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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Cloudsweeper99, post: 1179948, member: 3011&quot;]There isn&#039;t any pain-free way out of the present situation.&nbsp; The trick is to never get into this sort of situation in the first place.&nbsp; But now that the country is here, the debt problem has to be dealt with.&nbsp; I think there is about a 50/50 chance that we will see serious inflation or deflation.&nbsp; It really is a choice and a policy decision that doesn&#039;t seem to have been made yet.&nbsp; I don&#039;t think the Fed or Treasury will choose hyperinflation since governments tend to not survive in those circumstances.&nbsp; The difficulty with choosing inflation is that every new dollar printed is backed by a new dollar of Treasury debt.&nbsp; So the debt is rising as fast as the money is printed and the ghost of future deflation remains.&nbsp; The difficulty with choosing deflation through some sort of debt restructure or default is that the economy will probably go through a decade of pain like the 1930s.&nbsp; If the decision is to do nothing, then you can look at Japan and see the future of the US - permanent stagnation.&nbsp; This is why I believe that eventually the grownups will get back in charge of the Federal government and do what has to be done - raise both corporate and individual income taxes, perhaps use tariffs, raise the age of eligibility for Social Security and Medicare, and eventually cut military spending by, say, 75%.&nbsp; If they get real brave, they might even take a fresh look at the role of the Federal Reserve.&nbsp; Nobody is going to be happy about it.&nbsp; The biggest danger in my mind is television.&nbsp; It&#039;s the greatest brainwashing tool ever devised, and if they continue to convince people that certain actions are philosophically unacceptable to both the left and the right and cloak their opinion in the American flag, then all bets are off.&nbsp; In that case, maybe we really are too stupid to survive.&nbsp; Time will tell.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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