Gold's New Records
by: James Turk
goldmoney.com

"From September 30, 2007 to the end of this past fiscal year on September 30, 2008, total federal debt grew by $1.0 trillion, from 9,007,653,372,262.48 to $10,024,724,896,912.49, which is an 11.3% annual rate of growth. The federal debt as of October 16, 2008 is now $10,331,139,000,845.92. So in just 16 days since the end of the last fiscal year, the federal debt has grown by an astounding $331.1 billion, which is a 75.5% annual rate of growth. It has taken just 16 days to borrow one-third of what the government borrowed in all of last year.

The above chart shows T-bills only, and therefore excludes the growth of other federal debt instruments. Also, this $10.3 trillion debt total I refer to above excludes the federal government's unfunded liabilities. When these are added, the total obligations of the federal government are $110 trillion, or at least that's what they were estimated to be last May by Dallas Federal Reserve president Richard Fisher. The federal government's unfunded liabilities, and therefore its total obligations, have obviously grown further since then, and are now some unknown number greater than $110 trillion.

In short, the US federal government is staggering under the world's heaviest debt load. To meet its obligations and promises, the Federal Reserve will continue to create "unlimited" amounts of dollars.

That word - "unlimited" - is getting used frequently in the media these days. Bloomberg reported on October 13th that "policy makers offered banks unlimited dollar funding." The Wall Street Journal reported on October 14th that "The U.S. Federal Reserve agreed to provide unlimited dollars to three major European central banks." Then on October 15th Japan jumped into this dollar creation frenzy too, and according to Bloomberg: "The Bank of Japan said it will offer lenders as many dollars as they want." Bloomberg went on to say that dollars will be provided at fixed interest rates for an "unlimited amount", quoting from the actual BoJ announcement.

Gold cannot "prevent unlimited public spending" like the gold standard, but a rising gold price - like a barking dog - can warn of danger."