One Trillion dollars divided amongst the U.S. population would equal $3291.00 per person. Exactly.Anomynous 167 said:
The Future of the United States of America
- Thread starter Acid Armageddon
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Of course the country will bloody recover. If it will do so valiantly is another issue, hopefully not. It's time the American people learned some responsability.
Seriously, the problems aren't as big as they seem, you just have to realise where the problem actually lies, and that's in your attitudes and your system, both economical and political.
Either you won't, and you'll still get back on your feet, and whine about how bad things are.
Or you'll realise what's wrong, start improving yourselves and your country, and make life better for everyone. Yeah right.
Or the country will fall enough, and enough people will be out of jobs, not get kids, and slowly die, that the rest of the people easily can pull themselves together and fix things. Just a matter of time.
Hell, you might even realise that having a so big national debt your sign isn't big enough is a clear sign you might want to start to get rid of it (the debt), instead of celebrating by building it bigger (the sign).
Seriously, the problems aren't as big as they seem, you just have to realise where the problem actually lies, and that's in your attitudes and your system, both economical and political.
Either you won't, and you'll still get back on your feet, and whine about how bad things are.
Or you'll realise what's wrong, start improving yourselves and your country, and make life better for everyone. Yeah right.
Or the country will fall enough, and enough people will be out of jobs, not get kids, and slowly die, that the rest of the people easily can pull themselves together and fix things. Just a matter of time.
Hell, you might even realise that having a so big national debt your sign isn't big enough is a clear sign you might want to start to get rid of it (the debt), instead of celebrating by building it bigger (the sign).
I actually think Mexico or China will crumble before any other country at this point. With tensions mounting and aggressive attacks by drug lords increasing in number and severity, things don't look promising down there. Not to mention how much more power and influence said "drug lords" are gaining in Mexico's government. As for China, I can't help but look to the past. Several times over a span of hundreds of years in China's history, there were points where the Chinese government seemed very powerful and successful, but the truth was only a part of the country was basking in the wealth and prestige that came with their success while the other portion of the country (the vast majority) lived in poverity and suffered from severe famine. Nearly the exact same situation is taking place as we speak. When it happened in the past, coups were mounted and governments collapsed. Somehow I don't think the current situation will end well either.
Our economy here in the US is in one hell of a slump, but it's at least slowing down and has begun to climb again. I doubt it'll return to normal or even any kind of safe level for a while, but I really don't see us falling into a depression just yet. We've been in much, much worse economic downturns than this, and we pulled through quickly enough. However, this new spending bill, sorry, stimulus bill will do nothing but throw us farther into a recession. Some of what was put in it could very well help us start to rebuild, but there's so much useless spending on top of that that it all but renders any useful aspect of it moot.
Our economy here in the US is in one hell of a slump, but it's at least slowing down and has begun to climb again. I doubt it'll return to normal or even any kind of safe level for a while, but I really don't see us falling into a depression just yet. We've been in much, much worse economic downturns than this, and we pulled through quickly enough. However, this new spending bill, sorry, stimulus bill will do nothing but throw us farther into a recession. Some of what was put in it could very well help us start to rebuild, but there's so much useless spending on top of that that it all but renders any useful aspect of it moot.
Come on Nibbles, if you're going to spout stuff like this at least try to get your numbers right. Canada's national debt at the start of this year was around the $430 billion mark. That's going to go up with our government spending so much this fiscal year (really they're starting to lose the right to call themselves Conservatives if they keep spending like drunken sailors) but it's still not likely to get near the number you dashed off for some time.
The simple fact is that in the States, both sides are to blame for the financial woes. This was all kicked off by too many people defaulting on their mortgages. Now the anti-corporatists blame the banks for predatory lending. The corporatists blame the people for borrowing beyond their means. Very few are placing the blame squarely where it belongs: with both groups. Yes, the banks made loan money too easily available, and took too much advantage of relaxed government oversight. But no one held a gun to these prospective homeowners' heads and forced them to borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house when they were only making minimum wage or slightly better.
