“NEITHER A BORROWER NOR A LENDER BE”
by OPOVV, ©2014
(May 8, 2014) — These numbers, a billion here, a trillion there, are so astronomically out there as to be incomprehensible, so let’s bring it all down to earth where we can take it all apart and view it in the light of day. Of course, to be in that much debt to start with takes a special kind of manipulation of the system to which you or I don’t have access.
As a rule of thumb, in order for you or I to get a loan, we must have first paid off any existing loans. Not so with Uncle Sam. Our government has the distinct disadvantage of being run by people who lack the basic ability to balance their family’s checkbook. We call such people “politicians” and “bureaucrats.” The most incompetent bureaucrats are those of your local school board, who, daily, prove to even the most cynical of us that rewarding incompetence is beyond incompetent: it verges on the criminal in that they shortchange our young people by giving them a substandard education for which they, the students, will themselves be in debt.
The way the system is set up is the same way credit card companies can suck you in for life. There comes a time when the interest payment is more than the payment for the money that was actually borrowed in the first place. So, really now, some credit card companies can close their doors today yet can stay in business forever. Hey, sounds just like “The Federal Reserve Bank” with us, the taxpayers, paying interest on the national debt (national fleece) forever.
An individual has the opportunity to borrow or not to borrow. It also holds that if an individual borrows, he or she has the responsibility to pay back whatever was borrowed, all of it, in a timely manner. This is what we’ve all learned when we were growing up, the “pay-back” part.
When I was growing up, I had a lawn-mowing service, with a side business of backyard water fountains. And even though I was 12 years old, I kept track of the cost of oil and gas and any parts I needed for the mower, and the cost of the lining, hose, pump and extension cord for the fountains. At the end of the season I’d tally up the debits and credits, and that was my financial reality: did I make a profit or did I fail? I made money because I wasn’t concerned with the per-hour cost: only the bottom line being in the black and not in the red at the end of the year. If you owe money at the end of the year, you didn’t make any.
Our country actually has the financial capability to erase our debt and to save for the future, but not if our politicians keep on the same mindset that the money they borrow today doesn’t have to get paid back tomorrow. We have the responsibility to declare bankruptcy (abolish the Federal Reserve system of banking), erase our national debt, require that all American assets be owned by Americans, and give back to ourselves what we gave away when we allowed a private company (the Federal Reserve Bank) to dictate what we, the people, decide to borrow or not to borrow.
I say we borrow not: “Neither a borrower, nor a lender be.” Starting today, this day. Now. If you don’t have it, you can’t spend it. Stop laying our debt onto our kids. It’s not being good parents; it’s not acting in a mature manner; and it is, when all is said and done, stealing from the future; in short, it is theft.