Things are right now. Yeah right.

Kia Ora,

Greece is being bailed out so it is all alright or is it?

First issue that arises is, what about the others in the Euro zone who are in the same situation? What about the UK & US who are in an even worse state.

Here are some points that have come in over the last week or so.

In Illinois they are repossing police cars. Now that is embarrassing. They are also refusing inmates as there is claims people are not being paid to to look after them.

California (the worlds 8th biggest economy) is looking at releasing prisoners to save costs. That is before Obama's health care programme add's US$2-3 billion to the bill they already can't pay.

No wonder there is soem very short fuses in the US. Now some are arguing that  government's can never do it as good as the private sector.

That depends. Here in NZ we used to have a world class, cheap health system that was free & run by the government or as one radio DJ put it, a cardigan wearing little man who made sure the planning was done.

What happened was then one government decided to make it user pays, but the back lash was so great that when they reverted the damage was done & now we have a overworked health system, that can't keep up & is getting more & more expensive.

So they can, but only if someone keeps it efficient & someone else doesn't try to fix what isn't broken.

But back to the US & the Obama Health care plan. One of its claims had being that it would save the country US$138 Billion. It now appears from the same unit who released those figures that it will cost an extra US$566 Billion.

That is a discrepancy of a lazy US$ 700 Billion. Sounds like they have being getting lessons from NZ IRD (Equivalent to IRS).

The other issue is 14 States in the US sued the Ferderal government at  virtually the moment it passed its vote.

In other news Portagul was downgraded by a rating agency (the same guys(as in rating agencies. why do we listen to them?) who said ENRON was AAA just prior to it crashing) & the US warned it was close to being downgraded.

Of course in reality the US is now about a C rating but if they even drop it, it will cause major issues around the world. So expect the US to be AAA until the day after it all goes down the out house.

China is reportedly selling its commitment to US Bonds or debt & it seems is using much of it to buy assets such as resources & commodities as well as agriculture.

This has lead one commentator Eric Fay to just have a look when governments have ever defaulted on debt they owe.

By using google he put in words Government & default & got 160 million results, so he then changed it to Government default on debt to which he got only 10 million results.

So he looked at the results to do a bit of digging into when & why governments have defaulted, devalued or reneged on payments.

He quotes several results like the French government after the First World War, the US devaluing their dollar at anothe point & didn't mention how when bonds were growing in value during the 'Great Depression' & the US government defaulted on them then banned US citizens from owning gold in breach of their own constitution.

That is why people who see the economy about to get worse are saying buy gold or silver as even when the government bans you from owning it people still hold it & it is the only thing people trust.

He also pointed out that it took 15 months from the first hints at a financial crisis before it really hit in US.

His prediction is that as things tend to follow patterns that 15 months after the first sovereign debt crisis issue in Greece was mentioned, the real sovreign debt crisis will hit so by May 2011. It maybe earlier because the first hint at sovreign debt crisis was Dubai, not Greece.

Some are predicting it will hit a lot earlier.

The Interest payments owed by the US are now allegedly greater than the taxes taken. Sounds like there is about to be a tax rise.