How to Cook Your Treasury Goose

Take one average empire bird, fat and happy from years of self-congratulatory rhetoric; pluck out all manufacturing and outsource most services. Liberally sprinkle with billions and billions of trade deficit dollars. Stuff with debt until bursting and tie together with an asset bubble. Stick into medium oven and frequently baste with (higher priced) oil.

Question – how long will it take the bird to cook? Multiple-choice answers below:

a) It will never cook properly. Since debt expands when heated, the bird will explode soon after placed in the oven.

b) One minute. With all the goodies plucked out and outsourced, there is nothing left but skin and bone.

c) Forever. The bird has Manifest Destiny genes and petrodollar hormones that keep it cool when heated.

d) Indeterminate. The Fed’s cooks can inflate the bird in proportion to the heat applied, thus keeping everyone guessing.

e) None of the above. The particular bird was shot in a Dick Cheney hunting trip and is not immediately available for cooking.