Up until yesterday, like you I was prepared to blame my fellow Boomers. However I read an article by Darryl Robert Schoon that suggests some rethinking might be in order. Schoon claims the USA defaulted twice in the past century. First during the Great Depression when FDR arbitrarily raised the price of gold from $20 to $35. Second, in 1973 when Nixon pulled us out of Bretton Woods and officially put us on fiat currency.

In the book, This Time is Different, Kenneth Rogoff and Carmen Reinhart review eight centuries of sovereign default and conclude that collapse, due to the expansion of debt, is the predictable outcome of fiat money.

Such crisis are usually resolved by war. This time is particularly troubling because we have the ability to turn this planet into glass.

BTW Jack, which is your fave Bernanke Bust Up? Mine didn’t make the final cut. In August 2007, Buck Buster Ben, with Henry Paulson standing dutifully at his side, reassuringly defined the collapse in subprime mortgages as a “$50 billion problem.” In the immortal words of Larry the Cable Guy, “I don’t care who you are, that’s funny right there.”

To those who don’t understand the enabling power of the 10th Amendment I suggest you visit Findlaw, do a search using the phrase Tenth Amendment and read the thousands of challenges to federal authority based on the 10th that have been shot down by SCOTUS for more than 200 consecutive years. Or go sit in a constitutional law class or two.

Sorry, I lack the ability to break it down into 10 words or less for you.

What libertarians fail to appreciate is that with every right there is a corresponding responsibility. In other words, your right to swing your arm ends precisely where my nose begins.

What are you talking about? Article 1, Section 6 of the Constitution has nothing to do with defining Federal powers, and Amendment 10 simply further defines the balance of power between the federal government and the states or people.

As far as which federal agencies are unconstitutional, I would say just about all of them except for the DOD, IRS, and FTC, in the sense that the primary powers of the federal government are supposed to be limited to the power to declare war, collect taxes, and regulate interstate business. The hundreds of others are absolutely superfluous (e.g., EPA, FDA, DOEnergy, FDIC, CIA, HUD, DOEducation, FAA, DOT, NASA, FHA, FDIC, FEMA, SSA, etc., etc.) I don’t mean to imply that all such agencies are useless (or worse), but they don’t have to be governmental. Whenever new powers are given to the government (at any level) they are practically impossible to take back and actually even grow uncontrollably because gov. tends to beget more gov.

I do not understand how the article on congressional compensation or the 10th amendment delegating powers not mentioned in the constitution to the states or people (i.e. NOT to the federal government) constitutes allowing the alphabet soup of FEDERAL agencies currently residing on the FEDERAL pay roll. You did say “government” and not “FEDERAL government” though so maybe there’s some confusion as to the difference…?