Once upon a time, Great Britain and Holland ruled the world because of guys with ledgers and quill pens.
And then, generation after generation, the people in charge thought they needed to invest in fancier toys and battalions of credentialed experts to do stuff the Chinese and Babylonians and Persians had been doing for eons, with parchment and scratchy-thingies, which were just first-level ledgers and quill pens, and yet more than sufficient for the purpose.
They are morons. The guys play-acting in fancy robes at fancy dinners in Davos are emotionally still 12 yrs. old. What 12-yr. old kid doesn't want to rule the world?
We didn't start fighting back early enough, and the farmers have been slow to see the orcs on the horizon, but they done sure woke up now.
Our job to make sure they don't run out of resources and other support, like the Canadian truckers did. That's a real disgrace and almost no one even remembers them now. Maybe the Europeans will be tougher.
This has been said in many other substacks (Good Citizen in particular), but we must accept that the ruling class has declared war on us. There's no other way to make sense of their decisions.
The only reasonable course of action now is to gird our loins and prepare for battle. We will not get out of this without millions dead. Let's make sure it's not us or our families.
Like student loan forgiveness. I think this is terrible economic policy, but I will totally apply if they offer it. Like our State governor didn't return the Covid dollars because that money wouldn't have been returned to the taxpayers, but go to other states. Also, I would not vote for Biden if he paid off my mortgage.
Butch Lewis Act? Sounds more like a drag king show in a club for lesbians.
Is it some kind of synchronicity that it shortens to BLA?
If you're really unlucky, your governement might actually try to go the greek route: invoking eminent domain or seizure of assets on all savings (and other, regardless of form) over a given amount/value. When the greek governement did that a few years back (all the while blaming Germany and "ze nazis" for the endmemic and indigenous classical and virtually trade-marked greek corruption that's the real problem) dp you think there was a revolution? Nopers. A little rustling of feathers, some token sacrifices. And all opposition to it got called "nazis" and "racists" and "fascists" of course, since them's the magic words.
Oh, and the 1%? They got told in advanced so they had time to reallocate assets and accounts out of reach.
You know what would happen in the US if the Biden White House did the same, confiscating all savings and assets over $100 000/household? (Oh, you get to keep you house and car and piddling stuff like that - but your summer house? To keep that you get to pay off governement or it's confiscated.)
Nothing much. Some protests, stomped flat using tear gas, microwave cannons, sound cannons and so on - all that nice gear US military refined and perfected on civilians in the Middle East (what, you think they didn't use their time there to conduct live tests of new tech and methods?). And if some mob somewhere actually shoots back, well there goes the 2nd amendment. Your governement would immediately redefine the bit about well-regulated militia to the present day meaning of regulated, and have it as a subset of the National Guard.
Couldn't happen? Why not? It's all in how you frame the message.
Well since Newsom just gave them out (but only to people who did not pay any taxes in, of course) can we just slide the 25th to the governorship and take him out, too? Same inflationary effect...
In California, they're giving out "inflation relief checks". But funny, that. I don't qualify because I make too much. You know, I'm impacted by inflation as well! But I hate the fact that they're doing that. They have a HUGE budget surplus, and they're supposed to refund it to the taxpayers, but many of the democrat supporters don't pay any tax. And so they're spending it like drunken sailors and calling it part of their budget, and giving checks to the no-taxpaying-people, and the taxpayers are getting little-to-no money back.
Communes fail once the productive members become angry over the non-productive members taking but not giving. They then either leave or decide to not be productive anymore. If the ratio of productive/nons is high enough, little notice is made of free loaders, but that ratio drops because some do notice then act. This has happened repeatedly over time, every time despite the earnest SJW laments.
Once we abandon the notion of self sufficiency as a virtue and allow dependency to take root, societies will self destruct. The process, history suggests, is never pleasant.
Boy, isn't this the truth? I have a step daughter living with us, during/following a divorce. (I have no idea if it's finalized.) She hasn't contributed a dime, while she and three kids live here. Leaves messes in the common areas (mostly the kitchen), dishes in the sink for a week or more, with pans on the stove. Makes it hard for me to cook and clean my own stuff. I've spoken to her mother numerous times, but she enables it (and tells me she passes it on, but claims her daughter is always busy - aren't we all??)
