10 posts shown.
Arthur Ward2 said:We've been spending way more than we actually make for years now—including our budget. If you look at the first five months of this year versus the same period last year, we're still overspending. Right now, when it comes to the budget deficit, it stands at $2304006333. Whether you think that's a lot or not, it's a serious hole given everything else going on economically. The real nightmare for the 2010 budget will be two specific things: pensions and healthcare. At this point, none of us can pull enough from our paychecks to cover those costs, so we’re looking at needing an extra 17 billion dollars for the 2010 budget.
The Government has been getting pretty twitchy lately whenever anyone points out they're responsible—mostly because they failed to fix the liquidity crisis sooner. Over at the White House, they're claiming they've already solved their own issues. Sure, maybe they fixed *their* problems, but they haven't fixed the American problem: this massive explosion of illiquidity that's been building up since early 2009. According to the Department of the Treasury, illiquidity sits at 24 billion dollars. State-controlled companies owe 400 million dollars. But here's the real kicker—based on that same law the Government passed themselves, we have nearly 20,000 companies with zero employees that still owe 12 billion 139 million dollars. Personal spending is down, GDP is sliding, or rather, the recession just won't quit. We were in a recession along with the rest of the world. The rest of the world moved on, but we're still stuck—there's no excuse left to say "well, everyone else is struggling too." Right now, GDP dropped by 2.5 percent in the first three months. Last year was even worse, dropping 9 percent. Our major partners, like Germany and Italy, have already climbed out of the recession. Even Canada, which was in a much tougher spot than us, is seeing recovery. Our neighbors, the Mexicans, have recovered and exited the recession as well. Meanwhile, we're having a brutal year.
Yeah, what you mentioned there are the hard stats. But what's the actual fix?
It isn't through austerity measures, and it certainly isn't through waiting for foreign investment. That’s the same old song and dance from the politicians who caused this entire disaster in the first place—it’s just a way to pull the wool over the public's eyes. The same people who drove us into this collapse aren't the ones who are going to pull us out of it! This ever-widening deficit is essentially the result of
debt plus interest. Interest basically breeds more interest, feeding into a cycle of mounting debt and budget deficits. It’s totally predictable: if the US Government keeps taking out new loans every single year just to pay the interest on old ones (let alone touching the principal), then obviously the debt just snowballs, and the budget has to be propped up with even more borrowing. Plus, almost all the money circulating in America is credit-based. So, if we want real change, we have to go to the
root and overhaul the monetary system we have, which gives way too much leverage to the banking and financial sectors.
Andrew Wright23 said:I mean, seriously, how are you even supposed to invent trade barriers in a true free market?
At the end of the day, cheap goods did exactly what they were supposed to do, and that's how China won this "war."
It looks like we might be heading toward a trade war over high-end luxury goods next.
It isn't even a struggle for China to just buy up a bunch of European brands and move all the manufacturing over to China, right?
They're basically turning the European Union and the USA into nothing more than a customer base.
It’s honestly wild that this whole process, which has been grinding along since the 80s, didn't show its face sooner, don't you think?
Where were all those famous economic theorists and Nobel laureates when it actually mattered?
That’s exactly why I made the point that we really need to put an end to this free market system. A totally unrestricted market just ends up empowering people who are economically and politically predatory.
If you're wondering why nobody saw this coming, check out what a truly brilliant mind had to say right after 1945: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7So4-VjEjc
Andrew Wright23 said:Honestly, in this day and age, talk about "free markets" or "democracy" is pretty much empty rhetoric without any real substance behind it, don't you think?
Basically, whoever's got the most muscle dictates the market terms, and if you've got the most cash, you get to claim you have a "bigger" democracy.
The whole idea of a free market is a total myth;
what we actually see are the big players calling the shots through quotas, coercion, shady deals, and straight-up bullying—and hey, if the trade deals don't go their way, they aren't afraid to reach for weapons eventually, right?
Whether China is trying to save the European Union for its own sake, trying to undermine the USA, or just looking to dump the US Dollar while it still holds value... honestly, who cares?
What really matters is that a Chinese worker makes way less than someone working in the USA or Europe,
and since the world is getting smaller by the second, we seriously need to find a way to level the playing field regarding labor costs.
If we don't come up with something absolutely revolutionary soon, the middle class in the USA and Europe is toast,
and China is going to eat us all alive in the next 20 or 30 years!
Look, there’s really no point in trying to reinvent the wheel here; the US and Europe just can't afford to let cheap Chinese goods run wild and compete head-to-head with local products on the open market. We honestly can't afford that kind of luxury, so the West has to step up and protect its own goods, its own brands, and its own manufacturers. If we don't, American workers are looking at a guaranteed wipeout of their market share, especially since they can't possibly compete with that Asian production—which, if you think about it, is actually being fueled by money from American and European capitalists.
