What subtle currency manipulation looks like. Accountants would go to jail for misrepresenting a balance sheet like this.

150 Days: Treasury Says Debt Has Been Frozen at $18,112,975,000,000

Objectivity is not a strong point at NPR

NPR ADMITS: 'THEY'RE BEGGING MARKETS TO REACT'

Throughout the government shutdown and the debt ceiling fight, President Barack Obama and the Democrats have attempted to use the specter of economic collapse to force Republicans to make concessions. On Oct. 3, President Obama even attempted to talk stock prices down--"this time Wall Street should be concerned"--not caring about the damage he might inflict on investors, pensioners, and the economy in general.

Now--with Republicans "on the run" in polls--National Public Radio (NPR), which has been a cheerleader for the Democrats throughout the debate, has admitted that there are attempts to drive stock prices down in an attempt to force a deal. "It's almost like they're begging the markets to react today to force the Senate into some sort of action, and then see what the House does," said Cokie Roberts on Monday morning.

Roberts was describing a meeting of international bankers in Washington that warned of "dire consequences" if the U.S. did not raise the debt limit. Note that none of these government-aligned barons, warning of nascent panic in the financial markets, advised the U.S. to cut spending and manage its long-term debt--even as Democrats added new demands for spending increases. Presumably, that is a problem for a later crisis.

As of 12:30 p.m. Monday, the Dow Jones Industrial Average is down slightly--not enough panic, presumably, for the White House and international bankers to feel comfortable with their bargaining position.

Who needs a debt limit rise when you can just fudge the numbers.

Treasury Ran $98 Billion Deficit in July--But Debt Stayed Exactly $16,699,396,000,000 

(CNSNews.com) - The Treasury Department's Financial Management Service (FMS), which publishes both the federal government's official Daily Treasury Statement and its official Monthly Treasury Statement, is reporting that in July the federal government ran a deficit of $98 billion but that the federal government's debt remained exactly $16,699,396,000,000 for the entire month.

The FMS said that the deficit went up $98 billion ($97,594,000,000) in the Monthly Treasury Statment for July, which it released on Monday.

At the same time, the FMS said the debt stayed at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 in its Daily Treasury Statements, which are published every business day. The Daily Treasury Statements show the daily value of the federal government debt that is subject to a legal limit set by Congress.

At the static $16,699,396,000,000 level that the Treasury reported for every day of July, the debt was just $25 million below the legal limit of $16,699,421,000,000 that was set in a law passed by Congress and signed by President Barack Obama.

If Treasury's daily statements were to declare that the government had borrowed an additional net $98 billion to cover the $98 billion deficit the Treasury declared in its monthly statement for July, the Treasury would be conceding that the government had already surpassed the legal limit on the debt--and has been violating the law by continuing to borrowing additional money.

Instead, even as the Treasury was running up the $98-billion deficit it reported in the July Monthly Treasury Statement, every one of the 22 Daily Treasury Statements published for July said the Treasury had closed out the previous business day with exactly $16,699,396,000,000 in debt.

The Daily Treasury Statement for Aug. 12, released Tuesday afternoon, says the debt remained stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 during the first 12 days of this month, too.

On May 17, the first day the Treasury reported that the debt had hit exactly $16,699,396,000,000--and was thus just $25 million below the legal limit--Treasury Secretary Lew sent a letter to House Speaker John Boehner saying he was beginning to implement what he called "the standard set of extraordinary measures" to prevent the Treasury from exceeding the legal limit on the federal debt.

Since Lew sent that letter--announcing that he would use "extraordinary measures"--the debt has remained stuck at exactly $16,699,396,000,000 for 87 straight days.

That includes all 31 days in July when Lew's Treasury says it was running a $98 billion deficit.

When Lew stops using "extraordinary measures" to keep the debt at exactly $16,699,396,000,000, the government will have another debt-limit crisis.

- See more at: http://cnsnews.com/news/article/treasury-ran-98-billion-deficit-july-debt-stayed-exactly-16699396000000#sthash.8k4GUnDl.dpuf

This is Obama's approach to compromise

Here's Obama's Message to GOP by Appointing Lew Treasury Secretary

President Barack Obama is sending a pointed message to Republicans by nominating Jack Lew as Treasury Secretary: I'm not backing down from this budget fight.

