I have been following the news recently on our budget issues here in the US and how our elected officials are treating them. Right now, I am seriously thinking about using my other citizenships to get out of here. After following much of the news from people other than FOX, MSNBC, CNN, etc and instead relying on mostly neutral sources like BBC, AJE, and some others; I have come to the conclusion that our elected officials are more concerned about making sure that they get re-elected and earn money from corporate lobbyist than they are for the people. It seems that no matter what people try, there can be no compromise on any issue and that there is a "my way or the highway" mentality that is about to seriously **** over our economy. Many people on the republican side (not all, but many) refuse to repeal tax cuts as apart of the new budget, while many in the Democratic side refuse to allow spending cuts. In my mind, all this is doing is setting our country up for failure, or at least a "technical default" once august rolls around. Once that happens, each side will continue to blame each other while our economy crumbles. Also, the fact that our politicians/crooks aren't doing anything to reduce the deficit and start paying it down means that they either in denial about us ever hitting a debt ceiling or just plain don't care because they have enough money in their piggy banks to keep them happy. For once, I am honestly scared about the future state of our country because with the amount of bs I see flying through congress, I know that they are just looking after themselves and their "ideology" rather than the country and the people. So what are your thoughts on this? Do you see the US starting to head down a rocky slope or do you think that we will be able to pull out of this without any damage?
yeah but don't forget we are huge and still hold a lot of value in real estate and products made in the us (quality wise- chinese make inferior products nowdays).. we can't really compete with china on price, but who can.. they have an undervalued currency and like it that way.. if they increased it's value, they put millions of their own out of jobs we can still do this if we can somehow get rid of the black cherry running around in washington.. that includes obama- why are we still in libya.. that idiot is still in power too nice heard his son bought a couple hundred tickets to the olympics.. wtf is going on- nato really going to do this or is it another stupid war draining what little the civilized world has left.. there is no bank left for these backrubs- it basically has to change now or were screwed.. like right now this summer think most of us can see this.. it's an election year and noone wants to lose their job- why you see them talking **** and not getting anything done until the last possible second.. makes them look like they're actually interested in something other than the titty bars they frequent even if we have to suffer for a few years.. then maybe get bubba back in there and see if he can turn the ship around.. if it's not done now though, I think your right..
Start?, You've already started rolling but just haven't realized it yet. At least you will have plenty of company on the way down
I've been here a year. It's ****ing difficult Taiwan is in the black. In fact, it's taken on a lot of US and some EU debt.
The problem is endemic to democracy in the modern era. As the theory goes, each candidate argues to the people why he (or she) is the best choice, and based on that the people decide who they want to represent them. That person is elected, and then if the people are happy with their performance in office they get re-elected. A politician's job was at the pleasure of the people. Then came advertising. Well, that's not really accurate. Advertising has been with us since the dawn of the written word, but sometime in the past 50 years it has fundamentally changed the nature of democracy. Now candidates are judged not by their ideas or prior service, but on how many ads they run. The outcome of an election can be predicted with fair accuracy by looking at which candidate spends the most money on ads. Votes are bought and sold not based on bribes to the voter, but on the volume of ads they are forced to see during each day. Another more recent development is the insignificance of truth. The Obama birth certificate farce is the most obvious example of this, but there have been many others in the last few years. You no longer need the truth on your side when a lie, told often enough and with enough conviction will convince a significant portion of the population and cause the rest to doubt the truth. In this way elections become more about who can shout the loudest rather than who is the best candidate. And shouting takes money. Regardless of what ideas you hold or where you stand on the issues, getting elected is expensive. It has been reported that the 2012 Obama campaign may spend as much as 1 Billion dollars, mostly on advertising. The costs of campaigning have gotten so out of hand that no candidate can fund their election from donations by private citizens. Only corporations and the very wealthy can contribute the amounts necessary and so the politician becomes accountable to them, rather than the people, because the wealthy will, in effect, decide if they get re-elected. To quote myself, which I think I will hereafter refer to as the Cthippo doctrine:
America will muddle on. Look ahead 4 years and the budget outlook will be much rosier. Treating budget deficits as inevitable has to stop. Splurging money in flag-waving exercises has become a hallmark of modern Republican administrations (Reagan, Bush Snr & Jnr.). That has to stop too. As the worlds no.1 customer, no.1 debtor and holder of the premier currency, America's debt facility is almost bottomless. China in 2011 is not a country to be envied or copied from. It is growing into a carbon copy of Japan circa-1989. This is not good. The fashion is to take it's growth in the last decade and extrapolate. It will not happen. More than 50% of last year's economic growth came from 1) government spending 2) Infrastructure spending 3) Business investment spending (new equipment, premises,etc) 4) Construction sector increases. No economy has ever emerged from this well. The end result will be a mountain of over-capacity that will never be filled. See this month's economist magazine for an excellent writeup. America and the West have severe problems now, China will have it's in the near to medium term.
The problem with America is that the country was created with too many checks and balances. Politicians will NOT take tough decisions when their party has to face the voters every two years. Compare that to the UK - the current government can make politically unpopular decisions - cutting defence, police, education, etc and gamble the economy will be picking up and the deficit will be reduced next time theres a general election.
To be fair, the BBC isn't really neutral (the programming is slightly more left wing) but they do try to be unbiased and they're certainly not a propaganda machine like Fox. Personally I'm content with trusting the BBC as my only news source other than word of mouth. EDIT: I see you said mostly neutral, which means this post is a bit useless although I guess it does show how difficult it is to be truly neutral.
The other problem in my mind certainly in the UK and applicable to the US is you've got two parties swapping power every 8-15 years. They have to always consider the need for re-election rather than the long term good of the country. This leads to populist policy's rather than required fiscal policies which can be most clearly seen in the budget balance. Voters dislike spending cuts, look at Greece, and they love new service/reductions in taxes.
I propose having a Dear Leader, a lifelong chairman of the only political party to enable stability and long-term planning. Then he can tell 'Arec Bawdwin' where to get off.
Heh, then I guess some people would actually be right in calling our government socialist and communist instead of our current administration.
Well Minnesota is officially the first state to shutdown due to a failure to approve a budget for the next fiscal year. I wonder who's next?
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