[quote]Headhunter wrote:
Ron Paul only gets around 5% of the vote. That means that 95% of the Republican voters (even less overall) don’t want a Constitution, limited government, and freedom. They want a friendly dictatorship, as long as it provides the goodies and they get to choose the dictator.
We are doomed.
[/quote]
Wrong. It means 95% of Republicans don’t want a nutter that cannot even run a newsletter as president.
Lol. Such disdain.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=atoy5ISMDkFQ&refer=home
Don’t you love the smell of coffee?
[quote]Sloth wrote:
I agree. We’re fighting on borrowed money, while already in a position where we’re incapable of fullfilling other obligations (SS and medicare is bankrupting us). We’re running debts and deficits, and watching the dollar dive. I’ve mentioned David Walker saying the exact same thing, we have a financial reckoning coming. Neither party will touch this, period. A bunch of gutless wonders.
Too bad the author turns around and embraces big government measures like universal healtch-care.[/quote]
We are very similar to Rome at the end of the second century AD. It’s all unraveling in a very similar fashion. Marcus Aurelius started a war when Rome was faltering as well.
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
[/quote]
Where are we going to get the money to fund entitlment programs alone? Not to mention, maintain our overseas commitments. Let’s not shrug off a problem that the General Comptroller has indentified as a very real threat.
We can’t keep borrowing and spending, and leave it up to the next generation to sort out. No, we dont have to go “bankrupt.” But, we’re going to need politicians with some brass ones to make the case for serious spending cuts. And nothing has proven more politically damaging than “throwing old people on the street,” or “letting the terrorists” win.
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
[/quote]
What people like you apparently do not get is that all societies finally did collapse so all those doom and gloom people over all the centuries have actually been right.
Always.
So go ahead, make fun of them, until your society goes the way of the Aztecs, Rome, Imperial China…
No republic ever survived the realization that the people could enrich themselves through the public coffers and why should something that evolved into a mere device of theft be worthy of preservation?
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
[/quote]
You are precisely correct, once again.
Historical details are lost on some people; we mutually accuse each other of selection and selctive reading.
We have faced bigger mistakes, greater burdens, larger proportionate debts.
One principle comes through–with all these financial cliff-hangers, it is the productivity and invention of the American people which have saved the economy.
If that be stifled, yes, then we are in real trouble.
[quote]orion wrote:
So go ahead, make fun of them, until your society goes the way of the Aztecs, Rome, Imperial China…
No republic ever survived the realization that the people could enrich themselves through the public coffers and why should something that evolved into a mere device of theft be worthy of preservation?
[/quote]
Very well said. Our Founding Fathers screwed up big time when they didn’t forever slam the door on taxes and regulations. This allowed government to creep into spheres where it doesn’t belong, all in the guise of helping the people. Now try and stop a rolling and growing snowball.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
Where are we going to get the money to fund entitlment programs alone? Not to mention, maintain our overseas commitments. Let’s not shrug off a problem that the General Comptroller has indentified as a very real threat. We can’t keep borrowing and spending, and leave it up to the next generation to sort out. No, we dont have to go “bankrupt.” But, we’re going to need politicians with some brass ones to make the case for serious spending cuts. And nothing has proven more politically damaging than “throwing old people on the street,” or “letting the terrorists” win.[/quote]
Sloth, I agree with your posts more often than I disagree with them. Debt in relation to GDP is far too high – although it has been higher – and something should be done about the overindulgence in expansionary fiscal policy. My post was basically stating the fact that this feeling of fear and resentment has been common throughout American history. My grandfather has always been a Chicken Little and I am not, nor will I ever be, a pimple on his ass. I just find some folks who, everytime our very resilient economy hits a speed bump, litter the internet with stories of impending doom, of mass starvation and rioting in the streets, and of their plans to head off to Montana in a silver camper with an arsenal and an untainted water supply, to be drama queens unless they actually strap on a pair and do it. But I’m going to go out on a limb and guess that these folks are currently not stocking up at the beef jerky store.
[quote]orion wrote:
Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
What people like you apparently do not get is that all societies finally did collapse so all those doom and gloom people over all the centuries have actually been right.
Always.
So go ahead, make fun of them, until your society goes the way of the Aztecs, Rome, Imperial China…
No republic ever survived the realization that the people could enrich themselves through the public coffers and why should something that evolved into a mere device of theft be worthy of preservation?
[/quote]
Yes, indeed. Thanks for the info.
Yet, here we sit, enjoying a quality of life that the average Roman, in the best of times, would have gnawed off both arms with their teeth to experience.