This is certainly a blow to any hope that Republicans might have had that Obama would flinch from his pledge not to negotiate over the debt ceiling. The president has said he will demand a clean bill raising the debt ceiling, unattached to any conditions or spending cuts.

(Read More: Get Ready: US May Hit Debt Ceiling by Mid-February)

To call Lew's relationship with Capitol Hill Republicans strained would be an understatement. According to some on the Hill, there just is no relationship anymore.

"We do not even bother talking to him," a staffer for a Republican senator said. (Read More: In Picking Lew, Obama Turns a Page at Treasury)

When Senate GOP leader Mitch McConnell called Vice President Joe Biden as the deadline to cut a deal to avoid the fiscal cliff loomed, it was a sign of the tensions between the senator and Lew. McConnell had to create a new channel for negotiations because he could no longer go through the White House.

Play Video

Lew's Signature Scribble

Jack Lew is said to be the next Treasury Secretary, but his signature has raised eyebrows on the Hill.

Here's how Manu Raju at Politico.com describes the tensions between Lew and Republicans:

Several Republicans said Tuesday they don't view Lew as a man interested in hearing GOP concerns. One aide called him "tone deaf" in understanding the compromises that Republicans could accept during high-stakes talks.

"No matter what you're proposing or no matter what compromise you're trying to forge, he comes at it from a position of, 'Whatever you want, I have to be against,'" the GOP aide said. "It doesn't advantage him in the negotiation, he doesn't get a different policy outcome than he would otherwise. It just irritates people. … It's as much personality as anything else."

These tensions are not new. Lew alienated Republican lawmakers during the summer of 2011 when he was director of the White House Office of Management and Budget. According to Rich Miniter's book Leading from Behind, House Speaker John Boehner complained during the 2011 debt ceiling negotiations that he simply could not negotiate with Lew. (Read More: No More Mr. Nice Guy: New Battles Ahead for Obama)

Play Video

Lew's Take as OMB Director

When he was OMB director, Jack Lew talked about the mechanics of budget cuts with CNBC.

"Whatever Boehner proposed, Lew would spurn in favor of his own, usually more complicated ideas. And Lew returned again and again to proposals Boehner had unambiguously refused. Lew had lost the trust of the House Republicans," Miniter writes.

Noam Scheiber's The Escape Artists tells the story of a meeting between Lew and Sen. Jon Kyl and fellow Republican Rep. Eric Cantor in the summer of 2011 to negotiate a deal to lift the debt ceiling. At one point Kyl and Cantor are clearly flustered at the stony resistance they are getting from Lew and Gene Sperling, the director of the National Economic Council.

"Let me get this right," Kyl says to Lew and Sperling. "You are saying there are Medicare savings you think would be good policy. But you won't do them unless we agree to raise taxes?"

Play Video

Is Lew the Right Choice For Treasury Secretary?

CNBC's Steve Liesman takes a look at what incoming Treasury Secretary Jack Lew will be left with once Timothy Geithner leaves. Also, Roger Altman, Evercore Partners chairman & founder, weighs in on the financial skills Lew brings to the cabinet position.

The answer from Sperling and Lew was "yes." The negotiations quickly broke down.

There's no doubt that Lew is highly experienced and has shown a high level of loyalty to Obama. As a long time public servant, he knows the ins and outs of the budget better than most people. But even if Lew is respected in Washington, he's not a guy who is likely to be able to diminish the political acrimony.

If Obama wanted to appoint a man who could personify his no negotiation pledge, there would be no better pick than Lew.

A little history about this leftist:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Lew

He ran the Citigroup section that invested in bets against the housing market.

Debt debacle

Chart: 'America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece'

Daniel Halper

The office of Senator Jeff Sessions, ranking member on the Senate Budget Committee, sends along this chart, showing that 'America’s Per Capita Government Debt Worse Than Greece,' as well as Ireland, Italy, France, Portugal, and Spain:

The Great Charade

Mark Steyn on the debt-ceiling farce:

There is something surreal and unnerving about the so-called “debt ceiling” negotiations staggering on in Washington. In the real world, negotiations on an increase in one’s debt limit are conducted between the borrower and the lender. Only in Washington is a debt increase negotiated between two groups of borrowers.

