“Then kerplunk, kerplop! Those party-pooping ol’ Scrooges at USA Today run this dark front-page story, “Fiscal Hurricane.” The lead-off comment was from no less than the U.S. comptroller general. It was enough to make you cut up your credit cards and cancel the trip to grandma’s house. Imagine, our top auditor telling us the “nation’s finances are going to hell,” that we’re ‘like Rome before the fall of the empire,’ that America is headed for a “demographic tsunami.” Where’s his holiday spirit?

You’ll lose your spirit too when you imagine three King Kongs ready to knock over the Christmas tree, rip up the packages, eat the turkey, :

1. Social Security exploding as boomer retirements swell
2. Medicare taking off (”we couldn’t afford” the drug entitlement)
3. Federal deficit soaring thanks to out-of-control politicians

Trillions and trillions and trillions that the comptroller general says “will never recede.” We are mortgaging our future so badly that we’ll “trigger a recession or worse.” (Obviously hinting at the big “D” word, a depression!)

Folks, this in a war between “good” and “evil.” Except you probably don’t see it that way because you’ve been programmed by the latest advertising to choose the short-term immediate pleasures of holiday spending on the latest toys rather than worrying about the long-term future.

et, Corporate America, Congress and the White House do not want you to see the parallel universe presented by the comptroller general of the United States.

The happy-talk folks want you to have fun through the holidays: And spend, spend, spend! Forget about the three gorillas. Instead, they want you to focus on those three cute monkeys. Remember: “See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil!” They want you to ignore the big bad gorillas because they just might spoil the holiday party, the manic spending, the race to the finish in this year’s overhyped bull market.”

The 800-pound gorillas of Christmas

In other news from the same source:

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) — U.S. pending home sales fell 3.2% in October to a level 3.3% lower than a year ago, the National Association of Realtors reported Tuesday. The pending home sales index tracks signed sales contracts that are booked as sales when and if the deal closes. “We are experiencing a modest slowing in the housing sector,” said David Lereah, NAR’s chief economist. “The index is pointing to a soft landing for home sales.” In October, existing home sales fell 2.7% to a 7.09 million rate, while sales of new homes surged 13% to a a record 1.42 million pace.”

“Bonds backed by home loans to the riskiest borrowers, the fastest growing part of the $7.6 trillion mortgage market, have lost about 2.5 percent since September on concern an 18-month rise in interest rates may force more than 150,000 consumers to default.”

Bloomberg: Housing Bubble Bursts in the Market for U.S. Mortgage Bonds

CBS Marketwatch spins declining wages as good news: Inflationary pressures revised away

“Far from being a boost to inflationary pressures, income growth has fallen behind. In the past 12 months, real per-capita disposable incomes are down 0.1%.”

This, of course, is not good news. How can you have a sustainable expansion in the economy when personal savings rates are already negative and real income is declining?

The debt tree won’t grow to the sky. The obsession with consumption as the main measure of the economy’s health is nuts.