I laughed when I read this...

The following is located at the beginning of the chapter about government issuance of debt through T-Bills, T-Notes, and T-Bonds, found inside my Series 6 License Exam Textbook...There is reads:

"The Federal Government is the Nation's largest borrower as well as the best credit risk. Interest and principal on securities issued by the U.S. Government are backed by its full faith and credit...which really just means that it is based on its power to tax and print, often against the wishes of the people." [Emphasis added].

So in my Series 6 exam studies, I came across that jewel in my text book. Normally all this book teaches is how great and necessary the Federal Reserve and SEC are to a functioning economy, and staving off the negative effects of the business cycle "inherent in capitalism".

However, when I read that little piece I just shared with yall, it was like *BOOM!*

Sure, everyone knows this fact to be true (that coercive taxes and printing = instant credit), but the second sentence so masterfully points out in plain English this little truth that all too often gets ignored by otherwise deeply thinking people. The way it diverges from the message and style of the rest of the book, the way it was written with those leading little ellipses, the way the words come off the page with an almost palpable, yet self-contained angst, made me wonder...

Maybe it is just wishful thinking, and maybe I am looking too closely into it and getting too giddy over this (weeks of studying false bullshit like this just to get a license can cause this in me), I kind of wonder if this sentence was placed here by some guy who knows better. He was just some schmo editor in need of some work, and was tasked with editing this page (and maybe others). I'm sure that adhering to a strict message of government, Fed, and SEC praise was made clear to him, but he knew he could slip in one little truth without it being noticed, like he was hoping to sub-consciously implant a little nagging truth bomb in the readers brain.

But, alas! I could be totally wrong. I could just be romanticizing this a bit too much, but either way, it startled me. It was like seeing land after having been cast out to sea for months. Whatever that writer's intentions were I guess don't matter. If he just slipped up and exposed some shit, I guess it's all the same.

Anyway, to analyze:

Even before I was an Austrian, I wondered how it could be said (at least in an intellectually honest way) that buying government debt is the safest, least risky. I mean, I get that the power to tax and print money gives them a heavy advantage over the rest of us in paying off our debts and this factor may actually amke them the least risky, but they aren't really the least risky if put up to normal market standards. As for the U.S. Government's being the best credit risk, we know that isn't really true any more either, only in a superficial way. Standard and Poors I believe downgraded them twice. The only reason they have the best credit is because it is illegal for a firm to have a higher credit and financial rating than the U.S. Government.

I'm getting riled up. I look forward to your responses. 

thoughts?