Actually, it’s more accurate to call them two groups of spenders. On the one side are Obama and the Democrats, who in a negotiation supposedly intended to reduce American indebtedness are (surprise!) proposing massive increasing in spending (an extra $33 billion for Pell Grants, for example). The Democrat position is: You guys always complain that we spend spend spend like there’s (what’s the phrase again?) no tomorrow, so be grateful that we’re now proposing to spend spend spend spend like there’s no this evening.

On the other side are the Republicans, who are the closest anybody gets to representing, albeit somewhat tentatively and less than fullthroatedly, the actual borrowers — that’s to say, you and your children and grandchildren. But in essence the spenders are negotiating among themselves how much debt they’re going to burden you with. It’s like you and your missus announcing you’ve set your new credit limit at $1.3 million, and then telling the bank to send demands for repayment to Mr. and Mrs. Smith’s kindergartner next door.
Nothing good is going to come from these ludicrously protracted negotiations over laughably meaningless accounting sleights-of-hand scheduled to kick in circa 2020. All the charade does is confirm to prudent analysts around the world that the depraved ruling class of the United States cannot self-correct, and, indeed, has no desire to.

When the 44th president took office, he made a decision that it was time for the already unsustainable levels of government spending finally to break the bounds of reality and frolic and gambol in the magical fairy kingdom of Spendaholica: This year, the federal government borrows 43 cents of every dollar it spends, a ratio that is unprecedented. Barack Obama would like this to be, as they say, “the new normal” — at least until that 43 cents creeps up a nickel or so, and the United States government is spending twice as much as it takes in, year in, year out, now and forever. If the Republicans refuse to go along with that, well, then the negotiations will collapse and, as he told Scott Pelley on CBS the other night, Gran’ma gets it. That monthly Social Security check? Fuhgeddabouddit. “I cannot guarantee that those checks go out on August 3rd if we haven’t resolved this issue,” declared the president. “Because there may simply not be the money in the coffers to do it.”

But hang on. I thought the Social Security checks came out of the famous “Social Security trust fund,” whose “trustees” assure us there’s currently $2.6 trillion in there. Which should be enough for the August 3rd check run, shouldn’t it? Golly, to listen to the president, you’d almost get the impression that, by the time you saw the padlock off the old Social Security lockbox, there’s nothing in there but a yellowing IOU and a couple of moths. Indeed, to listen to Obama, one might easily conclude that the whole rotten, stinking edifice of federal government is an accounting trick. And that can’t possibly be so, can it?

For the Most Gifted Orator in Human History, the president these days speaks largely in clichés, most of which he doesn’t seem to be quite on top of. “Eric, don’t call my bluff,” he sternly reprimanded the GOP’s Eric Cantor. Usually, if you’re bluffing, the trick is not to announce it upfront. But, in fact, in his threat to have Granny eating dog food by Labor Day, Obama was calling his own bluff. The giant bluff against the future that is government spending.

How many of “the wealthy” do you require to cover a one-and-a-half trillion-dollar shortfall every single year? When you need this big a fix, there aren’t enough people to stick it to. “We are not broke,” insists Van Jones, Obama’s former “green jobs” czar and bespoke Communist. “We were robbed, we were robbed. And somebody has our money!”

The somebody who has our money is the government. They waste it on self-aggrandizing ideologue nitwits like Van Jones and his “green jobs” racket. How’s the “green jobs” scene in your town? Going gangbusters, is it? Every day these guys burn through so much that they can never bridge the gap. By that, I don’t mean that an American government that raises $2 trillion but spends $4 trillion has outspent America, but that it’s outspent the planet. In my soon to be imminently forthcoming book, I discuss a study published last year by John Kitchen of the U.S. Treasury and Menzie Chinn of the University of Wisconsin. Its very title is a testament to where we’re headed:

“Financing U.S. Debt: Is There Enough Money In The World — And At What Cost?”

The rest.: