There are only two scenarios for America for the next decade: Socialism or Revolution. However, both scenarios involve a bankruptcy of the US government.
The spending of the US is not sustainable. Everybody knows this, including Obama. However, Obama is trying to preserve the present system. This is a mistake and will result in many more years of pain. It would be better if the country would immediately embrace socialism but politically it is not possible. So, the US will continue to bailout companies, prop up banks, finance state governments, and fund programs trying to help the disenfranchised. Eventually, this will fail because the world will be unwilling to finance the US debt or the interest on the debt will be greater than the US government’s income. In any case, the system will completely fail.
Eventually, the present system will be abandoned, a new economic system will be created, and default of the present US debt. The government will guarantee basic services for all of its citizens and find or create jobs. Some greed capitalism will be permitted but most citizens will live in a new world of socialism.
However, if the Republicans are successful at demonizing the spending policies of the democrats and get elected on policies of cutting spending and taxes, the US will still reach a point when it is not able to pay interest on its national debt. Because Republicans are so committed to lower taxes, there will be less and less money to pay for essential cost of government. Eventually, this will result in a complete economic collapse and revolution.
Neither scenario will be able to provide jobs for all of the citizens who need them. This is largely because technology is destroying jobs faster than jobs can be created. Jobs are being exported to cheaper labor markets. More and more jobs are paying less than a living wage.
America is doomed.
Sorry that my posts have been less frequent. It isn’t that my views have changed. It is more apparent that America is on the road to certain destruction. There is no turning the ship around. Obama who was my choice in the last election is a smart person and doing the best that anybody could probably do, given the constraints he believes in. Obama is trying to fix the present system. He has selected people like Geithner and Summers to help him in this regard. It isn’t going to work. It is certain to fail.
Republicans are even more out of touch with the harsh reality of the destruction of America. Republicans think that all solutions begin with tax cuts. If the implications of massive tax cuts were not so horrible, it would be interesting to see those policies implemented. Unemployment would zoom and businesses would fail. The only thing that is preventing that from happening is the massive spending by Obama. Obama knows that he cannot spend like this forever but he has no other choice (that he is willing to embrace) to keep the system going.
In the end the system is all going to collapse. There are just not enough jobs and the jobs that America needs cannot be created either by capitalism or the government. It is the lack of jobs that will prevent a sustainable recovery. The Obama spending is only going to help for a limited amount of time. Either the Republican argument will prevail and they will get back in power and slash taxes and spending. Or, the Obama spending will bankrupt the country. Both plans will fail. There is no plan to get America out of this malaise that will actually work. No plan can address the need to create a massive number of living wage jobs in a climate where technology is the biggest job destroyer in history. Plus, using technology that entire world can be used to fill those jobs and there are gigantic discrepancy of pay throughout the world — the US is one of the highest.
After the financial system fails then it can be rebuilt using a socialistic model. Everybody will be guaranteed a living wage and everybody will be required to work. The government will help everybody find a job that cannot find one. If there are no jobs then the government will just create them. There has never been a lack of work, only a lack of the capitalism system of figuring out how to profit from the work that needs to be done. Capitalism cannot make a profit at many types of work — many times it requires the government to finance it. For example, capitalism would never create a prison or build a road. It would never pay for policemen or firemen. All of these things are needed for the “public good” and capitalism certainly benefits and will bid on the contracts. But the money comes from the government.
America is doomed.
The Obama Administration plans to fix the banking system will enrich banks but will not create a viable financial system. Geithner and Summers are so in trenched with Wall Street. As the foreclosures continue and the bankruptcies of commercial real estate begin there is going to be more and more pressure on the banks. These phony trading profits earning reports are a sham by Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan Chase. The recent increase in price is the last opportunity to get out of these financial stocks and never look back. Then put the dollars into the Japanese Yen.
Ref: Stiglitz Says White House Ties to Wall Street Doom Bank Rescue
I read with amusement today that the AP wants to clamp down on internet sites that are using their content without paying for it. Here. Here. Go AP Go. In fact, the AP should put all of its content behind paid subscriptions so the rest of us don’t have to see the trash replicated thousands of times — it is like junk mail that get routinely discarded in order to find the first class mail. Also, it is so annoying that the ‘news’ media in this country even relies on services like AP. The AP provides much of the content in thousands of newspapers irrelevant and redundant. In fact, when I see dateline AP, I immediate discard it. No wonder nobody wants to buy newspapers and only news media buys from AP.
