INTRODUCTION
US citizens concerned with our national fiscal situation might want to listen to a mere bean counter. I’m one of those bean counters, a CPA, a CPA who has been called on by many businessmen going into bankruptcy. When times are not good, when many people are defaulting on their financial obligations, a CPA’s work can get very interesting and very educational. We get to see people in situations of desperation, in times when they see through wishful thinking, when they see through the delusions they had convinced themselves of. We see them in a situation that almost always has a dramatic impact on the rest of their lives; they go through one sort of conversion experience or another. How folks deal with bankruptcy marks them for the rest of their lives. I’m sharing with the citizens of this great land that we love what I’ve learned as a CPA who has helped clients avoid bankruptcy, and helped those who could not avoid bankruptcy get through their bankruptcy with the least possible pain and the most prospects on the other side. US citizens will find our own government fiscal situation clarified by keeping in mind the lessons of private bankruptcies.
In this book I share with the reader what I’ve learned from having “been there and done that” in bankruptcy situations. More to the point of our current desperate federal fiscal situation, in my experience working with bankruptcies, I have already been here and done this. “Here” is having worked with clients who were in the fiscal situation our federal government is in now. “This” is having helped my clients make their bankruptcy process as little painful as possible and having prepared them as well as possible for life after bankruptcy.
If your enemy is in bankruptcy court, you can chuckle about it. But you don’t chuckle when it’s your friend or relative. And it is especially not a laughing matter when it is yourself. Bankruptcy is horrible. It’s bad enough that you defaulted on your debts. At least you are past the months of hiding from your creditors and not returning phone calls. But that is at the cost of the public shame of filing for bankruptcy and admitting that you can’t pay your debts. There is the shame of going to bankruptcy court and standing in line with all the others. The prospect of having to get a judge’s approval for any significant spending for a long time to come. The prospect of not being trusted, of not being regarded as credit worthy. It is utterly depressing.
And yet, though you don’t expect a bailout like the Banks and Insurance Giants that were too big to fail, you are relieved that Uncle Sam will help you get through the adjustment and will help get you back on your feet. After all, Uncle Sam gives every needy American citizen a little help, a little bail out of their own when they need it. You can count on good old Uncle Sam. Can’t you?
But notice who is in line behind you, in the line to file for bankruptcy. The one you were counting on to help you get through your adjustment. The one you were looking to for help getting back on your feet. The one you were counting on for your Social Security, Medicare, and Health Care. The one peoples around the world have counted on to keep some semblance of world peace. The one who could bail out the Banks and Insurance Giants that were too big to fail. The one who could underwrite the bailout of countries that were approaching insolvency. The one who was so big that his debts were so large that no one else could bail him out. The biggest of them all. OMG! Uncle Sam himself is in the bankruptcy line behind you. And when Uncle Sam goes bankrupt, the day of bailouts–bailouts for Big Banks or for countries that are too big to fail and the innumerable little bailouts for deserving citizens in need–the day of bailouts around the world is over. Some such scenario is inevitable.
We the American People, guided by the Congresses and Presidents we have elected for generations, have been living as fiscal alcoholics. This CPA warns that our federal government finances will crash soon. Coming to understand our situation can help us admit our short-term and long-term problems and undertake the painful steps of withdrawal, withdrawal from the excitement and thrill of living beyond our means. Thinking it through ahead of time can lessen the pains of withdrawal, though it cannot eliminate them. Thinking our situation through can help us endure the withdrawal pains by keeping in mind the benefits after the withdrawal pains subside, the benefits after we make inevitable painful economic adjustments, the benefits of a fiscally sober Newly Dealt Economy.