I know sitting on an internet message board, angrily pecking away at your computer keyboard and waiting for the eminent economic collapse of the United States of America is a real quality way to fritter away the time, but life isn’t so bad. Opportunities abound. Turn off your computer and look into it.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
You are precisely correct, once again.
Historical details are lost on some people; we mutually accuse each other of selection and selctive reading.
We have faced bigger mistakes, greater burdens, larger proportionate debts.
One principle comes through–with all these financial cliff-hangers, it is the productivity and invention of the American people which have saved the economy.
If that be stifled, yes, then we are in real trouble.
[/quote]
Exactly.
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
…
[/quote]
Bankruptcy is too strong a term. What is certain, is that the US burnt out most of its we’re-the-good-guys capital post 9/11. The country’s economy is also increasingly challenged by the Latino-American left-wave, the rise of China and unification of Europe.
Your country is spending money it doesn’t have, to maintain hundreds of military bases it doesn’t need. All the while, making enemies by the day, by backing up dictators and alienating entire populations. Take the Iranians for example: there is absolutely no doubt in their minds that the USA is to blame for the current state of affairs in their country. The Islamic Revolution was a direct consequence of the tyrannical rule of the Shah.
I don’t think anyone is arguing that you’ll be starving tomorrow, next year or even a decade from now. But all indicators suggest a slow but steady decline of the economy along with a sneaky erosion of rights. It will be a case of death by a thousand cuts. And, like it or not, Osama Ben Laden and his crew will be taking credit for much of it.
If you think your country is on the right course, that waging wars of aggression is acceptable and that it is in your best interest to keep go around interfering with sovereign states’ internal affairs, then don’t bother with introspection. Otherwise, you need to wake up and realize that very few of your politicians are serving the people and that it’s been hijacked by all kinds of lobbies that are slowly taking it to its ruin.
P.S: Where do you come off comparing the modern standard of living to that of people 2000 years ago. Are you high or something?
[quote]Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
[/quote]
Excellent post.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
Where are we going to get the money to fund entitlment programs alone? …[/quote]
We are not. We are not going to collect on all that Social Security etc. They are going to cut benefits or raise the retirement age or both. As they should.
That does not mean it is a disaster or the country is going to fall apart.
I wish we would be more fiscally responsible and address these issues now instead of later but I do not buy into the doom and gloom scenarios.
[quote]Zap Branigan wrote:
Sloth wrote:
Jack_Dempsey wrote:
I need to buy that mans book, The Last Days of the American Republic, and give it to my grandfather to put in his library next to, BANKRUPT! (circa 1980) and The Great Depression of 1995. He loves the Chicken Little chorus.
Fear and resentment has always pervaded American politics. Take any decade – let’s say the 1890s – and you’ll find that nothing has changed about the Chicken Little chorus except that the whiners’ standard of living has increased dramatically. The pessimists of the 1890’s also believed that America’s best days were long past and they were going by way of Rome, that changing economic conditions were putting the livelihoods of millions at risk, that divisions of class and race made a mockery of the American promise of equality, that international circumstances that tempted the United States to save other people while ignoring its own were bankrupting them, that the consolidation of power was in the hands of a few titans and that mass immigration was destroying and decaying their cities.
What you people are repeating is nothing new. In fact, the pessimists have been saying basically the same thing since, oh, the late 1700s.
Where are we going to get the money to fund entitlment programs alone? …
We are not. We are not going to collect on all that Social Security etc. They are going to cut benefits or raise the retirement age or both. As they should.
That does not mean it is a disaster or the country is going to fall apart.
I wish we would be more fiscally responsible and address these issues now instead of later but I do not buy into the doom and gloom scenarios.[/quote]
Well said.
A parable:
Since the 1970’s birth rates among “native” Western Europeans have been falling as the social burden of the aged rises. To augment the young, contributing workforce, various outsiders–e.g., Turks in Germany, South Asians in Britain and Italy, Arabs in France and elsewhere–have immigrated, some to stay, some to work and leave, but emphatically to contribute to the welfare economy of the nations.
And cultures are changing.
In the US, this is also true to a degree, but we also borrow, and our debt is held–in large part, but not exclusively–by foreigners. We all work to pay them, too.
For the sake of the social network–Social Security, Medicare, Workers Comp, etc.–our futures as nations are being sold to or altered by “outsiders,” one way or another. To a conservative, these futures are unacceptable. To a liberal, it is the “price we pay.”
To me, well, I will hang with Jack Dempsey and Zap, and pray for the continued productivity and imagination of Americans, and that includes Americans-by-choice.
