"Several people have told me we have sold them the national parks as collateral for our debts"

I have wondered about that myself. Maybe that id why the federal govt keeps taking so much of the land??? Read somewhere that they claim to own 30-35% of the land. It never was meant to be that way.

Then again...I remember the great Japanese scare back in the 70's. Word was the Japanese were buying the place up and would son own us. Never happened and I think, the Japanese carry as much or more of our debt than the Chinese. Still, 19 trillion in debt is not a good thing.

Crazy a-hole politicians. Crazier us for continuing to put them in office, I suppose.