Anyone else slightly excited?

[Navvan]

Yeah! America is suffering a minor economic downturn

Being $14.34 trillion in debt is minor?

Snip

To be rather blunt, yes it is minor. 14.34 trillion dollars in debt is minor for a country with a GDP of 14.77 trillion in the same manner that a household that is in $100,000 of debt is minor when they make (and are projected to make more in future years) $150,000 a year. The USA is currently growing its GDP at about 3% per year in an economically bad time. That is roughly 450 billion dollars more it makes each year, and that is on the same order of magnitude as the increase in our debt each year. While the USA government only takes in a bit less that 3 trillion I stand by my analogy as governments and households play by a number of different rules. Also the majority of our debt is held by our own people.

That isn't saying it is a problem that can be ignored, but it isn't like the USA economy is completely butt fucked for having 14.34 trillion in debt.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_the_United_States
http://www.bea.gov/

 

[Tips_of_Fingers]

London is burning. The economic giant of America is failing. Even nature seems to have become even more turbulent.

And yet, I'm a little excited, anyone else?

I'll tell you why. Change. The people of britain are finally angered to the point of mas riot.

You do realise that the riots have little - if any - political link? It's mainly pricks just wanting to assert some sort of dominance into their lives (by burning innocent shopkeeper's livelihoods down) and getting their dirty hands on some free shit.

The difference between the riots in places like Libya, and the riots here, is that the people had a legitimate reason. Gaddafi was/still is being a **** to his people and the general populace had had enough and decided to follow some of the other middle-eastern countries by attempting to tear the government (who's had the same personat the top for decades) down.

Gaddafi is a dictator, Cameron and Clegg are not. There's a massive gap between the British politcal leadership and the leaderships in those middle eastern countries that rioted. Compared to those countries...we're beyond fucking privileged.

So to sum up, I believe that your excitement is misplaced and glorifying the rioters as political activists similar to those of the middle east is wrong. Not morally wrong, just wrong.

 

[Doclector]

London is burning. The economic giant of America is failing. Even nature seems to have become even more turbulent.

And yet, I'm a little excited, anyone else?

I'll tell you why. Change. The people of britain are finally angered to the point of mas riot.

You do realise that the riots have little - if any - political link? It's mainly pricks just wanting to assert some sort of dominance into their lives (by burning innocent shopkeeper's livelihoods down) and getting their dirty hands on some free shit.

The difference between the riots in places like Libya, and the riots here, is that the people had a legitimate reason. Gaddafi was/still is being a **** to his people and the general populace had had enough and decided to follow some of the other middle-eastern countries by attempting to tear the government (who's had the same personat the top for decades) down.

Gaddafi is a dictator, Cameron and Clegg are not. There's a massive gap between the British politcal leadership and the leaderships in those middle eastern countries that rioted. Compared to those countries...we're beyond fucking privileged.

So to sum up, I believe that your excitement is misplaced and glorifying the rioters as political activists similar to those of the middle east is wrong. Not morally wrong, just wrong.

I'm not glorifying anyone, I'm just saying that alot of turbulent events have happened/are happening. They're wrong to act in such a manner, but angry? I'd definately say so.

 

[FernandoV]

London is burning. The economic giant of America is failing. Even nature seems to have become even more turbulent.

And yet, I'm a little excited, anyone else?

I'll tell you why. Change. The people of britain are finally angered to the point of mas riot, and America is no longer considered 100% safe for business. These events seem to summon a great upheaval in first world society. Change is painful, of course. Change can be dangerous, and not necessarily for the better, but still I feel almost lucky to live in such possibly historic times. I may change my tone if things take a further turn for the worse, but still, this is very interesting.

Historic? Way to exaggerate.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

London is burning. The economic giant of America is failing. Even nature seems to have become even more turbulent.

And yet, I'm a little excited, anyone else?

I'll tell you why. Change. The people of britain are finally angered to the point of mas riot, and America is no longer considered 100% safe for business. These events seem to summon a great upheaval in first world society. Change is painful, of course. Change can be dangerous, and not necessarily for the better, but still I feel almost lucky to live in such possibly historic times. I may change my tone if things take a further turn for the worse, but still, this is very interesting.

*Looks through history books*

Yeah...rapid change on this scale...not a good thing, actually. XD

Change in and of itself isn't always a bad thing. Rapid and undirected change is. That's what basically going to be happening as people scramble to make sense of things. You can't shift a whole economic foundation without expecting large and possibly fatal cracks in the building as it were.

Change should be done A>B>C. Not A>Q>Z. Jumps like that are too far for the average person to wrap their heads around and make adjustments to. You don't exactly need to be an historian to figure out that rapid change like this creates a vacuum and goes unfilled for all of about ten seconds before some other, probably worse (See leaders of Germany circa WW1 vs German leader circa WWII, as a small example) assholes take total control of the system.

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

Eh, the world is bad, but give the American economy 5 more years and it'll stabilize. I'd currently be terrified if I lived in Britain though, not excited.

By my guesstimation, if the US ecnomy doesn't start steadly increasing by the middle of the next President's term, we'll start to see some social unrest. We can't sustain such a high unemployment rate. The debt will increase, and the dollar will continue to weaken until we start heading towards some pretty big inflation (I don't think we'd allow ourselves to reach inlfation like Germany had to go through) and when people aren't able to feed their families without breaking the bank, things will start to get pretty bad.