I'm about to start leaving my own messes and not clean up. I've put up with this for a year. My wife will point out within a day if I leave anything out that needs to be cleaned. I don't want to be spiteful - that's not my nature. I feel like I need to get my wife to see the mess impact her even more before she'll consider coming down harder on her daughter. But I'm tired of this dependency situation. My gripes about her daughter's messes have created a HUGE problem in the marriage.
I grew up in a bad neighborhood (I was the minority as a white person.) My mother milked welfare and help from others, while giving back nothing. I grew to resent it for how she acted and what she expected from others. I saw multi-generational welfare recipients living around me everywhere, and little-to-no desire (and I'm sure, at this point, no knowledge of how) to change anything or succeed without positive support or examples around them.
I don't know if I can call it despair, as much as resignation and acceptance.
It's a SAD thing to see not only broken human spirit, but to see others willingly participate in such conditions (true freeloaders), and it angers me to see leaders promote it. They do so because their constituents/serfs are dependent on them, and will fight against any effort to change anything, because it's easier to float along with little effort.
I get that people want to be taken care of, but giving up personal responsibility is so destructive not only to them, but society as a whole.
At some point, people will find a way to trade among themselves if they have to. Currency only makes transactions easier, it doesn't actually power the economy.
Trashing the dollar could definitely come back to bite them, if only to wake more people up to the problems with centralized money. They are slaughtering the goose that lays the golden eggs.
Incompetence. Lol. I can't believe anyone is falling for that. They know *exactly* what they're doing (including Hunter and all the rest of em). And if one goes back and listens to some of Obama's speeches about bankrupting power plants, preaching that Americans have their AC set too cold and if we'd just air up the tires on our vehicles we'd save money on gas, it feels like I'm experiencing an extreme case of Deja Vu. Pretty much everything going on has been planned. And they haven't kept their plans hidden. It's completely obvious to all of us who have been paying attention and actually have a memory span longer than a goldfish. They're literally doing everything they've talked about doing for years. What a frickin nightmare.
"The unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, pensions) are the problem. It's a ticking timebomb."
It's almost like if you could invent a new disease, say for example a virus, that killed mostly very old, very sick and very old people, you might start putting a dent in the problem.
In a way, but the depops discovered that many seniors were taking Vit D and using salt water rinses so refused to properly get ill and die. The most excellent vaccine arrived as even those healthy seniors still were in fear and might cave to getting vaccinated. Maybe the vaccine will help those seniors get more vulnerable to the mutated variants. So given that is not working so well what is next.
While I don't really believe in this conspiracy theory in the main, it's obvious that some in power do wish it to happen.
It's not inflation by design (though that is the end result), it's buying up the entire Earth with "money" that has no intrinsic value that they created out of nothing. They don't even print money anymore, they just make a few more zeroes appear on a computer screen.
It takes a huge amount of work to make good money and they are stealing all of it in real time.
In 2008 and subsequently, the governments have bailed out the crooks at the cost of the rest of us. The problem that is coming is: who can bail out the entire world, several times over?
It's all going to crash. There's no way around it. You're sort of preaching to the choir to me. Been running my own businesses for 25 years. Including multiple finance funds with myriad capital stacks, etc.,etc
Indeed. I keep saying it but I provide consultancy for a few City of London firms these days and everyone knows the system is screwed. The City is hilarious, even going back to about 2012 everyone had a secret side-hustle. Everyone knows what's coming, even if they don't want to admit it.
No, unfortunately the $30T is just the tip of the iceberg. That's the actual realized US debt. The unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, pensions) are the problem. It's a ticking timebomb.
What makes them so insidious is that they are local, municipal, State and Federal.
This also doesn't include big banks that sell discounted bank corporate bonds ("MTNs" - Medium Term Notes) and Standby Letters of Credit/Letters of Credit. The nature of the bank-issued debt market is a catastrophe because it's the biggest Ponzi scheme ever created. They pay 100% of face value at term and an annual coupon in the case of MTNs. The only way they can service the debt on those instruments is by making more and more of them.
The global trend since at least the 1980s is secession, Balkanization (either peaceful or otherwise) and the creation of more and more small countries/micro-states.
Smaller countries work much better than large ones because it's much easier to keep people accountable if you bump into them on the street every day.
