As our government continues to rely on other nations to provide the funds to operate our nation in the manner to which we have become accustomed, one of our benefactors, China, has expressed some concern about our ability to repay those loans, should China ever decide it wants its money back. “Not to worry,” our president of nearly four months has assured them.
The Chinese premier Wen Jiabo, recently admitted he was “worried” about his country’s $1 trillion holdings in U.S. treasury bonds. The way it works is China loans us $1 billion and we issue to China $1 billion in treasury bonds, at an agreed upon interest rate. This has been going on for a long time and of course while the Chinese are doing quite well on the interest payments, Wen sought some reassurances.
He called on the Obama administration to “maintain its good credit, to honor its promises and to guarantee the safety of China’s assets.” He added that, “We have lent a huge amount of money to the U.S. Of course we are concerned about the safety of our assets. To be honest, I am definitely a little worried.”
Wen was assured by Washington that those government bonds were as good as the paper they were printed on. A syndicated comedian, Argus Hamilton, commented shortly after that, “President Obama met with the foreign minister of China at the White House. Everyone agreed the visit was long overdue. Obama has been president of the United States for seven weeks and it’s about time he met with the owners.”
Might one even suggest that the foreign minister came to the United States just to visit his money?
China’s premier was able to articulate China’s concerns, but there is no one to stand up for the nation’s social security trust fund. It has the same problem as China but has no spokesman to present its concerns.
Every month the government takes the millions of surplus dollars that flow into the social security trust fund and spends it to pay bills. Just as it does with China, the government issues an IOU in the form of treasury bonds. No one seems to know how much the trust fund is owed, but since the government probably never plans to repay this money, it doesn’t concern itself with such details.
Perhaps as soon as congress completes its study of potential college football playoffs, steroids in professional baseball and whether tax soft drinks, it could concern itself with the steadily climbing national debt.
Courthouse Parking
Construction on the new courthouse in Santa Fe has stalled while the contractors, architects, city and county officials decide how to deal with some contaminated soil unearthed as the excavation progressed.
One solution proposed is to cut the parking in half. How this will solve the underground pollution is not thoroughly explained but it sounds as though it would be the cheapest way to proceed with the project already underway.
The courthouse is to serve the First Judicial District which includes Rio Arriba county so we will be affected by whatever decision is made, but have no voice in that decision. And whose parking would be trimmed from the project? The public’s, of course.
Therapy Works!
After it was learned that the College of Santa Fe was threatened with closure, students were understandably upset. That would be a major upheaval in any young person’s life plans. It was decided that to help students deal with this stress some counseling might prove beneficial.
Presbyterian Medical services held an open house to offer “emotional support to students, including free chair masssages and refreshments like veggies, fruit, cheese and a sheet cake decorated with the school colors.”
It must have worked because a couple of days later more than 300 stressed-out students, about half the number of fulltime students currently enrolled, had recovered sufficiently to announce they might sue the college should it close down before the semester ended and presented a petition to that effect to administrators
Well, a law suit wasn’t necessary but the student reaction showed they had learned one New Mexico tradition: when in doubt, sue.