The national debt went down $11.2 billion in May. That would be wonderful if it were an attempt to reduce public indebtedness, but it wasn’t. Instead, it was nothing more than a way of forestalling a confrontation over the approaching debt limit.

For once, stealing Social Security’s surplus works against the pirates because the bogus bonds replacing the cash stolen increase the debt. This amounted to $15 billion in May. In other words, to reduce the overall debt by $11 billion the legitimate investor side of the national debt had to be decreased $26 billion.

In June, half of the annual interest is due entitlements such as Social Security, Medicare, and the Federal Employees Retirement System.  There’s no money involved in these interest payments but it now amounts to about $80 billion, increases the debt by that amount twice this year, and could put a serious crimp in any plans to borrow large sums if the debt limit isn’t raised.

At this point in time, the last thing the borrowholics want is to depend upon the democrats to vote on raising the debt ceiling because it would be a perfect opportunity to do exactly what the republicans did to them in 1995/1996 – refusing to even vote on the debt limit until the democrats agreed to a balanced budget. This time, with the democrats in control, the very least they might get out of such a standoff and government shutdowns would be a timetable for taking troops out of Iraq.

No matter how long the Treasury is able to keep the national debt from rising, it doesn’t mean a thing in terms of where we’ll be once another trillion is casually added to the limit. The Bureau of Public Debt will run more “auctions” than usual and in a couple of months will have us right back where we would have been without this temporary appearance of sanity and fiscal responsibility.

Also in May, wages and the job situation were much the same as previous years. Not at all like April where the surplus jumped almost $10 billion, probably because of the increase in the minimum wage. More money for workers, more loot for the bandits.

Meanwhile, the Fourth Estate is in la-la land. News is focused on the hopeless folly of comprehensive immigration reform, candidates for the presidency a year and a half from now, and Paris Hilton. No one cares if we’re going bankrupt or being robbed. Evidently, it’s not news.

I think that most people who even know about this rip-off of our retirement money also believe that it’s impossible to stop or recoup it. The federal government owns the police and justice systems and is immune from prosecution and other versions of the “you can’t fight City Hall” theme. Besides that, if they didn’t get it from us this way they’d find another way to get our money.

On the other side, the government follows the “give them an inch and they’ll take a mile” motto. If they can get away with stealing our retirement money, then they can do other things like start illegal wars and invasions or violate and change the Constitution.