Chapter 13

The same night it killed the Dubai Ports deal, the House Appropriations Committee voted a "supplemental" 67-billion-dollar appropriation for continued funding of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

That's a 67 followed by nine zeroes.

The death of the Dubai Ports deal made headlines, but the multi-billion-dollar war appropriation didn't.

Meantime, Mort Zuckerman at U.S. News reports that the Fed's current fiscal obligations, liabilities, and unfunded promises amount to $43 trillion. It's an amount that can never be paid, and almost equal to the total net worth of all American households.

I've seen people act this way in "real life" -- running up credit card and other debts as if there was never going to be a day of reckoning, until the creditors begin to catch wind of what's going on and blow the whistle.

I don't understand this kind of behavior, but that's just me. It seems to operate as some form of hyperextended mega-denial, and even though it's fairly common I put it right next door to the more exotic forms of delusion -- thinking there are little green people under the bed, and that sort of stuff.

The country is headed rapidly toward default. There's simply no way out of it.

But it's hardly being reported, and no one wants to think about the consequences, which will be, to put it mildly, severe.