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US: US will go bankrupt, soon.
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  • Sorry, but saying that my numbers are wrong

    Read my previous post and carefully with all numbers compare performance.
    Not onyl basic numbers show problems with position.
    But any detailed view (real sector, corporations, finance sector, house credits, internet scam) on 90s years also show complete bust of Clinton rulez myth.

  • 1st of all most of Obama's actions have been in effort to FIX the crap that was done before he took office and since he took over he hasn't really significantly added to the deficit, which is different from the long term Debt.

    Federal Spending under Obama has been the slowest in Decades. Slower than Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton and Bush 2. It's not even close. Spending is always worse under Republicans, they just do better propaganda to say it's worse under Democrats.

    Federal Spending, Economic Chart

    Gross Domestic Product is up. Wall Street is up. Private Sector Job Growth is up. Only the Public Sector has been starved by the Republicans so that overall the recovery can be slowed. Under Reagan and Bush they increased Public sector Spending to get out of recession, which they lie about later.

    Obama Spending

    Private v Public Growth, Economic Chart

    Even the cause of the Deficit in the Future isn't really due to the Obama Recovery Efforts alone, but much of it is Bush era actions.

    Cause oF Deficit, Economic Chart

  • @Aria

    What you want to show by this charts? Can you tell me?

    You really need to check more charts.

  • These charts are for laymen, not economists. They show spending has not gone wild under Obama and job growth has been good in Private Sector but down in Public Sector due to Republican blocking. If they weren't blocking the recovery would be strong and revenue increased to help cut deficit.

    Also Corporations are Booming in profits under Obama but sitting on Trillions. The Right wing says he hurts Business but that's another lie.

  • @Aria

    LOL. It feels like I just watched CNN or similar thing :-)

    Let's be more specific.

    Let's check two levels.

    One - federal, with actual (not planned!) budget execution in 2002-2011. Looking for newly issued debt, fededal spending at support programs and similar things. Add here official unemployment, same thing using old methods you see on shadowstats, people out of job force. Jobs in manufacturing sector.

    Other - same numbers for California state.

    Can you make me charts for all this things to show big Obama advantage?
    I am sure you can.

  • The problem is that some of these charts are from the right, the Wall Street Journal specifically. When WSJ charts show Obama has spent less than GOP presidents, you can assume that it's safe information. Kinda blows up the argument that it's left wing media propaganda no?

    @Svart Debt went up because of tax cuts.

  • "The argument that the two parties should represent opposed ideals and policies, one, perhaps, of the Right and the other of the Left, is a foolish idea acceptable only to the doctrinaire and academic thinkers. Instead, the two parties should be almost identical, so that the American people can "throw the rascals out" at any election without leading to any profound or extreme shifts in policy." - Carroll Quigley, Tragedy and Hope (Ask Bill Clinton about Carroll Quigley)

  • It's not about Obama advantage. The truth of the matter is that this country could EASILY be completely out of the slow growth path we're on if the Republicans didn't block growth programs to the states and local governments, which needed stimulus and funding for Education, Transportation and other gov't jobs. That's the only part of the economy besides housing that hasn't come back and it was totally self inflicted. When Republicans have been in power during recessions they spent BIGTIME on public sector areas, whereas under Obama they blocked the very same efforts. Republicans have no problems spending when they're in power.

  • Come on. It's the same old tired left versus right shell game. It makes no difference who is is power. The main agendas continue regardless. Wars for profit, Corporatism, Bankster bailouts, Wall Street wealth transfers, Eco Fascism, Expansion of the police state, Loss of civil liberties etc. Politics, especially in America, is like wrestling. It's a big show full of lots of grunting and chest pounding and the fans wave their flags and cheer for their plastic teleprompting reading heros. But that's just a distraction. The script was already written prior to the opening round and the outcome is a foregone conclusion. Still the fans drink the Koolaid, buy their tickets, wave their flags... and learn absolutely nothing!

  • Some reality from the late George Carlin... 'The American Dream'

    NOTE: Audio channels are out of phase. It will cancel in mono.

  • @pundit

    Come on. It's the same old tired left versus right shell game.

