Thursday Morning News, Views, And Links -- Part III Or Thereabouts -- The US Is Running Out Of Cash More Quickly Than Anticipated; Egypt Stomping On The Islamists;

The Wall Street Journal

A fair number of interesting articles. 

This might be the most interesting. The top stop, front page: the US is running out of cash more quickly than anticipated. I don't know if folks have been following the story that Drudge linked for several days running. Drudge noted that America's debt -- which rises every day, like clockwork -- had all of a sudden quit rising. For about a hundred days, or something like that, the US debt clock was stuck at some $16 trillion and change. That had never happened before -- that to the very penny, the US debt had not changed. Of course, there was something nefarious going on; it would be literally impossible for the debt not to change by even one penny from day to day. I suggested that the government was scrambling daily to come up with ways to shift money from one account to another account to keep various agencies of the government running. It looks like I might not have been too far off the mark.

It looks like the government is closer to running out of "cash on hand" than thought just a few weeks ago. The new "drop dead" day is October 17th.

Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew said the government would be left with just $30 billion cash on hand "no later" than Oct. 17, and the Congressional Budget Office predicted these funds would be used up between Oct. 22 and Oct. 31 if legislation isn't enacted to raise the ceiling on government borrowing.

That little cash could make it difficult, if not impossible, for the government to pay the roughly $55 billion in Social Security, Medicare and military payments due Nov. 1.

Lawmakers on Wednesday cast about for options to keep the government funded beyond Oct. 1, a separate deadline that is offering a taste of what a debt-ceiling fight might look like later in October. Democrats and Republicans remain far apart on how to avoid a government shutdown, with no path to a deal in sight.

Unlike the previous budget battles that have consumed the federal government since 2011, there appear to be no back-room negotiations aimed at crafting a comprehensive deal that might offer a respite, or even a small deal to get past the looming deadlines.

If the government does not meet its obligations to pay the military or social security recipients by November 1, 2013, my hunch is they will find a way to pay them by November 2, 2013. 

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This, of course, was predictable, set in motion some years ago when activists succeeded in limiting mandatory treatment for the mentally ill. I was in graduate school out in California and had a front row seat, watching this debacle unfold. It took awhile for mainstream media to see it, but the numbers are too high to ignore:

America's lockups are its new asylums. After scores of state mental institutions were closed beginning in the 1970s, few alternatives materialized. Many of the afflicted wound up on the streets, where, untreated, they became more vulnerable to joblessness, drug abuse and crime.

The country's three biggest jail systems—Cook County, in Illinois; Los Angeles County; and New York City—are on the front lines. With more than 11,000 prisoners under treatment on any given day, they represent by far the largest mental-health treatment facilities in the country. By comparison, the three largest state-run mental hospitals have a combined 4,000 beds.

Put another way, the number of mentally ill prisoners the three facilities handle daily is equal to 28% of all beds in the nation's 213 state psychiatric hospitals, according to the National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors Research Institute Inc.

Wow, that brings back interesting memories. I was in training from 1973 - 1980, first in southern California at the Los Angeles County Hospital, and then northern California. I saw firsthand changes affecting the mentally ill happen almost overnight, and it was clear to me then that the results would not be good.

I'm glad to be out of that quagmire, writing about the Bakken instead.

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US household wealth has hit new peak. 

Americans' household finances have made up most of the ground lost in the recession, but rising interest rates and renewed turmoil in Washington are threatening to short-circuit that recovery.

Rebounding home prices and a rising stock market helped boost household wealth by more than $1.3 trillion in the second quarter of this year, Federal Reserve data showed Wednesday. The gain marked the seventh consecutive quarterly increase and pushed household net worth—the value of homes, stocks and other assets minus debts and other liabilities—to $74.8 trillion, an all-time high. Adjusting for inflation, net worth is about 4% below its peak, meaning households have made back about 80% of what they lost during the bust.

Just in time for O'BamaCare to kick in. Remember, Mr Cruz warned us for 21 hours. 

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Speaking of wealth, the French continue to have a problem with wealth:

The French government unveiled a 2014 budget Wednesday that continues to rely on higher taxes, threatening to further dent household spending power and economic growth, as well as President François Hollande's record low popularity.

Faced with growing discontent over high taxation, Mr. Hollande's government emphasized efforts in the budget to improve France's public finances by curbing spending. But net new taxes are still set to increase by €3 billion, with households shouldering the greatest burden, including an increase in the sales tax.

The measures add to a tax burden that is already among the highest in Europe and are likely to weigh on the modest recovery in France, the eurozone's second-largest economy, where households account for the largest component of gross domestic product.

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Wow, this is really quite amazing. Egypt is really stomping on the Islamists. I can't remember where I read it but there was a great article somewhere about "revenge in the Mideast." When the tables turn in the Mideast, revenge is incredible; something we don't see in the western world. Think the Marshall Plan after WWII, and how we rebuilt Japan after the same war. But not in Egypt. First, the Muslim Brotherhood was banned -- just days ago. Today, it is reported that Egypt shuts down an Islamist newspaper.

Egypt's interim government closed the Muslim Brotherhood's last remaining media outlet and issued coverage directives to all Egyptian television stations.

The moves were part of a broad media crackdown that some journalists said recalled the free-speech restrictions of the country's authoritarian past.

The government closed the Brotherhood's "Freedom and Justice" newspaper late Tuesday because of the paper's stance against the military's ouster of Muslim Brotherhood-backed President Mohammed Morsi in early July, staffers at the publication said.

Hours later, the military-backed cabinet urged public and private television channels to carry the banner "Egypt on the road to democracy" on its broadcasts "in order to reflect the new democratic path to development and construction," the government said.

It looks like Egypt has had enough. Wow.