Like most things the AP does, this recent plan is not very well thought out. As soon as anything is published on the web it can be linked to which serves the purposes of most people. If you want to change that you need to go to court and overturn a number of precedents. Also, people can quote from the article if they cite it. Maybe the U.S. should abolish the fair use laws. About the only thing people cannot do is to claim significant parts as their own — unless you are a U.S. Senator, lol. Also, what is the AP going to do about countries who don’t give a hoot about US copyright laws? Will the internet reach that far? I think it might. Maybe the US should make it illegal for Americans to read anything which violates copyrights? Well, bring out the encryption. Make that illegal as well. Oh they did that. Invent some new encryption. Maybe we can build more jails for readers. Plus, anything really important is covered by numerous other better sources anyway.
The internet destroyed music. Yet, there is more music on youtube that a person could ever listen to. Plus, new groups just love to post their stuff. Maybe there will be no Britney, at some point, but most of us can live with that. Likewise, the internet is destroying media. Blame it on the digital — lol.
Newspapers should have already figured out that they have to provide something unique to get people to buy their rags. Here is a clue — you won’t get it from the AP who is the crack whore of the news industry. AP is the place where news is outsourced as reporters are laid off from their newspapers. Maybe the newspapers should just stop buying the AP content — problem solved with the AP clamping down on anybody.
Technology is destroying jobs and there is nothing anybody can do about it except to figure out how to socialize work. For now, everybody will keep playing the capitalism music chairs until there is only one chair left.
America is doomed.
North Korea’s launching of a long range missile today doesn’t scare me. Actually, I believe North Korea has bad motives and will one day likely launch a nuclear weapon against somebody in the world — maybe even the US. Detonation of a nuclear weapon would be a terrible thing and many will die. However, it just doesn’t scare me and let me explain why.
I see the moral equivalent of detonating a nuclear weapon to what happens all over the world every day. In the US, thousands upon thousands are victimized every day. People die and few care. They die because health care is unavailable. It might be something as simple as an untreated infection or a minor surgery that is not performed. The lack of health care kills people and this has been the way for decades. A few are just now starting to care, not because of the human beings that are dying; rather, they are starting to care because businesses cannot afford it and are suffering — they are caring out of simple greed.
It isn’t just health care either. Unemployment kills people every day. In America, you are nothing with a job and the means to support yourself and your family. Lose your job and you will likely lose you health care, home, dignity, and even your family. It is no different than a hurricane ripping your life apart. Or, no worse than a nuclear bomb being detonated in your city.
Also, it is very complicated to detonate a really large nuclear payloads — it involves multiple bombs being detonated in a precise arrangement in order to have a complete detonate of the nuclear matter which is difficult to acquire. In fact, even large payloads don’t destroy much more than smaller payloads. This seems paradoxical. A larger payload might kill people in the kill zone quicker but does not greatly expand the kill zone. This was the reason that Reagan agreed in the 1980s to reduce the size of payloads because studies indicated that smaller payloads would suffice. Thus, countries like North Korea will detonate small payloads that will kill people in a relatively small area. Plus, any detonation would result in immediate retaliation.
Yet, how many people are equivalently killed through job loses, little or no health care, inadequate housing, poor schools, or general oppression of disadvantaged groups. Millions suffer every day, year in and year out. There is little or no retaliation. If you are part of the privileged you may not even realize how people are suffering, because unemployment numbers are nothing more than figures released once a month. Lack of health care, poor schools, or starvation are only things that the privileged read about.
America needs to understand that it isn’t North Korea that we need to fear — or any other terrorist regime — it is the lack of empathy in Washington DC. If a nuclear weapon hits a city lots of people will die, most quickly. The suffering that comes from job losses, poor health care, and many other things is an awful death as well. It is politicians whose corruption and greed hurts and kills people as effectively as a nuclear bomb. The only real difference is that people will notice when a nuclear bomb is detonated.
America is doomed.