To blame this on the American Dream is technically correct, but such a gross oversimplification as to border on the absurd. Yes, becoming better off is the American Dream; it's made tangible in a big house, new car, etc. But the unspoken, common sense corollary (that has sadly been forgotten) is to do it reasonably. But people have become accustomed to living beyond their means. They're so obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses (or just with having their every wish fulfilled right now) that they pay for things now with money that they hope to have later. And that was the real problem. People were so sucked in by the idea that they could buy a house that they never should have been able to afford (and that any banker worth his salt should have turned down their loan application) right now instead of working for it, that they bought, assuming that they'd always be able to make their payments. Then, when their work situations changed, or the banks altered the terms of the loans, their whole finely balanced house of cards came crashing down, and they had to default. Which is fine if it happens on a smale scale, but it happened all over the place, and that set off the chain of events that has left us all here.
As to whether the United States will pull out of this, well I have a great admiration for the spirit of the American people when the chips are down. I believe that the country will recover. It may take longer than your average recession, and I hope that it makes people and governments smarter when they're out of it, but all these doomsayers predicting that the American economy will collapse (and as a result all of us will be reduced to savagery, apparently) are woefully misinformed.
And you anarchists that just "want to watch it all burn" might be careful what you wish for. You know what happens when "it all burns?" The basic form that anarchy takes is thus: might makes right. The ones who have dominate the ones who don't. Let's face it, the only good that your "free exchanges of ideas" and "artistic spirit" will do you in a true anarchy is to give you and your fellow serfs something to talk about while you toil for the man that has the guns and the food.
The simple fact is that in the States, both sides are to blame for the financial woes. This was all kicked off by too many people defaulting on their mortgages. Now the anti-corporatists blame the banks for predatory lending. The corporatists blame the people for borrowing beyond their means. Very few are placing the blame squarely where it belongs: with both groups. Yes, the banks made loan money too easily available, and took too much advantage of relaxed government oversight. But no one held a gun to these prospective homeowners' heads and forced them to borrow tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars for a house when they were only making minimum wage or slightly better.
To blame this on the American Dream is technically correct, but such a gross oversimplification as to border on the absurd. Yes, becoming better off is the American Dream; it's made tangible in a big house, new car, etc. But the unspoken, common sense corollary (that has sadly been forgotten) is to do it reasonably. But people have become accustomed to living beyond their means. They're so obsessed with keeping up with the Joneses (or just with having their every wish fulfilled right now) that they pay for things now with money that they hope to have later. And that was the real problem. People were so sucked in by the idea that they could buy a house that they never should have been able to afford (and that any banker worth his salt should have turned down their loan application) right now instead of working for it, that they bought, assuming that they'd always be able to make their payments. Then, when their work situations changed, or the banks altered the terms of the loans, their whole finely balanced house of cards came crashing down, and they had to default. Which is fine if it happens on a smale scale, but it happened all over the place, and that set off the chain of events that has left us all here.
As to whether the United States will pull out of this, well I have a great admiration for the spirit of the American people when the chips are down. I believe that the country will recover. It may take longer than your average recession, and I hope that it makes people and governments smarter when they're out of it, but all these doomsayers predicting that the American economy will collapse (and as a result all of us will be reduced to savagery, apparently) are woefully misinformed.
And you anarchists that just "want to watch it all burn" might be careful what you wish for. You know what happens when "it all burns?" The basic form that anarchy takes is thus: might makes right. The ones who have dominate the ones who don't. Let's face it, the only good that your "free exchanges of ideas" and "artistic spirit" will do you in a true anarchy is to give you and your fellow serfs something to talk about while you toil for the man that has the guns and the food.
The USA isn't NEARLY the most powerful nation on Earth. Ever heard of this little place called China?
I love reading threads full of people who think they know something about something they know nothing about give their forecast for the United States.
Listen - watching so called "experts" on Fox News or CNN or what have you does not make you "knowledgable" on the subject. In fact, the media likes to invent experts from the people who have the most invested in trying to make you think in sync with them (like the "expert" that Fox News threw out there for the analysis of bank nationalization ... uh, Republican lawyer does not the greatest ANALYST make ... hello). The closest-to-truth prediction I can see is the one given by the Captain AND Vorocano.
Listen - watching so called "experts" on Fox News or CNN or what have you does not make you "knowledgable" on the subject. In fact, the media likes to invent experts from the people who have the most invested in trying to make you think in sync with them (like the "expert" that Fox News threw out there for the analysis of bank nationalization ... uh, Republican lawyer does not the greatest ANALYST make ... hello). The closest-to-truth prediction I can see is the one given by the Captain AND Vorocano.