Lawrence Thompson58 said:It makes perfect sense why China bought up so much US debt in the first place. Now, they're essentially handing that debt back to Europe as a "gift." Good luck trying to collect that from our "friendly" allies in the USA! Instead, China can use that leverage to fund their own economic recovery. They couldn't care less about the state of the European Union, especially when they see how much the domestic economy in the USA is allowed to crumble. For China, it doesn't matter who pays back the US or the EU, and frankly, they'll just sit back and watch to see if the USA eventually sabotages European efforts through some shady banking maneuvers.
But hey, no big deal, right? Because Europe and the USA successfully fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and still insist on playing global police officers. The only real question left is whether they'll suddenly find themselves needing those same "policemen" tomorrow to prevent a starving mob from tearing the current ruling class out of power.
Now you guys have stumbled onto another massive, burning issue that's just as critical. The European Union has to sort out its relationship with Atlanticist integration. American interests and European interests aren't even on the same page anymore; they're actually working against each other. There's really no point wasting breath talking about how absurd, harmful, illogical, or unfair it is for European nations to be dragged into these American imperialistic wars in the Middle East.
The solution to Chinese and Asian expansion shouldn't be leaning harder on the USA. Instead, Europe needs to start acting like a collection of sovereign nations and pursuing its own specific interests. But let's be real: that's pretty much impossible under the current free market system and the mandates coming out of Brussels, especially when you consider how they either prop up American imperialism or systematically gut the middle class and cause deindustrialization in Europe just so industry and the middle class can migrate over to China and India.
Arthur Ward2 said:Europe made the right call by cutting a deal with China—it's the exact same move the Americans made. You can't crawl out of a crisis without cooperation. Plus, let's be real, the West and China actually share a ton of common ground.
Look, Europe is already getting hit hard by recession, skyrocketing unemployment, the middle class basically vanishing, and massive deindustrialization, all because countries like China and India are surging ahead.
The thing is, Europe should probably be looking at an embargo on cooperation with China, because it’s not really Europe that depends on China—it’s actually the other way around.
I’ve always made it a point to prioritize buying American products first, even if I have to shell out a little extra to get them. Honestly, even if something turns out to be slightly lower quality, if it’s homegrown, I’m still going to grab it—though in my experience, about 95% of the time, our stuff actually ends up being better anyway.
I make a real effort to steer clear of anything from Mexico or Israel (especially those American brands).
Megan Hernandez2 said:Interesting theory.
Feel free to start a dedicated thread on it, and we can talk then.
I’m right there with you on that, though it honestly feels like any kind of common sense isn't exactly welcomed around here lately, and it seems like anyone who stands against globalism and puts America first is constantly being shut down by every means necessary—this forum is definitely no exception to that rule. That being said, I still think it's way better than it used to be since there are actually a lot more high-quality people in here who share my patriotic views compared to how things were before.
wearyrider26 said:I mean, I guess mosques are better than banks. It’s just nice having places where people actually connect without everything being about money...
I couldn't agree more, you hit the nail right on the head there.👍
Jerry Wood5 said:An Al-Qaeda operative was caught today at a border crossing near Dubrovnik. He's a citizen of Canada. Who says terrorists aren't knocking right on our doorstep?
Honestly, though, how can anyone claim Al-Qaeda is any bigger or more dangerous than the CIA or NATO? Most of those radicalized folks are just reacting to genuine injustices, whereas most Al-Qaeda cells are actually deeply intertwined with American intelligence agencies, working right alongside them to keep the Middle East unstable.
Look, it doesn't necessarily have to be some exclusive Jewish conspiracy or anything like that, but you can bet your life it’s absolutely a plot cooked up by the heavy hitters on Wall Street and the upper echelons of American diplomacy. Now, whether the fact that Jews hold such dominant positions in those specific sectors is just a coincidence or not is something I won't get bogged down in dissecting right now.
But honestly, if someone can't see that this whole "war on terror" thing is basically a manufactured excuse—just a convenient pretext to establish global terror, occupy foreign nations, and grab an edge in squeezing out oil reserves—then they seriously need to check their brain, because they're clearly just a victim of massive brainwashing. And frankly, the most hypocritical part about the opening post is bringing up American civilian casualties. First off, how many civilian lives have been lost in the Islamic world across the Middle East? Then, how many American soldiers have we lost? And most importantly, what kind of toll has the entire American society paid, both financially and in terms of losing fundamental freedoms, due to decades of imperialistic, occupation-style warfare driven by international finance??
And come on people, what kind of idiot actually believes a division of 25,000 Taliban fighters could hide out in the hills from modern technology? This isn't the era of the Nationalists and the Partisans anymore...
The war on terror is nothing more than a plain old excuse to push through terror, globalism, military occupation, the stripping away of basic human rights, and the massive enrichment of a tiny elite—whether we're talking about banking giants, media moguls, oil consortiums, or the military-industrial complex....