The U.S. debt ceiling was raised by the machinery of Government. The GOP and Democrats struck a deal which, while a compromise, planned to lower state expenditure and reign in the debt and public deficit. Crisis averted, right?

Wrong. In much the same vein as the supposed cuts our Chancellor of the Exchequer, good old little George Osborne has (generally not) implemented, the U.S. deal raised the debt ceiling, increased U.S. debt and did not make actual cuts in U.S. expenditure.

The ‘cuts’ made in the deal were reductions in the increase of U.S. public expenditure – not an actual cut, just a decrease in the increase – or in other words United States state expenditure will increase, though at an ever so slightly slower rate. An historic deal!

Far from solving the United States’ dire economic problems, they have been put off for another dark day. Mr Smith continued:

The debt decision and the above mentioned dire indicators leave us with two inevitable consequences: One, our credit rating WILL be downgraded, by S&P certainly, followed by Fitch and Moody’s later on. Two, we are, without a doubt, soon to see an announcement from the Fed of a third QE. Both of these items WILL lead to the final abandonment of U.S. treasuries and the dollar by the East, and likely by OPEC, ending in stagflation. That is, if they don’t commit to a dump beforehand. What we are looking at is the turning point of the final phase of total structural debasement of the U.S. economy. This is it, folks. This is where illusions are lifted, lies are revealed, assumptions are squashed, and things start to get really ugly.

Meanwhile, as the problems stack up across the Atlantic, the Euro zone countries are lurching into the latest phase of the Euro crisis. News of Spain and Italy readying for likely default has sent the markets spiralling downwards, and the European Commission are flapping as the Euro begins to come undone.

It is likely the Eurocrats have another bailout up their sleeves, but, like the last, it will only put off the inevitable. There is only so long you can put off paying your debts – and for the United States, the EU and probably the United Kingdom too, that day is coming – and coming very soon.

If we believe that the Greek state is on the edge of collapse then we are not all that far behind. It is not a question of if, but when. It was only last week that Christopher Booker in his Sunday Telegraph column highlighted:

More than most people realise, we in Britain are approaching a financial abyss almost as great as that into which Greece has been falling. Last week, the deficit on our Government’s annual spending widened yet again, to £143 billion, which means that we are having to borrow nearly £3 billion a week. That equates to £5,700 a year for every household.

Far from riding into Westminster as our economic saviours, George and Dave have presided over yet further borrowing and spending at our expense. Government debt continues to climb as the Bank of England persists in its policy of ‘Quantitative Easing’ – or in other words, printing more money – and in contrast to the apoplectic fits the Unions are having over the not-the-cuts, the gulf between the stalled private economy and the parasitic public sector has widened.

Yet, without wishing to dwell for particularly long on what has become a media soap-opera issue, I believe it is worth briefly reflecting upon the underlying consequences that this week’s events will undoubtedly have for us all.

Now, it seems quite clear that within the past few days, Gordon Brown and the Labour party have been attempting to switch the focus of media scrutiny from their recent illegal misdoings to that of party funding. The decision by the Prime Minister to discuss political ‘transparency’ strikes me as that of a man desperately trying to make the most out of a bad situation – but then really this is as much as to be expected.

As it stands, the Conservative party currently desires to break the longstanding link between the Trade Unions and the Labour party, while conversely Labour wishes to remove wealthy Conservative party donors including Michael Ashcroft and Irvine Laidlaw from the marginal seat equation.

Yet, while solutions to the supposedly urgent problem of illegal donations that were previously touted included a cap on individual donations and electoral spending limits, in shifting the media spotlight from solely his party to that of how all parties are funded, Gordon Brown has once again allowed the old idea of public funding for political parties to rear its head.

Inside the Westminster bubble the idea of asking, or rather as it would be, forcing the taxpayer to fund political parties has become an extremely popular option. Conveniently it represents a perfect opportunity for the careerist political classes that increasingly infest Parliament to further their stranglehold grip on the machinery of power, while wasting yet more of our money for their own ends – both of which are very much to our determent.

In an age when political participation is declining (for many varying reasons) along with membership and support of political parties rapidly falling, public funding would help prop up otherwise failing organisations that may have collapsed under their own weight and incompetence if left to their own devices and the erosion of time. Moreover, the desire by many politicians to have their parties subsidised has meant that they are effectively admitting that because they cannot be trusted to act within the laws they themselves created, the tax payer must bear the cost of their sins as a means to prevent them from committing further acts of illegally in future.

Unfortunately, this kind of reasoning is not unique to the ideas behind party funding, but pervades much of metropolitan liberal thought, especially on issues such as the consumption of illegal drugs – a subject on which I will probably go on to explore in a further post tomorrow.

However, it is worth remembering that public funding of political parties was created by politicians and party lackeys with little connection to reality or the people they are meant to represent. In short it is a solution that is good for them, not good for us, and should be opposed at every opportunity.

Much like Galileo, the modern day EU space project which bears his name continues to move steadily towards realisation, with the Commission and their accountants moving heaven and earth to keep their dream aloft.

The Galileo programme formally began as far back as February 1999 when the Commission first presented plans for its initial creation. However, who can say for how long before this point the elites in the backrooms and expensive restaurants throughout Europe had nursed their egotistical desires?

Until recently, Galileo appeared to have somewhat stalled. The Westminster Parliament was making noises suggesting that it might not provide its backing, and general EU funds had seemingly dried up. Yet, having invested so much time and effort wallowing in their own vanity, the EU Commission were unlikely to throw the towel in over the small issue of funding the estimated extra €2.4bn Galileo apparently requires – a cost which without doubt will dramatically rise as times passes.

To negotiate around this minor financial inconvenience, the EU’s accountants have managed to allocate the necessary funds by means of a transfer of surplus from the Common Agricultural Policy, thus staving off calls for the whole project to be scrapped for the time being at least. To the clinking of champagne flutes much self-congratulation and backslapping probably ensued.

EurActive reports that only the Spanish objected and voted against these proposals at yesterday’s Council of Ministers meeting – not because they disagreed with the project in principle, but because they wanted a guarantee that their country could host one of Galileo’s ground support centres.

Despite hours of the usual pointless negotiations which accompany all these occasions, the Spanish representative didn’t receive the assurance he desired and so voted ‘no’. Unsurprisingly, as with all things EU, voting ‘no’ made absolutely no different whatsoever, a reality which you might have thought by now these people would have grasped.

Our EU leaders and Commission will always return to an issue for which they have previously been denied because they see ‘no’ in effect as a deferred ‘yes’ – the end result of which often leads the EU Commission to create a route around such rather annoying obstacles and therefore allow the EU Project to march on regardless. With this in mind it would appear the Galileo programme will continue onwards, wasting yet more of our money and without any consultation of the electorate over the process. How unfortunately predictable.

She takes her over-inflated celebrity chasing ego with her to Channel Five where I cannot imagine her new colleagues will be particularly impressed with her ludicrously over the top salary for simply reading an auto-cue.

Since hardly anyone bothers to watch Channel Five news, few people will have to suffer seeing much of her for the foreseeable future. Now, all the BBC need do is let go a few more of their highly overpaid celeb stars such as Dermot Murnaghan, Terry Wogan and Jonathan Ross.