The debt has increased by HALF A TRILLION since the shutdown began

By the autumn of 1648, England had been embroiled in a chaotic and bloody civil war for more than six years.

Extreme ideological tensions in England had been building for decades over freedom of religion, plus the balance of power within government.

King Charles was wildly unpopular. And a majority of politicians in parliament saw it as their sole mission to resist him. Many believed adamantly that parliament should rule over the king and ultimately dictate all laws in England.

On the other side, a number of traditionalists thought parliament to be a corrupt body of liars and thieves, and they wanted to preserve the power of both church and king.

Tensions erupted into war in 1642, eventually resulting in Charles’ capture and imprisonment.

At that point the majority of parliament didn’t have any desire to extend the crisis any further. They felt like they had won sufficient concessions. Enough was enough. So they negotiated a peace treaty to end the civil war, much to the relief of people across England.

Unfortunately there were a number of radicals who pledged to continue the fight no matter the cost. They viewed any compromise as failure.

One of those was a little known Member of Parliament named Oliver Cromwell, who, on December 6, 1648, sent more than a thousand troops to surround the palace of Westminster and block the entrance of Parliament.

Only the most radical members were allowed entry; the rest were either blocked or arrested.

Cromwell’s aim was to prevent the peace treaty from being ratified; he felt that it was too soft with too many compromises. And as a result, the English Civil War continued, followed by Cromwell’s personal dictatorship, for more than a decade.

I hope I’m wrong but I think the US is in store for a similar head fake. After more than a month of the shutdown, there were signs over the weekend that a compromise had been reached in the United States Senate.

But the theater began almost immediately after, with the radical Left vomiting all over the deal and insisting that they would “continue to fight.”

My sense is that while a lot of people may believe that the government shutdown is nearly over, this may in fact just be another miss, just like England’s ‘almost’ peace treaty in 1648. There’s a good chance this compromise will be blocked by aggressive radicals in Congress.

To say this is a national embarrassment is a massive understatement. And at this point it’s nearly all branches of government and institutions chipping away at the remaining dignity of America.

One of the things that I find most bizarre is how many prominent radicals seem to think their shutdown is “winning the hearts and minds of the American people.”

They believe this because of last week’s gubernatorial elections in New Jersey and Virginia in which the candidates from their party won.

Now, the combined margin of victory of both candidates was about one million people. There are roughly 350 million people in the United States.

Yet, in the mind of a Leftist radical, one million voters in two states speak for 350 million Americans in 50 states, and therefore they have a moral mandate to keep “fighting” while the government remains closed.

This raises a key question: fighting for what?

Well, they claim to be fighting for healthcare affordability. Coincidentally this is the same party that passed Obamacare more than a decade ago— during which time the cost of health insurance in the US has soared above and beyond the already uncomfortably high rate of inflation.

Strange, considering that the actual name of the legislation was the Affordable Care Act. Yet it seems to have only made healthcare less affordable.

Naturally the radicals’ knee-jerk reaction is to blame capitalism or evil corporations.

However this Leftist logic also collapses under scrutiny.

Gross profit margins at major health insurance providers, for example, have actually declined since the Affordable Care Act was passed. This means that those ‘evil insurance companies’ are making less money on every policy, not more.

None of these radicals has stopped to question why health insurance in America is so expensive. Instead their answer is to shutdown the government— shoot first, and ask questions never.

Not to be outdone, various state and local governments across the country have engaged in their own histrionics, pledging to “fight” and “resist” without ever explaining what or why.

The end result has been an avalanche of lawsuits, and the judicial branch has sadly become equally culpable in this national humiliation.

There are so many activist judges presiding over federal courts now that it’s easy for a progressive agenda to slide through without any whiff of jurisprudence.

A recent ruling by a federal judge in Rhode Island ordered the Trump administration to pay billions of dollars to SNAP beneficiaries, despite the program being unfunded by Congress.

His argument had nothing to do with the law, or the Constitution. Instead he merely said, “this should never happen in America.”

In other words the order was based on his personal view, not on the law. He also, strangely, put all the blame on the Trump administration, rather than the radical Left in Congress that continues to keep the government shutdown and unfunded.

But this is par for the course. The media, which has a strong role to play itself in the national humiliation, takes all of its talking points from the DNC and blames the president for everything.

This whole episode is showcasing not only deep irreconcilable ideological divisions in the United States (culminating in the election of a communist in NYC), but also a horrific level of dysfunction.

This matters, for at least one simple reason: the United States desperately needs foreigners to buy its debt.

You might not realize this, but since the government  shutdown began at the stroke of midnight on October 1st, the US national debt has increased by HALF A TRILLION DOLLARS. In less than six weeks.

That’s an enormous amount of debt— and America needs every lender it can find.

Foreigners traditionally buy a huge chunk of US debt, because, up until recently, the US was always considered “risk free”.

Not anymore. Let’s be honest— what foreign country is watching all of this chaos and thinking, “that’s a responsible government… let’s buy their bonds.”

Instead, foreigners are starting to diversify from their US Treasury and dollar holdings… into gold. And that’s why the gold price, in the long run, still has much higher to go.

Source

Simon Black is an international investor, entrepreneur and permanent traveler. His daily letter is both educational and entertaining, and we suggest that those who want unbiased, actionable information about global opportunities sign up for Sovereign Man’s free, actionable newsletter at http://www.SovereignMan.com.

From Simon Black of SovereignMan.com

Source: https://www.schiffsovereign.com/trends/the-debt-has-increased-by-half-a-trillion-since-the-shutdown-began-153861/