Debt Junkie-in-Chief

By- Suzie-Q @ 8:45 PM MST

George of Arabia: Better Kiss Your Abe ‘Goodbye’
by Greg Palast
Wednesday, January 16, 2008

Bend over, pull out your wallet and kiss your Abe ‘goodbye.’ The Lincolns have got to go – and so do the Hamiltons and Jacksons.

Those bills in your billfold aren’t yours anymore. The landlords of our currency – Citibank, the national treasury of China and the House of Saud – are foreclosing and evicting all Americans from the US economy.

It’s mornings like this, when I wake up hung-over to photos of the King of Saudi Arabia festooning our President with gold necklaces, that I reluctantly remember that I am an economist; and one with some responsibility to explain what the hell Bush is doing kissing Abdullah’s camel.

Let’s begin by stating why Bush is not in Saudi Arabia. Bush ain’t there to promote ‘Democracy’ nor peace in Palestine, nor even war in Iran. And, despite what some pinhead from CNN stated, he sure as hell didn’t go to Riyadh to tell the Saudis to cut the price of oil.

What’s really behind Bush’s hajj to Riyadh is that America is in hock up to our knickers. The sub-prime mortgage market implosion, hitting a dozen banks with over $100 billion in losses, is just the tip of the debt-berg.

Since taking office, Bush has doubled the federal debt to more than $5 trillion. And, according to US Treasury figures, on net, foreign investors have purchased close to 100% of that debt. That’s $3 trillion borrowed from the Saudis, the Chinese, the Japanese and others.

Now, Bush, our Debt Junkie-in-Chief, needs another fix. The US Treasury, Citibank, Merrill-Lynch and other financial desperados need another hand-out from Abdullah’s stash. Abdullah, in turn, gets this financial juice by pumping it out of our pockets at nearly $100 a barrel for his crude.

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Note: H/T to Betmo @ Sirens Chronicles  for this article!

Thanks my friend!