The Chinese are Watching

This is from a Wall Street Journal article:

...the U.S. is printing money to pay for its soaring budget deficit. He noted that China and other developing countries hold U.S. dollars as their foreign reserve on the premise that the dollar is being managed responsibly. But in recent years, the U.S. "didn't assume its responsibilities."

China buys a great deal of our debt on the assumption that we will be able to pay that debt back. If they think we are not acting responsibly, they will stop buying our debt, and we will be even deeper in the hole.

Shadow Government Statistics

This sums up the current situation quite nicely:

As inflationary pressures mount anew and the financial markets increasingly shun U.S. Treasuries, an inflationary depression can evolve quickly into a hyperinflationary great depression. Although hyperinflation became inevitable in the last decade, the onset of the process just recently was triggered by Fed and the Treasury actions in addressing the systemic solvency crisis. The process would be accelerated by unfettered and unfunded government spending that appears to loom in early 2009.

This is from John William's excellent web site, Shadow Government Statistics. Unfortunately you need a fairly pricey subscription to get to the rest of the article quoted above. I can't blame Williams for that, ya gotta make a living. But there's a lot of other great stuff there available for free, including special reports on hyperinflation and the money supply. This is highly recommended material.

The Spigot Starts to Close...

U.S. debt is losing its appeal in China
No problem, just print more money!

Obama gives us a head's up

You can't say he didn't warn us, sort-of:

Obama says trillion-dollar deficits may last years