Howitzer

Every day I wake up and I read the paper and other sources and just want to vomit. I'm sick of it. Tired, tired, tired, sick of it! Is this the country I want to raise my kids in, seriously?

We currently exaggerate our own power and importance ? our government is proverbially of considerable size, we have political instability, a banana republic also typically has large wealth inequities, poor infrastructure, poor schools, a "backwards" economy, low capital spending, a reliance on foreign capital and money printing, budget deficits, and a weakening currency..... sound familiar people? Not to mention most states are broke.

This again as the raping of America continues:

The Big Picture: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2009/06/how-c...ayed-investors/
Wall Street Journal: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB1243960785...tml#mod=testMod




The White House estimates that the government will rack up an unprecedented $1.8 trillion budget deficit this year.

That would be more than four times last year's all-time high.

z06bigbird

[quote name='Howitzer' date='Jun 3 2009, 10:43 AM' post='899427']
Every day I wake up and I read the paper and other sources and just want to vomit. I'm sick of it. Tired, tired, tired, sick of it! Is this the country I want to raise my kids in, seriously?

Not to mention most states are broke.

But you just mentioned that!! Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

BTW, if you need some good international movers, some of us here can recommend a few. Me? I am staying and attempting to get our country thru these difficult times.

Hopefully, you too can assist in this process.

We can all knock our country all day long, but the important part is to play a role in the improvement of our national situation.

Howitzer

"Not to mention" is a figure of speech. There's no need to knock it.

In regards to what you said.. how are you going to assist in the process? Please tell me? How are you going to fix a corrupt government that cannot be ousted because there are no term limitations on congress? What are you going to do? Become unemployed and stop paying taxes as a way to hurt the system? Continue watching CNN or FOX news and view it as gospel? Tell me Mr. Z06, how are you going to improve anything besides live your life day to day as you have been?

I would never leave this country, ever. What pisses me off is the corrupt son of a bitches that call themselves our leaders. They are a cancer.

Say what you mean, and mean what you say.

siu0410

Howitzer, i think Zeigeist : The Movie pretty much explains what you stated.
Give it a shot, its a free documentry if u havent watched it.

Google it up. Its something everyone should watch.

pjinca

As a veteran <obviously(read my sig). I have fought and bled for this country (literally - Somalia in '93), thanks God I didn't serve under the previous imbecile and joke of a president - Dubya!!!

This is still a great country, that said we need to do more to improve education (our schools suck), improve infrastructure (we've had bridge collapses in major metro areas - in excusable), and we need to get with the program and provide health care for all (our members from the UK and Canada can attest to this - anyone else seen Sicko?).

I am very confident Obama will do alot to help all of these things, yes we will run a large debt to get it done, but all of these things have been ignored for so long they are at crisis levels now. Same as our cars, if you never replace the oil don't bitch later when it costs you a fortune to replace the engine.

EersNC

President Obama has announced more federal spending since he took office than the other 43 previous Presidents combined. His profligacy will swamp all federal spending for the previous 233 years.

Government is at the root of our current crisis. While the proximate "cause" was a financial system collapse, it is obvious from looking at the OP's sources that the financial system and government are intimately intertwined. Whether it is Congress that is beholden to the financial system, or the other way around (the names at the top of that list are no friends of bankers), may be a matter of debate, but the implication is clear: the government is too involved in the operation of the country.

There weren't mass consumer bankruptcies prior to Congress stepping in and telling banks to lend to people that shouldn't be borrowing money.

Health care didn't cause this crisis, and "fixing" it won't do anything to stop this one or prevent one in the future. In fact, devoting an even larger part of the American economy to the government is likely to precipitate another crisis on down the road. Social Security is bankrupt, Medicare is in even worse shape, and we believe this moron when he tells us the government is going to make health care better and cheaper? Not a chance. Who wants a committee of government bureaucrats determining your health care? And if they're paying for it, don't they have a say in your behavior? Since, of course, what you eat, drink, even what you drive, could have some impact on your need for health care. BS. Not me. I'm 26, but I know one day I'll need the services of a doctor, and I sure as hell don't want some nose-picking government employee telling me which doctor to see and what treatments I'm eligible for.

