Where is the US economy headed?

after watching what foodstamp people are buying in line ahead of me I am fully in favor of slashing foodstamps. I also notice other things, like yesterday a very well dressed woman using foodstamps who I a few minutes later watched get into a very nice shrink wrapped car that indicated that she has an out of the home business. how much do you want to bet that she under reports her income?

more and more foodstamps are reminding me of the school where I was asked to submit paperwork with numbers that would qualify fir reduced priced lunch because if the school could get the counts high enough they could tap new revenue streams. I said that we make too much. I was told that no one would check si dont worry about that

What the odds hawk?

what were the odds that obamacare would be ready to verify income as reported to other government agencies? they are not. Uncle Sam can crawl up our asses on the internet but this by comparison very simple computer problem they could not solve over two years time? RIIIIIGHHT!

If US is crawling up your arses you must be holding them wide open.

A tight sphincter is waterproof.

the message is " we trust you" wink. wink. " just give us a number BUT SIGN UP!".

no one in the adminstration seems to care, at all, about fraud. this is btw SOP for Obama, who is contantly working on increasing government power over the citizens but who seems to care not one lick about running a good government.

but government corruption is deeply corrosive....go ask any Chinaman.

@Rabel222 - We went to a spend, tax, and interest society. That is why we need companies like the one I mentioned in the last post I made to eliminate interest and help people budget or we need to eliminate taxes; by the way, the government won't do this until the American people know what their budget is and what their credit score means. Even then, spending is not the issue, as this stimulates the economy. However, one has to have money to spend. So you can't spend as much if you are taxed to death, slammed with interest around every corner, or don't know how to leverage a budget. So let's forego the dual party finger pointing and come up with a solution ourselves as the American people and lets start by saying no to interest and saying no to any new taxes.

You have one thing right; taxing the middle class only dampens their spending that is the engine of our economy. When consumers spend money, it increases tax income at all levels. Governments do not know what they are doing.

You might be surprised if you took more trouble to study such things.

the middle class spending borrowed money and just made money drives the economy all right, right into the ground. I am not sure how we pivot from gorging on debt for 30 years to being responsible, but we are going to have to figure it out.

Wrong again, hawk. You have foot in mouth disease.
Consumers have been reducing their debt. It's necessary for the majority of the middle class to purchase homes and cars with loans, but that,s normal for any healthy economy.

If "per American" includes children, those who have nothing and those who know how to avoid contributing it leaves a more significant figure for adults who have something and who don't know how to avoid contributing. The middle class in other words.

What happens if interest rates reach what is said to be the normal (5%) is anybody's guess.

We are being told that the rich are considerably richer since the austerity began but I don't know if that is true. It wouldn't surprise me if it is.

kinda makes you wonder what ci is smoking when he claims that americans are getting responsible about debt. we are shoving the debt around on our plate, pushing it into different piles. another example....we pay far more than we can afford for healthcare, so we had a "reform" that does nothing about that but does change who we send the bills to. Hundreds of years from now they w ill write in whatever the new books are about the legendary American ability to sustain our delusions.

Neil Irwin of the Washington Post supports what I claimed about consumer debt.
hawk, You are one of the dumbest poster on a2k.
You don't have foot in mouth disease, but is stupid.

I dont deny that citizens are shedding debt that they have personally signed for. it is being picked up by the government and thus pushed off on the kids and grandkids. ya, thats responsible behaviour!

the average middle class family has a net worth that is -6% from 1989 even before we talk about their share of the massively increased national debt, so this reminds me of deck chairs on the Titanic.

Did you know there's a difference between consumer debt and government debt?

Prolly not!

You have to give Ocare a chance. There are mechanisms in it to lower costs.

BTW, under the old system, we paid more than double per capita for health care compared to any other country. Desp;ite this, we were ranked 38th out of 40 advanced countries in quality of health care. Moreover, health care premiums were increasing three times the rate of annual increases in the cost of living. At present, 19 percent of our GDP is devoted to health care, which is unsustainable.

Good and accurate info that most Americans are not aware of. The cost of health care in America is atrocious, and many in this country don't want ObamaCare.

I just returned from a ten day trip to North-East Canada. The cost of everything is much higher than most places in the US, but they have universal health care! They even tax beer at $1. Most of the meals I had to pay for were always over $20, but nobody in Canada will go bankrupt because for the lack of health care.

Not only that but many Canadians said good morning or hello to me even while walking around in the city. That tells me they are happier people.

They said hello to a stranger and the stranger concluded the Canadians were happy people?

I don't think too many New Yorkers say hello to strangers and I think that most New Yorkers are happier than the folks in Canada. Isn't that why so many Canadians come down to visit Boston and New York City? They want to meet happy, quiet folks.