...he has no money. And some people--very few, but some--are noticing.

Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) made the point in the Wall Street Journal last week:

As a nation, we got into this mess by spending and investing money that didn't exist. We won't get out of it by doing more of the same.

And Gov. Mark Sanford, R-SC, elaborated on it, setting this disastrous fantasy into the disastrous reality of our brave new Obama era (via Michelle Malkin):

“A problem that was created by building up of too much debt will not be solved with yet more debt,” Gov. Mark Sanford said Sunday, making a reference to the federal deficit spending that will likely finance the federal stimulus package.

“We’re moving precipitously close to what I would call a savior-based economy,” Sanford also said Sunday on CNN’s State of the Union.
The South Carolina Republican said such an economy is “what you see in Russia or Venezuela or Zimbabwe or places like that where it matters not how good your product is to the consumer but what your political connection is to those in power.”

“That is quite different than a market-based economy where some rise and some fall but there’s a consequence to making a stupid decision,” Sanford said after pointing to the powers granted to the Treasury Department and the Federal Reserve to help deal with the current economic crisis.

“A lot of people who’ve made some very stupid decisions are being bailed out by the population at large,” he added.

In other words, capitalism has winners and losers. In a world without grown-ups, however, everyone's a winner, no one's a loser. And there's no capitalism.

Oh, well. That was fun. So, is there any money in a world without grown-ups or capitalism? Certainly, there's funny money, a subject getting scant attention. We're importing plenty--from China, our largest foreign creditor who will get only larger as we get increasingly stimulussed. As CNSNews.com reported last week:

As of November 2008, the People’s Republic of China was the largest single holder of U.S. debt at $681.9 billion, according to figures released by the U.S. Treasury Department. China, in fact, holds 10.8 percent of all publicly held federal debt.
 
The communist nation has increased its share of U.S. federal debt by $223 billion since November 2007 and by $95 billion since September of 2008. 

According to the article, this actually concerns House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, although not to the point of actually doing anything about it--such as turning back the "stimulus" package. Rep. Barney Frank (D-MA), however, doesn't see any problem--exactly his assessments about Fannie and Freddie, which, not incidentally, are deep in debt to China as well. CNSNews.com reports:

If China loaned the U.S. 10 percent of the money for the stimulus bill, the U.S. debt it held would climb another $80 billion to $90 billion, depending on the size of the final bill.
 
This does not trouble House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.), however, who said he was comfortable borrowing more money from China and that he didn’t see why people were concerned.
 
“I don’t understand what the problem would be,” Frank told CNSNews.com. “I don’t think it would give them any undue influence over us. If they want to lend us money, that’s a good thing.”
 
Frank agreed with Hoyer that spending was out of proportion when compared to tax revenue, but said that the spending cuts should come from the military.

So much for the national interest.