Today a former US Treasury Official warned King World News that the President of the United States will declare a “National Catastrophe,” and seize total power, much like a Caesar would, if it is deemed necessary to avoid a disastrous US default and subsequent collapse. He also spoke about other drastic emergency measures which would also be implemented in order to avoid a US default. Below is what Dr. Paul Craig Roberts had to say.
Eric King: “Dr. Roberts, is there any chance of the US defaulting here?”
Dr. Roberts: “No. If the United States were to default, it would be the end of the US as a superpower. No one in Washington wants to lose that kind of power, so I fully expect that at the last minute a deal will be reached. Now, in the event that both sides play a game of ‘chicken’ to the very end, and we are down to the last hours, and fears of a default escalate dramatically, I think one of two things will happen....
“The first would be the Federal Reserve, on its own initiative, would simply lend the US Treasury whatever money it would need. You have to remember that the Federal Reserve lent to US and European banks more than $16 trillion in order to enable them to avoid default, or outright failure.
Remember, the banks were considered too-big-to-fail. So it was not just the TARP Bailout, which was a very small part, it was the lending by the Federal Reserve, which exceeded $16 trillion, that kept the system afloat. So if the banks are ‘too-big-to-fail,’ clearly the US government is too-big-to-fail. Like I said, the Fed would simply lend the Treasury the money.
The second possibility would be that President Obama, because of laws that are already on the books, would have the power to declare a ‘national catastrophe’ and simply assume the leadership of the government. This gets Congress and the courts out of the picture. At that point there are no limits on the power of the President if he calls for a ‘national catastrophe.’
This would mean that the President, on his own authority, could raise the debt ceiling. So, either of those two events would happen if it looked like no deal was forthcoming from the Congress. It could be that President Obama, or others in the Executive Branch, are planning to use this crisis to invoke that Executive Order.”