The most annoying thing here is that the politicians aren't really the ones responsible so much as the parties. Democrats and Republicans both are all about the "party" and because of that, everyone is suffering.

Of course, we've needed to overhaul the system for a while. Whether it's simply voting the incumbents out and replacing them with (theoretically) less corrupt people or an actual march on the capital is yet to be seen.

In all honesty though, I don't think it'll get bad enough that we'll reach th level of social unrest that would be required for such things to happen. Once we get the economy stable, it'll give people enough of a breather to start really looking at the situation and go, "Well there's your problem right there."

 

[Asti]

The crux is that people will keep doing what they've always done and the world will contuinue to circle down the drain because everyone absolutely HATES change, although it is high time things changed.

People love to thoughtlessly consume, they love cheap things and affordability of a lifestyle that we could never pursue if we actually paid its real price. Politics won't change and the public won't change. So don't get your hope up.

 

[robman1130]

ha! america going through economic trouble? we have most of the world's money. we aint goen nowhere

 

[PureChaos]

definitely not. what is there to like about living now? disease, poverty, riots, economic crisis, famine....nothing to be 'excited' about

 

[FernandoV]

definitely not. what is there to like about living now? disease, poverty, riots, economic crisis, famine....nothing to be 'excited' about

Then nobody can be happy ever because that's existed for us since humans have.

 

[PureChaos]

definitely not. what is there to like about living now? disease, poverty, riots, economic crisis, famine....nothing to be 'excited' about

Then nobody can be happy ever because that's existed for us since humans have.

but it wasn't rammed down our throats like it is now

 

[souper soup guy]

snip."

Well I disagree, I think that there is already a good deal of social unrest in the good old U.S.A, but I'm not sure that it will truly come to the apocalyptic future that we're being shown by the media. I do however agree that we do need to overhaul our political system, one way or another, possibly through term limits.

 

[Eduku]

Is it exciting? No. Is it depressing? Most definitely.

 

[Dogstile]

Excited? Fuck no. I actually have to make sure me and my friends homes aren't looted and burned tonight. And the annoying thing? If I hurt a rioter i'm liable to get charged with assault.

Not that I care, they made their choice. You know what I feel like? On edge and worried.

Edit:

I'm assuming you haven't had any news of riots planned near you

 

[Gralian]

EDIT: on the rioters: I would like to reinforce that I do not condone the rioters actions, but I feel that they are doing this, in a way, because they are angry. Yes there are some in the mobs just looking for trouble, but there will also be those who are simply too enraged to be ignored anymore. Even those just their for trouble are no doubt angered as well on some level. Misplaced anger? Definately. But simple anger nonetheless.

Bollocks. More than one rioter has been on the radio stating that they are rioting because it's "fun" and they get "free stuff". It's a bunch of restless (mostly black) youths with little to no job or future prospects and likely bored while college is out, if they are even attending college in the first place. They've got nothing to lose and are merely capitalising on what started as a little civil unrest about an "unjustified" shooting (sorry, shooting an armed drug dealer is unjustified?) and are now smashing and looting things for shits and giggles. Nothing more, nothing less. If anyone is angry, it's the people who've been victimised by anti social youth culture for years now.

You sound like the typical "rage against the machine" anarchist who is probably somewhere in the middle of university. Since anarchism is popular now. Even though it's a terrible "political" system. Just because it may not be affecting you directly, these flames will consume us all. We shall be the ones to pay for the sins of our fathers. We'll have to quite literally pay for all the damage this generation has caused.

 

[EeveeElectro]

Not excited. More disgusted, frightened, angered and worried.

Also, V for Vendetta totally called it. (in Britain).

 

[MasterOfWorlds]

Well I disagree, I think that there is already a good deal of social unrest in the good old U.S.A, but I'm not sure that it will truly come to the apocalyptic future that we're being shown by the media. I do however agree that we do need to overhaul our political system, one way or another, possibly through term limits.

I'm not saying that it's impossible. If the economy stablizes a bit, things should start to move forward. If we continue this stock dropping, we're going to be in trouble. Of course, if we could start producing again, I think that that would help slow and maybe even reverse some of the damage. But you have to spend money to make money sometimes, and the government doesn't seem to want to do that.

And I don't think we're going to see a revolution or anything. Us Americans are too much like sheep for something like that to happen until shit hits the fan in a major way. I wonder what the sides would be if a revolution were to happen though. XD

Until we figure all this out though, I'll just be sitting here. Stockpiling ammo. And cleaning my gun. And investing in things that I think will be sold once things start to return to normal. And if the revolution or some other such even happens, well, *checks scope* I'm a pretty good shot if anyone wants to cause problems. XD

 

[Jonny49]

I feel like I'm standing on the edge of a very large pit.

I don't know what's down there, and I'm not sure if I want to find out.

But I know I'm going to get pushed down it anyway.

 

[FernandoV]

definitely not. what is there to like about living now? disease, poverty, riots, economic crisis, famine....nothing to be 'excited' about

Then nobody can be happy ever because that's existed for us since humans have.

but it wasn't rammed down our throats like it is now

I'm sure they put a nice spin on the plague before. And war must've been like totally okay. Yea, the good ol' days when famine, war, poverty and social unrest were pleasant.