Right now wealthy Canadians and Europeans come to America to get the care they don't have access to at home. Pretty soon, they'll have to find someplace else.

Health care isn't a system. Schools aren't an educational system. They're markets. The more government involvement in either the worse the outcomes will be. Why do wealthy folks send their kids to private schools? It sure as hell isn't like they enjoy spending the money, it's just that they know the quality is a thousand times better. So why in God's name would we want to do to our health system what we've done to our schools? Schools are effectively a single-provider system. Unless you pay extra to go to private school you're stuck paying for public school...there is no choice--and you don't get your money back on the public schools that aren't educating your kids. Competition is what lowers prices and gives better service. A government-run health system would be the same way: one "provider." Politicians will have you believe that it is a "single-payer system." No it isn't! It's the 50 million or so folks in this country that actually pay taxes that will be paying the freight for everyone else...just like with schools where it is the property owners from a town that pay the taxes to run the schools that babysit everyones' kids.

Our schools suck because the government runs them. Let's not do the same thing to our health care system.

You want to reform health care? How about having the government step away. If your heart still bleeds for the folks that didn't have enough sense to save for their own care, give them the money from Medicaid and let them spend it as they see fit. Who are we to entrust their care to the government?

Who are we to use the threat of force to take from our fellow citizens what is rightfully theirs and to give it to someone else?

Alpine White Girl

Obama also said when he was running he was going to cut the deficit in half in his first term....what a joke. He's a smooth talkin con artist that tricked a lot of people. You think the economy is bad....just wait. In nebraska the economy isnt affected as much as 95% of this board's cities are feeling it, i honestly feel sorry for a lot of you. Obama is cancer.

sdg1871

Well, Brett, I knew we couldn't always agree. America is, indeed, in a period of crisis. And it's my belief that the crisis is a direct result of 8 years of incompetent leadership at the hands of President Bush and the Republicans who dominated Congress during his years.

When Bill Clinton was President, this country enjoyed peace, prosperity and a national surplus. My how far we have fallen.

I too am disturbed by the profligate levels of government spending going on now. But a lot of it has been necessary to stop this country's severe recession from sliding into another Great Depression. Saving the financial system from collapse was outrageously expensive. But the cost of letting it melt down would have been oh so much greater. The Great Depression -- filled with its bread lines and its unbelievable amount of homeless, hungry people, was a direct result of the government allowing the entire financial system to collapse. Business creates jobs. A job is the best social program there is. Businesses cannot create jobs if credit is unavailable. That's why Presidents Bush and Obama have had to bail out the financial system.

Obama is not a cancer. To the contrary, he is trying to undo the cancer that riddled our government at his arrival.

President Bush was not all bad. He kept this country safe in a time of great peril. I was in New York City on September 11th and know folks who perished, including one of my neighbors in my building. The fact that there was no further terrorist attacks during the remainder of Bush's Presidency was no accident. But on economic issues (I'll leave aside my views on Bush's social/culture issues), President Bush and the Congressional Republicans were an unmitigated disaster.

Now here's the bright side for all of the Obama haters. The Democrats now control the White House and both houses of Congress. So if things go south and they mess things up, they will only have themselves to blame. And if they do mess things up, the Republicans will do very well in the 2010 and 2012 elections.

I love political arguments -- as well as our E60's.

pjinca

Well said sdg1871, Obama is under extreme pressure to fix what he inhereted - and in the words of Ron White "you can't fix stupid"

pjinca

sdg1871

I have to disagree with you on Bush keeping us "safe" after 9/11.

This I know for several reasons:
1) I was in the building - 2 World Trade Center 12th floor
2) I worked with the Mayor's Office of Emergency Management for 4 months afterward
3) I still have friends and ex-teammates in the military - Bush continually ignored good intelligence in favor of whatever Cheney and Haliburton wanted