The Grasshopper and the Ants - an Economic Lesson

Everything I needed to know about how an economy works came from watching this video as a kid:

"The world owes me a livin" chirps the grasshopper. He goes about consuming and leisure even as the ants produce and save. Then he discovers that he has been living deeper and deeper in debt and must find a marketable skill to make his own living.

What in the world does this video have to do with current affairs? It turns out, QUITE A BIT! The average American, and the US government itself, has been doing much more spending than saving (source). Now it's nearly the economic winter for the US dollar and Keynesian economists are convinced that the Fed's artificially low interest rates are here to stay.  But what happens when interest rates rise and productive countries no longer want to exchange their raw materials and manufactured goods for US fiat currency?

Black Friday and the National Debt

On Black Friday this year, Americans bought 9% more stuff from other countries with fiat currency backed by nothing! The U.S. national debt has reached $51,700 per citizen... but try telling that to these eager shoppers!

Twinkie's Unemployed

The recession just got real for enriched wheat flour, sugar, corn syrup, niacin, water, high fructose corn syrup, vegetable and/or animal shortening – containing one or more of partially hydrogenated soybean, cottonseed and canola oil, and beef fat, dextrose, whole eggs, modified corn starch, cellulose gum, whey, leavenings (sodium acid pyrophosphate, baking soda, monocalcium phosphate), salt, cornstarch, corn flour, corn syrup, solids, mono and diglycerides, soy lecithin, polysorbate 60, dextrin, calcium caseinate, sodium stearoyl lactylate, wheat gluten, calcium sulphate, natural and artificial flavors, caramel color, yellow #5, and red #40) (source).