This entire "globalism" charade is completely fake, and without wanting to sound too much like a hippy/New Ager, is also against the global rise in human consciousness which is also the dominant trend. Globalism is good for individuals, not as a concept of government.
Don't worry, they will be there with another 'save' -- like digital currency. At this point the name of the game is showering you with cash if you play along or starving you out if you don't. If all your competitors are getting multi-million-dollar bailouts, what chance do you have if you're playing it straight?
"they will be there with another 'save' -- like digital currency"
Sorry for all the comments. Yes I forgot.
Let's "rebrand" "currency debasement" as "helicopter money" then "quantitative easing". Then rebrand that as "Modern Monetary Theory". Then rebrand that as "Central Bank Digitial Currency" (as if most currency wasn't digital at this point anyway).
But yes, CBDC with no cash alternative is a nightmare totalitarian wet dream, especially when linked to the UBI and social credit score (which I am sure everyone reading this comment is well aware of).
I keep hearing very smart people on our side say "no command and control economic totalitarian system in history has ever worked or survived". That may well be true but I don't particularly want to spend the rest of my life living under a communist/fascist/collectivist hellscape (the USSR lasted for 69 years, for example).
Survival isn't necessary for impact. Emperor Constantine has been dead nearly 1,700 years, but the impact of him embracing Christianity as the official religion of Rome, choosing it over Mithraism, the religion of the Legions, lives on.
"what chance do you have if you're playing it straight?"
Exactly. My former business partner was pretty rich. His bank kept hassling him to borrow a few million at interest rates the general public could never even dream of. The expectation was you borrowed the money and put it in the stock market.
It's also become extremely difficult to get new ventures off the ground. Getting funding is extremely hard, as is finding reliable partners.
In 2010 I could set up a website, develop a product, market it and turn it into a multi-million dollar venture. Since about 2016 it's been extremely tough. The system is completely rigged and it gets worse with every passing year.
I agree 100%. Interestingly a friend of mine begged me to write an ebook on crypto-currency a few years ago (it was his latest hair-brained money making scheme).
I really didn't want to because I knew it was going to be a waste of time but did anyway. It was actually a very worthwhile exercise, because what I learned from writing it was that hyperinflation is in effect, some kind of social mass-psychosis. It's hard to explain in a few sentences but basically, money only has value because the majority of society *believes* it has value.
Once enough people stop believing it has value, you get inflation and then hyperinflation. Pretty fascinating.
No doubt the term "Full Faith and Credit" is predicated on this.
At this rate, the US economic crazy train will make the Weimar collapse look like a JV synchronized swim team practice......
Remind me again when we reprint this, "In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People."
The crazy train has refused to learn from its mistakes, unlike Carter, who finally was coming around to understand the error of his ways by the time he left office. If you're interested, write me and I'll draw a line between Carter's worst move and 9/11. He set the whole thing in motion.
The concept isn't difficult at all to comprehend. Whatever people believe has value, has value until people believe otherwise. This extends to digital currency, cowrie shells, giant painted and immovable rocks, and the US Dollar.
"The cynical side (lol) of me..."
lol is right!
Sides don't have to be equal area, right? Been a while since geometry...... ;)
Well, yeah, actually...
Once upon a time, Great Britain and Holland ruled the world because of guys with ledgers and quill pens.
And then, generation after generation, the people in charge thought they needed to invest in fancier toys and battalions of credentialed experts to do stuff the Chinese and Babylonians and Persians had been doing for eons, with parchment and scratchy-thingies, which were just first-level ledgers and quill pens, and yet more than sufficient for the purpose.
They are morons. The guys play-acting in fancy robes at fancy dinners in Davos are emotionally still 12 yrs. old. What 12-yr. old kid doesn't want to rule the world?
We didn't start fighting back early enough, and the farmers have been slow to see the orcs on the horizon, but they done sure woke up now.
Our job to make sure they don't run out of resources and other support, like the Canadian truckers did. That's a real disgrace and almost no one even remembers them now. Maybe the Europeans will be tougher.
This has been said in many other substacks (Good Citizen in particular), but we must accept that the ruling class has declared war on us. There's no other way to make sense of their decisions.