[quote]DrSkeptix wrote:
To me, well, I will hang with Jack Dempsey and Zap, and pray for the continued productivity and imagination of Americans, [/quote]
Pray, my dear. Pray.
As opposed to what exactly?
Serious changes will have to be made folks. The so called safety nets are going to have to be dramatically scaled back, (if I had my way, done away with entirely). And our foreign policy needs to change. Spend YOUR citizens money protecting only YOUR citizens, in otherwords. When we have to borrow money, to defend or aid others or pay off dictators, I consider it near treason. Didn’t Bush just give more money to Africa for AIDS, or somesuch thing? What the hell?! When our own accounting office has told us we’re spending away the future of our own?
[i]The US government is on a “burning platform” of unsustainable policies and practices with fiscal deficits, chronic healthcare underfunding, immigration and overseas military commitments threatening a crisis if action is not taken soon, the country’s top government inspector has warned.
David Walker, comptroller general of the US, issued the unusually downbeat assessment of his country’s future in a report that lays out what he called “chilling long-term simulations.”
These include “dramatic” tax rises, slashed government services and the large-scale dumping by foreign governments of holdings of US debt.
Drawing parallels with the end of the Roman empire, Mr Walker warned there were “striking similarities” between America’s current situation and the factors that brought down Rome, including “declining moral values and political civility at home, an over-confident and over-extended military in foreign lands and fiscal irresponsibility by the central government.”
“Sound familiar?” Mr Walker said. “In my view, it’s time to learn from history and take steps to ensure the American Republic is the first to stand the test of time.”
Mr Walker’s views carry weight because he is a non-partisan figure in charge of the Government Accountability Office, often described as the investigative arm of the US Congress.
While most of its studies are commissioned by legislators, about 10 per cent - such as the one containing his latest warnings - are initiated by the comptroller general himself.
In an interview with the Financial Times, Mr Walker said he had mentioned some of the issues before but now wanted to “turn up the volume.” Some of them were too sensitive for others in government to “have their name associated with.”
“I’m trying to sound an alarm and issue a wake-up call,” he said. "As comptroller general I,ve got an ability to look longer-range and take on issues that others may be hesitant, and in many cases may not be in a position, to take on.
“One of the concerns is obviously we are a great country but we face major sustainability challenges that we are not taking seriously enough,” said Mr Walker, who was appointed during the Clinton administration to the post, which carries a 15-year term.
The fiscal imbalance meant the US was “on a path toward an explosion of debt.”
“With the looming retirement of baby boomers, spiralling healthcare costs, plummeting savings rates and increasing reliance on foreign lenders, we face unprecedented fiscal risks,” said Mr Walker, a former senior executive at PwC auditing firm.
Current US policy on education, energy, the environment, immigration and Iraq also was on an “unsustainable path.”
“Our very prosperity is placing greater demands on our physical infrastructure. Billions of dollars will be needed to modernise everything from highways and airports to water and sewage systems. The recent bridge collapse in Minneapolis was a sobering wake-up call.”
Mr Walker said he would offer to brief the would-be presidential candidates next spring.
“They need to make fiscal responsibility and inter-generational equity one of their top priorities. If they do, I think we have a chance to turn this around but if they don’t, I think the risk of a serious crisis rises considerably.”[/i]
Staying on this course will require the following in 2040:
And no, we won’t grow our way out of it. We’d need double digit growth every year for 75 years to fill the gap. To illustrate how impossible that is, the economy grew at an average of 3.2% per year during the '90’s.
Did I pull this off of some kooky, doom and gloom, small government site? Nope. I pulled it off our government’s accounting office site. Feel free to look at the whole report.
[quote]Sloth wrote:
Staying on this course will require the following in 2040:
And no, we won’t grow our way out of it. We’d need double digit growth every year for 75 years to fill the gap. To illustrate how impossible that is, the economy grew at an average of 3.2% per year during the '90’s.
Did I pull this off of some kooky, doom and gloom, small government site? Nope. I pulled it off our government’s accounting office site. Feel free to look at the whole report.
http://www.gao.gov/cghome/d08489cg.pdf[/quote]
Yep. Simple fact: the post WWII economy has been financed by ever-increasing debt. This debt grows exponentially and compounds until it equals all the wealth of the world, or it stops doing so before then. In either case, its a disaster.
Under either scenario, since the people who gain from such spending are unwilling/unable to stop it, it will have to stop without human intervention and following economic law. We will have a crash and debt repudiation of titanic, perhaps biblical proportions. This is a mathematical certitude, the same as 2 + 2 = 4.
That’s when we get a global absolute tyranny/oligarchy.