The Associated Press reports today that Standard and Poor’s will give the United States its lowest credit rating should congress fail to raise the borrowing limit—putting us in the same category as say Albania, Angola and Cameroon. A calamity? Not to worry, the Senate is on it (the House is thankfully on recess). Of course, there is the fact that some Republican members of Congress don’t believe that defaulting would be a big deal. They are part of the Republican “don’t believe club.” They don’t believe in evolution or global warming either—demanding evidence while brushing aside the actual evidence. Belief or non-belief is the new reality for many in Congress—as if governing from inside a Disney cartoon.
Smokey Diamond and I, while firmly believing nothing bad can ever happen, have decided to pool the very limited resources the Too Big To Fail gang left us by mistake (heads will roll) and invest in a lump of gold or platinum. We understand very well that the corporate marauders will come for this nest egg as well—as soon as they’ve accumulated all the money they possibly can—with the help of the “don’t believe club—by moving it around on computer spread sheets. It’s just that when they decide to steal our last remaining nest egg they will have to send two guys named Sal, dressed all in black, eyes only peeping through their ski masks, in the dead of night, with a crow bar for entry and revolvers for back up. In this age, there is something refreshing in being pillaged in that way. It’s something Smokey and I can believe in.