    It's certainly true that both parties are bought and paid for, and that Obama has been a disappointment in so many respects -- even worse than Bush, in some ways -- but your notion is one which only the privileged have the luxury of indulging.

    There are, over time, very significant policy differences between the true parties -- life and death differences, revealed over many years. At least, that was our experience in the 20th century. We have at least some vestige of a decent welfare state and basic civil liberties, instead of third-world or feudal economics, because Democractic ideology prevailed over the Republicans, at least until the early 80s.

    So there are differences, or at least, a possibility of differences. Giving up is an option only for the suicidal or the pampered. It's a pity there's no such thing as class consciousness in the U.S.

  • It's never going to be perfect. No one is under any illusions here, but there is a underlying truth regarding the way the country has been leaning for the last 30 years after the country had built up the huge middle class after WWII. There's been a concerted effort to basically rig the game away from the middle class which had been so successful when this country was great.

    Now we see the largest shift in the gap between the average citizen and the wealthy. The gap hasn't been this big since the Gilded Age. That has to shift back to a fairer balance. No it will always be slanted, but it wasn't this bad before. Anyone old enough to have seen the shift knows this is true.

    Unions have declined and along with them the decline in wages for the Middle class. They finally got rid of Glass-Steagall and what happens, but the S&L scandal and the recent Great Recession and Wall Street implosion. Guys like Dick Cheney creating the big War Profiteering fiasco with companies like Haliburton. It's all a coordinated plan. These same guys want to keep it that way and so you get this false equivalency, where both sides are blamed, but it's not true that the Left has been just as bad. No they aren't saints, but they aren't as determined to fashion this country into a haven for the rich and corporations with nothing for the middle and the poor.

  • For 70 years the Military Industrial Complex (the phrase coined by Eisenhower) and Wall Streets global attack dog, the CIA, have made many in the US extremely wealthy at the expense of much of the rest of the world. Don't forget it was WW2 that dragged the US out of the Great Depression and created the modern consumer society that is now being crushed under unsustainable debt.

    Did you hear about the dog chewing on the bone? It got up to walk away to discover it had only three legs. This is America now.

    Obama's biggest campaign contributors in 2008 were JP Morgan and Goldman Sachs. How many Wall Street banksters are in jail? Would it be any different under the Republicans? No. Corporate fascism is the model irrespective of the guy in the White House. Both parties are simply two heads of the same snake.

    The last President who challenged the establishment was JFK. No President has dared to since.

    People are slowly waking to discover their American Dream is actually turning into a nightmare. Why do you think the Government is now turning its surveillance network and Police state against it's own people?

    Labelling Occupy Wall Street protesters as 'domestic terrorists' may work in the short term but what scares the establishment is a mass awakening when millions take to the streets after they find their retirement savings are gone along with their homes and their children's future.

  • ACtuallly Wall Street isn't particularly happy with Obama right now.

  • Why? Is Obama calling for prosecutions for the rampant mortgage fraud they perpetrated in the lead up to the GFC?... I think not. Same with the political threats of financial regulation. Don't let the hollow rhetoric fool you. It's just hollow rhetoric. Wall Street is used to it. They bankroll the politicians. They call the shots. It's part of the game. It's business as usual. Obama reappointed most of the financial terrorists that blew up the economy under Bush. Bernanke, Geithner, Summers, etc etc. Talk about the foxes guarding the hen house! Like the Eurozone the US has a Goldman Sachs government!

  • Utterly ridiculous, neo-conservative crap.

  • All I can say is do we really want the Conservatives running this country again? Do we really want to give them the keys to the car and again run us into a ditch? It amazes me how quickly people forget what got us here and who was crafting lies to get us into Iraq and who wants to keep the Wall Street regulations weak. Who wants to kill off the last of the Unions left in the US. Who wants to privatize everything in our society. Who wants to roll back womens rights. It just never stops.

  • Is the thesis statement here that it is inevitable that the US will become bankrupt?

  • @Bueller Is the thesis statement here that it is inevitable that the US will become bankrupt?

    No. The US will not become bankrupt, the US IS bankrupt!