The only reasonable course of action now is to gird our loins and prepare for battle. We will not get out of this without millions dead. Let's make sure it's not us or our families.
Like student loan forgiveness. I think this is terrible economic policy, but I will totally apply if they offer it. Like our State governor didn't return the Covid dollars because that money wouldn't have been returned to the taxpayers, but go to other states. Also, I would not vote for Biden if he paid off my mortgage.
I haven't thought it was typical government incompetence for a while.
Butch Lewis Act? Sounds more like a drag king show in a club for lesbians.
Is it some kind of synchronicity that it shortens to BLA?
If you're really unlucky, your governement might actually try to go the greek route: invoking eminent domain or seizure of assets on all savings (and other, regardless of form) over a given amount/value. When the greek governement did that a few years back (all the while blaming Germany and "ze nazis" for the endmemic and indigenous classical and virtually trade-marked greek corruption that's the real problem) dp you think there was a revolution? Nopers. A little rustling of feathers, some token sacrifices. And all opposition to it got called "nazis" and "racists" and "fascists" of course, since them's the magic words.
Oh, and the 1%? They got told in advanced so they had time to reallocate assets and accounts out of reach.
You know what would happen in the US if the Biden White House did the same, confiscating all savings and assets over $100 000/household? (Oh, you get to keep you house and car and piddling stuff like that - but your summer house? To keep that you get to pay off governement or it's confiscated.)
Nothing much. Some protests, stomped flat using tear gas, microwave cannons, sound cannons and so on - all that nice gear US military refined and perfected on civilians in the Middle East (what, you think they didn't use their time there to conduct live tests of new tech and methods?). And if some mob somewhere actually shoots back, well there goes the 2nd amendment. Your governement would immediately redefine the bit about well-regulated militia to the present day meaning of regulated, and have it as a subset of the National Guard.
Couldn't happen? Why not? It's all in how you frame the message.
i tired of this alternate reality when are we going back to the real world?
Inflation checks would be perfect. I can see the 25th Amendment being invoked if those were ever seriously considered.
Well since Newsom just gave them out (but only to people who did not pay any taxes in, of course) can we just slide the 25th to the governorship and take him out, too? Same inflationary effect...
In California, they're giving out "inflation relief checks". But funny, that. I don't qualify because I make too much. You know, I'm impacted by inflation as well! But I hate the fact that they're doing that. They have a HUGE budget surplus, and they're supposed to refund it to the taxpayers, but many of the democrat supporters don't pay any tax. And so they're spending it like drunken sailors and calling it part of their budget, and giving checks to the no-taxpaying-people, and the taxpayers are getting little-to-no money back.
Communes fail once the productive members become angry over the non-productive members taking but not giving. They then either leave or decide to not be productive anymore. If the ratio of productive/nons is high enough, little notice is made of free loaders, but that ratio drops because some do notice then act. This has happened repeatedly over time, every time despite the earnest SJW laments.
Once we abandon the notion of self sufficiency as a virtue and allow dependency to take root, societies will self destruct. The process, history suggests, is never pleasant.
Boy, isn't this the truth? I have a step daughter living with us, during/following a divorce. (I have no idea if it's finalized.) She hasn't contributed a dime, while she and three kids live here. Leaves messes in the common areas (mostly the kitchen), dishes in the sink for a week or more, with pans on the stove. Makes it hard for me to cook and clean my own stuff. I've spoken to her mother numerous times, but she enables it (and tells me she passes it on, but claims her daughter is always busy - aren't we all??)
I'm about to start leaving my own messes and not clean up. I've put up with this for a year. My wife will point out within a day if I leave anything out that needs to be cleaned. I don't want to be spiteful - that's not my nature. I feel like I need to get my wife to see the mess impact her even more before she'll consider coming down harder on her daughter. But I'm tired of this dependency situation. My gripes about her daughter's messes have created a HUGE problem in the marriage.
I grew up in a bad neighborhood (I was the minority as a white person.) My mother milked welfare and help from others, while giving back nothing. I grew to resent it for how she acted and what she expected from others. I saw multi-generational welfare recipients living around me everywhere, and little-to-no desire (and I'm sure, at this point, no knowledge of how) to change anything or succeed without positive support or examples around them.
I don't know if I can call it despair, as much as resignation and acceptance.
