What is clear now is that this unsustainable effort is likely to come to an end sometime in 2005, just after the elections, regardless of who is President. Given the scale of the money-printing by the Fed and the US Treasury since 2001, it is pre-programmed that the "correction" of the latest Greenspan credit binge will impact the entire global financial and economic system. Some economists fear a new Great Depression like the 1930's. The world today depends on cheap US dollar credit. When US interest rates are finally forced higher, dramatic shocks will hit Europe, Asia and the entire global economy, unlike any seen since the 1930's. Debts that now appear manageable will suddenly become un-payable. Defaults and bankruptcies will spread as they did in the wake of the 1931 Creditanstalt collapse.
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All this economic consumption has created the illusion of a recovering economy. Behind the surface, a huge debt burden has built up. Since 1997, the total of home mortgage debt for Americans has risen 94% to a colossal $7.4 trillion, a debt of some $120,000 for a family of four. Bank loans for real estate purchases have risen since 1997 by 200%, to $2.4 trillion. Average US home prices have risen by 50% in the period since 1998. In 2003 alone a record total of $1 trillion in new mortgage loans were made. In 1997 mortgages totalled $202 billion.

In many parts of the US, home price inflation has become alarming. An apartment in Manhattan is now above $1 million. Home prices in Boston have risen by 64% in five years. California real estate prices are soaring. On average US home prices have risen 50% in six years, an unprecedented rise, driven by Greenspan's easy credit. In seven years to 2004, prices of US homes had risen on paper by $7 trillion to a total of $15 trillion, the highest in US history. The problem is so obviously dangerous, that Greenspan recently was forced to deny existence of any real estate "bubble," much as he denied a dot.com stock bubble in 2000.

But that is exactly what he has created with his low interest rates. The dot.com bubble has been transformed into a larger and more threatening real estate bubble. Families have been convinced to invest in a home as an alternative to buying stocks for their pension years.
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So long as rates stay low, the roulette wheel of debt rolls on. The problem begins when interest rates rise and families, lured into buying a home with variable interest rate payments, suddenly find their monthly cost of paying the mortgage has exploded as interest rates rise. At that point, US banks will face a serious bad loan problem, far worse than that of 1990-92 when several of the largest US banks were on the brink of failure. US rates began to rise significantly in May, and the Fed was forced to raise its official rate on June 30 for the first time in four years. Many banks have loans written in adjustable mortgage rates. As US interest rates continue to rise over the next twelve months or so, that will trigger a wave of mortgage defaults. Some industry experts fear a "bloodbath" in 2005.

The American family is highly indebted, not just for their home. The Federal Reserve data show a total US debt level now above $35 trillions, or some $ 450,000 for a typical family of four. Average consumer debt for credit cards, autos and such is at record highs. Carmakers continue to offer car loans, with loans for up to six or even seven years. Many Americans owe more on their car than it is worth. The debt grows. As long as Fed rates are at 43 year lows, the debt is manageable. When US rates rise, it becomes unmanageable for many. The rise has begun. There are two ways rates are likely to rise from here.
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When Bush became President he inherited a Federal budget in surplus. Since then he has created the largest deficits in US history, near $500 billion in 2004 and estimated to reach $600 billion in 2005. In 1971, when Nixon took the dollar off the gold standard, the Federal budget deficit was an "alarming" $23 billions.

These huge deficits are financed by the US Treasury selling government bonds or similar paper to investors. Since 2001, the central banks of Asia, led by Japan and China, have bought huge sums, some 43% of all US Government debt. They in effect recycled their trade dollars gained from exporting cars, electronics, textiles and other goods to the US consumer. In the 12-month period to this April, the Bank of Japan spent a record $200 billions to buy US dollar bonds or, in effect, to finance the cost of Bush's Iraq war. The Banks of China, South Korea and Taiwan bought almost as much dollar bonds.

They did this for clear reasons: Their currencies are linked to the dollar, and were the dollar to fall against the Yen or the Yuan, Asian exports would suffer a decline, endangering their economic growth and leading to explosive rises in unemployment across Asia. By recycling their trade dollar surplus into buying US Treasury debt, they argue they are looking after their own needs. A dollar crisis in early 2005 could signal the next global crisis. The whole world is hostage to the misconceived economic policies of a dollar standard out of control.

CLINTON ADMINISTRATION HAS REINVENTED COMMUNISM
December 5, 2000
Mr. Speaker, America's trade deficit for September hit $35 billion for one month, $35 billion. America is heading for a $420 billion, 1-year trade deficit.
Unbelievable. If this continues, America will have a crash that will make 1929 look like a fender-bender.
What is even worse, China is now taking $100 billion of cash out of our economy, buying missiles, and pointing them at us.
Beam us up, all of us.
We must be stupid. Ronald Reagan almost destroyed Communism, and the Clinton administration has reinvented it, is now subsidizing it, and is now stabilizing it.
I yield back any common sense left and any patriotism left in this Congress.