I'm cautiously optimistic. This economy's been a huge wakeup call for us. We've learned once and for all never to trust a salesman, we don't trust Wall Street or the corporations, and we're not going to let them lead us down this road again. I have a certain fundamental faith in people, mostly because every person I've ever met outside of the Internet has been eminently reasonable and decent, and it is that knowledge that keeps me from succumbing to the massive party of groupthink and Stupid that so often promulgates online (Lowtax was dead-on with his site's slogan).
It may not sound good to the elitists, but the common man's been through worse and the common man will lead us back to far better. We're just a little bit screwy right now because of our great failing as a nation---we trust authority a whole lot more than we should, but watching authority in government and business fail us will break many of us of that spell.
I've been actively rooting for this sort of outcome for years - much like Tyler Durden I believe the only way we're ever going to get anything better is to utterly destroy and grind into dust the crap we've got now.
It may not sound good to the elitists, but the common man's been through worse and the common man will lead us back to far better. We're just a little bit screwy right now because of our great failing as a nation---we trust authority a whole lot more than we should, but watching authority in government and business fail us will break many of us of that spell.
I've been actively rooting for this sort of outcome for years - much like Tyler Durden I believe the only way we're ever going to get anything better is to utterly destroy and grind into dust the crap we've got now.
Frankly, it is in the nature of many Americans to go after shiny things, and I will be outraged if the United States is still in control of the world economy when this reccession ends. China is a far more dependable nation, because of their regulation, and their people are loyal to their government. I think we should focus on propping up China to move the world away from it's reliance on the United States. Frankly, we will all be under the control of Americans financial decisions again when this over if we don't shift away from them. To all those Americans who are good people, and don't deserve this, I'm sorry, but it must be done for the good of everyone. If we let people who consider not having enough money to buy something to be no obstacle, then this will happen again. They (the dumbs) aren't all going to just change their deep rooted nature's because of Obama, they most likely don't like him anyway. The United States was responsible for the Great Depression, and it's responsible for this one. How many more will it take to push them away once and for all? Third times the charm? Innocent people around the world are being laid off because of this primarily American causes crisis, and we all want to forget everything we've ever thought about about the United States and hold it's hand in comfort and friendship because we're all in love with Obama. Obama will not bring back the United States. He will not end this recession. It was eighty years between the first economic crisis the U.S. caused and the second. Anything he instills in his people will be long gone by the time they screw up the world again, as was the case with the frugal teachings of the Great Depression. It's time for those of us who aren't American to start trading with each other. Sure, extend a helping hand and don't let the good people of the U.S. go to hell, but for the sake of putting a stop to the rest of them, we must push ourselves away from the United States. Billions of people, hundreds of countries, are sick of having their families, their friends, and their countries suffer for the mistakes of Americans. Let us make sure that the United States can never harm the world again.
I'll agree with you Lonan that countries outside of the US should probably not rely on the US as heavily as they have in the past. It would be good if they built up some diversity to prevent such economic upheaval in the future.
But the fact is that it's not the majority of Americans who caused the recession. And it's not entirely Americans in absolute control of the variety of financial institutions that caused the backlash. AIG had a few irresponsible board members who were GERMAN and ENGLISH in there, for example. In fact, Citibank has a few SAUDI brokers who went along for the ride.
But the fact is that it's not the majority of Americans who caused the recession. And it's not entirely Americans in absolute control of the variety of financial institutions that caused the backlash. AIG had a few irresponsible board members who were GERMAN and ENGLISH in there, for example. In fact, Citibank has a few SAUDI brokers who went along for the ride.
Eh, It doesn't matter One Nations Demise will be Another ones Age, Time isn't really relative, There'll still be a US and it will probably be a pretty nice place. It just won't be like "America Fuck YEAH!" all the time and the Chinese might take over the Superpower Rains but hey? There Countries fucked up poluted so they might breed a Horrible ass mutant virus and all die and A new Country will step up to the rains "Go Austrailia" and take the Superpower roll. Republic's usually die Voilently Ciziten Rebulic's Usually Die by there own cizitens Hands. Communistis Usually fuck there System up. Kingmenship usually works out fine till they get there heads cut off. I don't know I think I just Ramboled on.
The American trillion or the British trillion?EvilEngineNumberNine said:
EDIT: LETS NOT GO OFF TOPIC AND IGNORE MY POSTS OK?
