ticket. Consider the inflows of money supporting the marketplace (driving up the prices) and the profits that would be made handling these millions of transactions. What’s the matter with these people? They say he should give some attention to domestic affairs like illegal immigration, the deficit, the National Debt, and others. Don’t they have any idea how busy this man is?

All this noise has even woken up a couple of sleepy “Old Conservatives” and they have become unfairly disgruntled with him about the ever-rising deficit and the National Debt. It’s time for some modern Conservatives to explain to these old codgers that the National Debt is never going to become a problem of any real concern. The United States has economic hegemony. The US dollar is the dominant currency of economic trade. It is also fiat currency. It is not pegged to anything real. We can print all we wish… and do. Its value is based on the faith of those who hold it. Our only responsibility, indeed our only legal liability, is to pay our debts in these dollars of faith. It is not like we have to come up with gold or anything of intrinsic value. If the world loses faith in our debt instruments, we can just print some more and pay them off.

Talk about pennies on the dollar! We will have lost no real assets. Although expunging our debt would reduce the faith-based assets of the creditor nations and reduce the buying power of the dollar. After expunging our debts, we would call in the old money and issue new money at a conversion rate convenient to us. Countries of the world would be stuck with the dollar reserves they currently have for trading purposes and additionally, the dollars they would receive in return for our faith-based debt. With a time limit for conversion, every country in the world would have to respond. When the dust settles, we will be in relatively the same, if not substantially more dominant position in the world… and without debt! We would not be very popular, but haven’t we been down that road before? Have a little faith in our President!

Just because lame ducks are easy prey is no reason to be constantly on his back!