Not Sure I Approve Of Me

The economy is just fine-ish, thank you.

And that's where I part company with myself, because it's all too weird and painful. This country is now nearing $11 TRILLION in debt - 

And we're printing more money in the hopes that that will cause us to get out of debt faster by improving the lives (read: wages) of all people in the country and then dun them for taxes, which will be used to pay for the wages we just raised by paying for infrastructure projects that need to be done because our roads and bridges are all decaying and on the verge of collapse and perhaps if we pay people well enough for the work they do with that money we just printed, they will gladly hand a little of it back in taxes which we will then use to pay off the increasing debt we're incurring because of the interest that's accruing...

boogedy boogedy

As my paranoid brother tells me (and I'm beginning to agree with him on this one), the Fed abandoned the gold standard, and began to loan money based on the value of what they were loaning on, rather than having the capital in the bank, and relying on the investors (i.e., little savers like you and me) to not all rush the bank at once and take everything out. So, when you buy a house, they loan you the money that they printed just for the occasion based on how much the house was assessed at. Doesn't this leave a large hole for the unscrupulous to walk through? Or perhaps there would be regulations preventing the unscrupulous from doing that sort of thing?

Oh, yeah... President Ronald Reagan, President George H.W. Bush, President William J. Clinton, President George W. Bush.

So. Does the economy finally implode? Or does this charade go on and on until the end of time, till the dollar buys nothing and the Chinese own the deeds to the White House, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, Monticello, (OK - you get the idea), and instead of firing a nuke at us, they just foreclose?

Please, someone, tell me I'm stupid (about THIS, mind you), or talk me down off this ledge, because the wife and I are talking about having a baby, and all those jokes they talk about having to deposit your first-born into the bank to get a home loan? Well?!?