The Fed isn't independent of congress. Congress can change the rules on the Fed at any time it decides too.

The Fed is really the front man in a scheme by congress to escape blame and enlarge the con. A sort of good cop/bad cop scheme -- the Fed is the good guy (we print money and control inflation), while congress distributes benefits (but doesn't worry about how to pay for them).

Even without this $ 700B (probably only the down payment amount anyway), the interest on the US debt is around $500B a year. And increasing and that is with very low interest rates. More reasonable rates (like equal to the real inflation rate?) and the interest could easily be double.

Try $1000B/year interest on the existing US debt. And up from there. The social security tax (forget the obligations, just the cash from the tax minus current payouts) will start decreasing soon (this year?) due to retirements. Now congress is not about to cut spending, no that isn't they're way. So all that money congress has already been spending each year will have to come from somewhere else (more borrowing). So $1000B budget deficits are in our future -- this is all without the $700B bailout which just advances the timetable for a US bankruptcy a bit.

So when? Next decade?, year?, week?, tomorrow?