According to Time Magazine in 1988, the US' largest export was debt - Treasury bonds and mortgage backed securities that we sold to other countries. Japan bought tons. But now, post financial crisis, the question remains. Since we borrowed billions from China to bail ourselves out, what do we sell to China to make the money back? And the answer seems to be, according to news site The Economic Collapse, garbage - waste paper and scrap metal. Just the same as the Romans exported out of their empire towards the end of it's days. For every American household to get themselves back on solid footing and out of this government induced overseas money drinking binge the answer is not so difficult. Save. Don't take that raise. Put the extra in the bank, and then take this year's raise next year, and put next year's raise in the bank - year after year. Maintain your car. Pay it off and then take a fraction of what you used to pay in interest every year and use that for upgrades - new tires, a nicer stereo, whatever. Keep the house. It's a lousy time to sell a house anyway so simply refinance it if possible, at the lowest rate possible, and then add a room or a deck or a patio. Stop borrowing money for at least 10 years and you'll find yourself a lot more comfortable and possibly able to buy a house or car or an education like the Asians do. In cash.
The government is spending your tax dollars recklessly, as the video above illustrates. The $850 billion dollar bank bailout is more than the entire NASA program budget over the its history. It costs us $6.5 billion a month just to be in Afghanistan. And you don't have a job? Save your money. And give the government as little as possible - until they get their own financial house in order.
