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The world will go out with a whimper instead of a bang, as someone once said. In America's case, there won't be a "collapse" so much as a consolidating, of resources and wealth. With competition for US jobs now a worldwide stage, no-skill or low-skill American workers - and that could reach well into what was previously the middle class and beyond - will find themselves ships without a port so to speak. What was once commonplace in America will become scarcer and scarcer; what you once took for granted will become expensive and out of reach for more and more people. People will consolidate too, moving back home or into communal living where there may be just one working person for several people or even families. The party is over for mass consumption unless you can afford it. A lot of people will just "go away," the fat cats hope, and they don't care if that means moving in with the parents or becoming homeless or even dying. The elites just want the useless eaters to go away - unless you are of some benefit to them they have no interest in you whatsoever. And who's to say that's wrong in light of the fact that it seems as a nation we have embraced a dog-eat-dog, market-based, deregulated political/economic philosophy since Reagan, a philosophy that removes social responsibility from the equation and replaces it with a laissez-faire free-for-all cowboy capitalism? If this is not what you wanted, why did you vote for it?
And of course, it's not going to change now. This is the entrenched system we have so you better get used to it. In the last 30 years, pretty much all the checks and balances that were put in place in more level-headed times to protect the common good have all but vanished; trying to put humpty dumpty back together again, well fuhgeddabout it - especially in a country where the very dispossessed themselves are chanting "government is the problem" at Tea Party rallies. If government is the problem, then that means all that's left is the private sector to represent your interests. Good luck with that.
I am getting a bit upset with this business, on this forum, of confusing the message with the messenger. People need to start taking this issue of the economy a lot more seriously. Something DIED in 2008, and we're just starting to feel the effects of it. That something is not going to revive anytime soon, and I don't care who is carrying the message, we all need to heed it.
Your misinformation about SS and MC was disseminated to you from the same kinds of sources as the blogs in the OP of this thread. SS is not in any trouble at all, is secure through 2038 as it is, and will require only small adjustments to carry well beyond that date.
So then you disagree with Obama's CBO and advisors. Interesting.
Your misinformation about SS and MC was disseminated to you from the same kinds of sources as the blogs in the OP of this thread. SS is not in any trouble at all, is secure through 2038 as it is, and will require only small adjustments to carry well beyond that date. Exactly the same arguments were used in the 1980s to promise that SS would be bankrupt and penniless by 2010. Guess what..
Go ahead. Live in denial if you want. But adjustments must be made. It seems to me so much money is wasted on health care that reforming Medicare at lower cost should be easy.
Have you considered that if all Americans abandoned junk foods, how many millions of people working in the junk food producing and marketing and supporting industries would lose their jobs and their stock portfolio values? You want to find jobs for the 5-million unemployed? Let's all start eating nothing but junk food. Presto..[/quote]
Um, yeah, like we're in danger if people abanding junk food immediately. n any event, your logic is severely flawed. If people eat less junk food, they still have to eat. That means they will be eating more REAL food, or spending their money on other things. So people who make junk food might be unemployed, but people who make read food would have greater employment. The money saved on health care costs and on junk food could be redeployed to other parts of the economy or to entirely new industries.
Quote:
Originally Posted by jtur88
Aren't jobs the most important issue in America today? There you go, an instant solution to the only problem that exists in this country. Eat Junk Food = Jobs.
Yes, jobs are important. One of the biggest problems we have in our country is not enough people are qualified to take the jobs in new industries.
If only it were so simple as you make it out to be. Just eat junk food and it will save our economy! LOL
Systematic de-industrialization has been going on in America for 30+ years. And it's not going to end any time soon. Capital has been fleeing America for just as long. That's why we are in debt, that's why our infrastructure is crumbling, and that is why manufacturing is dead. How is the US economy supposed to compete with a country like China where people are willing to work for pennies on the dollar with terrible worker's rights and environmental regulation? Globalization is a race to the bottom and the only people making huge profits off it are the elitist politicians and multinational corporations who have them in their pockets.
Americans need to wake up!
If globalization was a race to the bottom then the middle and upper classes of Brazil, China, India, Russia and South Korea as well as other countries would not be increasing. The reality the United States is ill equipped to compete with other countries in the globalization game. Our wages aren't competitive, our educational system doesn't prepare enough of us well enough to compete for highly skilled jobs, and we are not at the moment getting enough innovation to drive a wave of employment to get us out of this mess.
I am getting a bit upset with this business, on this forum, of confusing the message with the messenger. People need to start taking this issue of the economy a lot more seriously. Something DIED in 2008, and we're just starting to feel the effects of it. That something is not going to revive anytime soon, and I don't care who is carrying the message, we all need to heed it.
There seems to have been a shift.
China, India, Brazil...growing at 6-8%.
Money flowing there for investments.
Growing consumer base just starting out with bank accounts and credit cards.
I also think something happened..something permanent where the US will have to adjust to a shift in power.
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