While politicians and the mainstream media in the US have been busy talking about the tax laws that expire at the end of 2012, we are approaching the real “fiscal cliff” very rapidly. This cliff is further in the future and no one knows exactly when we will fall over it, but the US will fall over it if it doesn’t change direction immediately and drastically.

The US Federal debt currently stands at over $16.3 trillion and is rising by about $1 million every 40 seconds. The CBO projects massive annual deficits for the next 10 years.

The economist, Peter Schiff, spells out the harsh reality of the situation the US is getting itself into in the following set of videos:

QE stands for “Quantitative Easing,” where the the Federal Reserve creates new money and uses it to buy financial assets directly from banks. QE generates an increase in the money supply.

To paraphrase Ayn Rand: The majority of people in the US can ignore reality, but they can’t escape the consequences of ignoring reality.

The Federal Reserve is setting the US economy up for another huge crash and a round of hyperinflation. Yet, given our history, it is not hard to predict that when the big crash happens, “scheming businessmen” and/or “unscrupulous financial traders” will take the blame from the mainstream media and dominant public opinion.

This Objective Standard article describes the deeper philosophical problem: The Moral Cliff

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