It's a SAD thing to see not only broken human spirit, but to see others willingly participate in such conditions (true freeloaders), and it angers me to see leaders promote it. They do so because their constituents/serfs are dependent on them, and will fight against any effort to change anything, because it's easier to float along with little effort.
I get that people want to be taken care of, but giving up personal responsibility is so destructive not only to them, but society as a whole.
You are absolutely right!
I hope you find resolution. Your wife is enabling bad habits. Can't imagine how that troubles you.
More evidence of the end of the goddamn world!
Holy shit! That made my night!
Trusted local leaders could issue local currencies. Would it work?
Could there trashing of US currency come back to hurt them,?
What if even their printing presses become worthless?
What if their new currency is Rejected en masses, even by normies?
At some point, people will find a way to trade among themselves if they have to. Currency only makes transactions easier, it doesn't actually power the economy.
Trashing the dollar could definitely come back to bite them, if only to wake more people up to the problems with centralized money. They are slaughtering the goose that lays the golden eggs.
I think 🤔 you're smarter than me
Good point
Civil wars against NWO... WOULD they be playing into enemies hand, SIm. Comm?
Why won't anyone discuss this???
Incompetence. Lol. I can't believe anyone is falling for that. They know *exactly* what they're doing (including Hunter and all the rest of em). And if one goes back and listens to some of Obama's speeches about bankrupting power plants, preaching that Americans have their AC set too cold and if we'd just air up the tires on our vehicles we'd save money on gas, it feels like I'm experiencing an extreme case of Deja Vu. Pretty much everything going on has been planned. And they haven't kept their plans hidden. It's completely obvious to all of us who have been paying attention and actually have a memory span longer than a goldfish. They're literally doing everything they've talked about doing for years. What a frickin nightmare.
I think the Peter's are all pooped out Paul...
"Uncle Sam will always be there to bail them out"
Until it won't, which may be the entire point of all this. $200T in unfunded liabilities is a can that can only be kicked down the road so far...
Are you saying that $30 Trillion debt number is fake...
Golly...surprise, surprise, surprise!
"The unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, pensions) are the problem. It's a ticking timebomb."
It's almost like if you could invent a new disease, say for example a virus, that killed mostly very old, very sick and very old people, you might start putting a dent in the problem.
In a way, but the depops discovered that many seniors were taking Vit D and using salt water rinses so refused to properly get ill and die. The most excellent vaccine arrived as even those healthy seniors still were in fear and might cave to getting vaccinated. Maybe the vaccine will help those seniors get more vulnerable to the mutated variants. So given that is not working so well what is next.
While I don't really believe in this conspiracy theory in the main, it's obvious that some in power do wish it to happen.
Don't get me started on Contrived19!..:]
Or inflation by design
It's not inflation by design (though that is the end result), it's buying up the entire Earth with "money" that has no intrinsic value that they created out of nothing. They don't even print money anymore, they just make a few more zeroes appear on a computer screen.
It takes a huge amount of work to make good money and they are stealing all of it in real time.
In 2008 and subsequently, the governments have bailed out the crooks at the cost of the rest of us. The problem that is coming is: who can bail out the entire world, several times over?
It's all going to crash. There's no way around it. You're sort of preaching to the choir to me. Been running my own businesses for 25 years. Including multiple finance funds with myriad capital stacks, etc.,etc
Indeed. I keep saying it but I provide consultancy for a few City of London firms these days and everyone knows the system is screwed. The City is hilarious, even going back to about 2012 everyone had a secret side-hustle. Everyone knows what's coming, even if they don't want to admit it.
Started with Tricky Dick and the great fiat fix...only temporary my friends...
No, unfortunately the $30T is just the tip of the iceberg. That's the actual realized US debt. The unfunded liabilities (Medicare, Medicaid, pensions) are the problem. It's a ticking timebomb.
What makes them so insidious is that they are local, municipal, State and Federal.
This also doesn't include big banks that sell discounted bank corporate bonds ("MTNs" - Medium Term Notes) and Standby Letters of Credit/Letters of Credit. The nature of the bank-issued debt market is a catastrophe because it's the biggest Ponzi scheme ever created. They pay 100% of face value at term and an annual coupon in the case of MTNs. The only way they can service the debt on those instruments is by making more and more of them.
