THERE GOES THE FAMILY FLATWARE  AT 8:20 A.M. ET –  It's come to this.  Now even conservatives are taking inventory and listing things America could sell to get itself out of trouble.  From WaPo:

With the United States poised to slam into its debt limit Monday, conservative economists are eyeballing all that gold in Fort Knox. There’s about 147 million ounces of gold parked in the legendary vault. Gold is selling at nearly $1,500 an ounce. That’s many billions of dollars in bullion.

“It’s just sort of sitting there,” said Ron Utt, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation. “Given the high price it is now, and the tremendous debt problem we now have, by all means, sell at the peak.”

But that’s cockamamie, declares the Obama administration. Mary J. Miller, Treasury’s assistant secretary for financial markets, said the U.S. should sell assets in an orderly, “well-telegraphed” manner, not in a “fire sale” atmosphere with a debt limit deadline accelerating the process.

“It would be bad for the taxpayers. It would be bad for the markets,” Miller said.

Another senior administration official, not authorized to speak for attribution, described the situation more bluntly: “Selling off the gold is just one level of crazy away from selling Mount Rushmore.”

COMMENT:  When they start talking about selling the family jewels, we're in trouble.  As for Mount Rushmore, I can just envision "Lincoln Condominiums, high above South Dakota."  All the residents would be Chinese businessmen.  Or the "Trump Rushmore."  Believe me, it just might happen.

May 16, 2011