P, Very thoughtful and intelligent post. I submit that we are very close to the whole thing coming apart, maybe a few years, maybe a few months. I don't know what the trigger will be, but guaranteed, it won't be anybody's fault who lives close by. It will probably be God's fault, or the Chinese's fault or the Arabs' fault.

Eventually the Chinese will get powerful enough to just cut us off, but I think we'll collapse ourselves, under our own weight, before that here as people panic and refuse to borrow and spend to keep the whole game going.

If the whole game is built on borrowing and spending, what if people just stop doing that? Could we see police arresting people at Wal-Mart for entering and leaving without buying something? Could we see credit cards offering to pay you to interest to use them? Could we see the government deposit $10,000 in every savings account with a spending time limit of 60 days before expiration? I've seen a 120 lb six year old being force fed McDonald's fries by his mother to shut him up in the E.R. I think I could believe just about anything. Bull