10/18/09 Stockholm, Sweden – Like a lothario insistent on saying the right things, but with other, more scandalous, ideas in mind, Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner was on TV speaking again. He had more soothing words to relax the citizens while he continues to participate in the corruption of their future finances.
In a CNBC interview, Geithner stated that the US must live within its means… or risk facing a loss of global confidence in the US dollar.
The confidence is extremely important, as he also pointed out. Treasuries are historically “the safest and most liquid markets.” We saw money flood into that asset class when people “were most concerned about the future of the world,” although “it’s not something you can count on.”
True words indeed. The latest US budget deficit reports a record $1.4 trillion shortfall, 10 percent of gross domestic product, which is not exactly an example of belt-tightening. The deficit forecasts through 2011 are also greater than $1 trillion, so right now it’s not like the future is looking any brighter.
Unfortunately, there is no exit strategy. The plan forward is vague and undefined at best, disastrous at worst. There’s a strong need for individuals to take the reins of their own finances and to plan on old-fashioned self-reliance going forward.
More details are available in Reuters coverage of the need for US to live within its means.
Rocky Vega
Rocky Vega is publisher of The Daily Reckoning. Previously, he was founding publisher of UrbanTurf and RFID Update, which he operated from Brazil, Chile, and Puerto Rico, and associate publisher of FierceFinance. He specialized in direct marketing at MBI, facilitated MIT Sloan School of Management programs, and has been featured on CBS. Vega graduated with honors from Harvard University, where he was on the board of Let’s Go Publications and directed business programs involving McKinsey, Goldman Sachs, and Harvard Business School faculty. He is also enrolled at the Stockholm School of Economics.
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