America As Banana Republic: Warren Buffet Warns Federal Debt Has Doubled

Warren Buffet's Op-Ed in The New York Times on runaway public debt pulled no punches.

Entitled "The Greenback Effect" -- Buffet detailed a deficit rising to 13 percent of Gross Domestic Product (G.D.P.) amounting to $1.8 trillion -- more than double the worst non-wartime debt.

Quoting John Maynard Keyes, Buffet warned that we are in "unchartered territory" fiscally -- and that current (and future) conditions risk abuses by lawmakers:

"By a continuing process of inflation, governments can confiscate, secretly and unobserved, an important part of the wealth of their citizens.... The process engages all the hidden forces of economic law on the side of destruction, and does it in a manner which not one man in a million is able to diagnose.”

Buffet forecasted the inflationary printing of money, foreign investors abandoning U.S. treasure bonds and americans getting caught with the bill.

The financial sage also pointed to a debt to G.D.P ratio that has climbed from 41 to 56 percent in just a year.

"Admittedly, other countries, like Japan and Italy, have far higher ratios and no one can know the precise level of net debt to G.D.P. at which the United States will lose its reputation for financial integrity. But a few more years like this one and we will find out."

This is the fellow from Omaha who endorsed the current President of the United States, right?