This isn't going to end well....
Repeal the 16th amendment!
Couldn't agree more. Hate to say it, but I'm for secession at this point.
Never thought I'd say that
The global trend since at least the 1980s is secession, Balkanization (either peaceful or otherwise) and the creation of more and more small countries/micro-states.
Smaller countries work much better than large ones because it's much easier to keep people accountable if you bump into them on the street every day.
This entire "globalism" charade is completely fake, and without wanting to sound too much like a hippy/New Ager, is also against the global rise in human consciousness which is also the dominant trend. Globalism is good for individuals, not as a concept of government.
Don't worry, they will be there with another 'save' -- like digital currency. At this point the name of the game is showering you with cash if you play along or starving you out if you don't. If all your competitors are getting multi-million-dollar bailouts, what chance do you have if you're playing it straight?
"they will be there with another 'save' -- like digital currency"
Sorry for all the comments. Yes I forgot.
Let's "rebrand" "currency debasement" as "helicopter money" then "quantitative easing". Then rebrand that as "Modern Monetary Theory". Then rebrand that as "Central Bank Digitial Currency" (as if most currency wasn't digital at this point anyway).
But yes, CBDC with no cash alternative is a nightmare totalitarian wet dream, especially when linked to the UBI and social credit score (which I am sure everyone reading this comment is well aware of).
I keep hearing very smart people on our side say "no command and control economic totalitarian system in history has ever worked or survived". That may well be true but I don't particularly want to spend the rest of my life living under a communist/fascist/collectivist hellscape (the USSR lasted for 69 years, for example).
Survival isn't necessary for impact. Emperor Constantine has been dead nearly 1,700 years, but the impact of him embracing Christianity as the official religion of Rome, choosing it over Mithraism, the religion of the Legions, lives on.
The objective is atomization of the individual
You never have to apologize for making a bunch of comments here. We're sort of stream-of-consciousness people as it is. :)
Appreciate that SC, hope all is well. Your post certainly gave me a lot to say!
"what chance do you have if you're playing it straight?"
Exactly. My former business partner was pretty rich. His bank kept hassling him to borrow a few million at interest rates the general public could never even dream of. The expectation was you borrowed the money and put it in the stock market.
It's also become extremely difficult to get new ventures off the ground. Getting funding is extremely hard, as is finding reliable partners.
In 2010 I could set up a website, develop a product, market it and turn it into a multi-million dollar venture. Since about 2016 it's been extremely tough. The system is completely rigged and it gets worse with every passing year.
i want to like this 1000 X, but the stack won't let me.
good post!
It's all to save the planet. You're right look at the definition of cryptography.
I agree 100%. Interestingly a friend of mine begged me to write an ebook on crypto-currency a few years ago (it was his latest hair-brained money making scheme).
I really didn't want to because I knew it was going to be a waste of time but did anyway. It was actually a very worthwhile exercise, because what I learned from writing it was that hyperinflation is in effect, some kind of social mass-psychosis. It's hard to explain in a few sentences but basically, money only has value because the majority of society *believes* it has value.
Once enough people stop believing it has value, you get inflation and then hyperinflation. Pretty fascinating.
No doubt the term "Full Faith and Credit" is predicated on this.
At this rate, the US economic crazy train will make the Weimar collapse look like a JV synchronized swim team practice......
Remind me again when we reprint this, "In every stage of these Oppressions we have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble Terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated Injury. A Prince, whose Character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the Ruler of a free People."
The crazy train has refused to learn from its mistakes, unlike Carter, who finally was coming around to understand the error of his ways by the time he left office. If you're interested, write me and I'll draw a line between Carter's worst move and 9/11. He set the whole thing in motion.
The concept isn't difficult at all to comprehend. Whatever people believe has value, has value until people believe otherwise. This extends to digital currency, cowrie shells, giant painted and immovable rocks, and the US Dollar.
"This extends to digital currency, cowrie shells, giant painted and immovable rocks, and the US Dollar."
And celebrities and politicians...
And you get wheelbarrow's
I used to see a phrase being used by commenters on Zero Hedge: "we owe it to ourselves".
I thought that was humorous phrase meaning "we are the global reserve currency so who cares?"
I now see they were taking the piss out of Paul Krugman.