    @Aria You're still caught up in the left/right paradigm. I'm not suggesting the Republicans are good, I'm saying both side are as bad as each other because they are controlled by the same 'men behind the curtain'. It is the Neo-Conservatives that promotes US hegemony around the globe. Most have made millions/billions from the wars they start and continue to wage. Don't doubt that there are those within the current administration with hidden Neo-Conservative agendas. The Neo-Conservatives, Israel and the Military Industrial Complex lobbyists continue to dictate US Military policy even when not in government... I won't call it US 'defense' policy because it rarely is.

    As for the economic situation don't forget that the Glass-Steagall Act was dismantled during Bill Clinton's tenure. Not because he was a Democrat but because he was simply following orders. Clinton's mentor was Professor Carroll Quigley who wrote 'Tragedy and Hope'. Quigley was an 'insider' and privy to the inner workings of the elite establishment.

    QUOTE: "The powers of financial capitalism had a far-reaching aim, nothing less than to create a world system of financial control in private hands able to dominate the political system of each country and the economy of the world as a whole. This system was to be controlled in a feudalist fashion by the central banks of the world acting in concert, by secret agreements arrived at in frequent meetings and conferences. The apex of the systems was to be the Bank for International Settlements in Basel, Switzerland; a private bank owned and controlled by the world's central banks which were themselves private corporations. Each central bank... sought to dominate its government by its ability to control Treasury loans, to manipulate foreign exchanges, to influence the level of economic activity in the country, and to influence cooperative politicians by subsequent economic rewards in the business world." - Carroll Quigley - 'Tragedy and Hope: A History of the World in Our Time' (1966)

  • The US Central Bank, the Federal Reserve, is a private banking cartel with private stockholders. It is not a US Government agency. It creates money out of thin air and loans the money to the US government at interest. The interest paid to 'The Fed' comes mainly from income tax. The IRS is the interest collection agency for 'The Fed'.

  • @pundit

    Again, your point of view is of a highly privileged person, for whom policy differences have no consequences. Look at the long term, and there are very clear differences between the two parties. These differences have been felt in the daily lives of the poor and the middle-class for many years.

    Without the Democratic party, there would be no social security, no Medicare, no civil rights' legislation, no environmental regulation, no public university system, etc. If the U.S. had been left to the Republicans, we would look, today, far more like China (without the economic growth) or the plantation South.

    And though it's true that the differences between the two parties are growing more and more trivial, and in the end, government will always represent the interests of the powerful, there's no reason to suppose that, with pressure, the Democratic party couldn't be forced into being more representative of the public interest, as it once was.

  • @jrd, yes and another example is the fact Unions have been under attack by the Right and ever since workers wages have flat lined while productivity is up and Corp profits are sky high. US Corps have never been richer. The US is not going bankrupt!!! We've got great natural gas, oil, coal and shale deposits. We've got trillions just sittin on the sidelines. If the Republicans didn't block what Obama wanted to do in terms of job creation this economy would be booming. In fact they're blocking the very things they themselves did in the public sector to get out of recessions under Reagan and Bush. Go look up public sector spending under Republicans verses Democrats.

  • @Aria

    The whole "bankruptcy" claim is, in any event, nonsense. Countries which borrow in their own currencies don't go bankrupt in the technical sense of that word. Such countries may at some point have trouble attracting investors for their debt, or may have to pay higher interest rates, but a country as rich as this one is very far even from that point.

    These same alarmist bankruptcy arguments have been made for years by the right-wing, because it can't stand public spending on anything but the military and business subsidies. You notice they don't talk about the "defense" budget as an "unfunded liability" (which in fact it is).

  • @Aria

    It is all good.

    But how about charts that I asked?

    @jrd

    Countries which borrow in their own currencies don't go bankrupt in the technical sense of that word.

    It is polular, but wrong statement. While technically you can print money and pay out the debt, multiple problems arise. First, USA can't print money in the common understanding of this process, as they can only borrow them from FED. Second, suppose banks standing behind FED agreed to issue money in the problem moment and pay out all the standing debt (also note that you can't issue new debt for a while). Consequence will be simple and clear, big dollar devaluation combined with inflation. Fast life level drop.

  • @Vitaliy_Kiselev

    I won't argue the matter here, but you might be interested in this discussion:

    http://www.netrootsmass.net/2011/03/paul-krugman-gets-it-wrong-again/