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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><div><p class=MsoNormal><b>From:</b> spike@rainier66.com <spike@rainier66.com> <br><br><o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>>…In the US, it is always the scariest power-grabbers who want to get our guns from us. It’s our job to see they don’t get them and don’t get power either…spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>Let us engage in some what if…<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>For years you have seen my post asking what happens if China suddenly stops lending money to the US, which has been borrowing money like crazy during peacetime and full employment. It borrows to make routine budgets.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>OK. But now several things happen simultaneously, as implausible as they seem. A novel virus breaks out in China. They cover it up, it spreads everywhere on the globe. It is so serious and so contagious that governments everywhere choose to shut down their own economies. China is hit much harder than they admit, which causes their economy to go into a tailspin. This reduces their productivity, which causes shortages of manufactured goods all over the world, which sends the price of these goods upward in a time when unemployment in the USA and elsewhere is increasing dramatically because of the businesses which failed because of the quarantine.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>So… suddenly China stops lending. Just as well, because it is unclear the US could pay it back anyway, or if so, it would be in dollars we can no longer afford.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>In the meantime… the US is in a position where we might need to quickly figure out how to balance a budget which hasn’t balanced in years.<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal>spike<o:p></o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p></div></div></body></html>