Where is the US economy headed?

@spendius,

spendius wrote:

Do you think we are addicted to computers ci? I mean addicted. Like collective nervous breakdown with sudden withdrawal.

I can't see weaning as an alternative because anybody who tried it would go bust.

http://www.claybennett.com/images/archivetoons/internet_addicts.jpg

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@talk72000,

talk 72000 wrote:

There are good business and bad business which you represent.

Good businesses motivate, finance, manage, market, and deliver innovations that their employees produce and their customers purchase.

I worked for IBM until I retired after 30 years. Most of what IBM did and does is good business.

My wife and I started and have been running our own aviation business since I retired from IBM. My wife runs the business and I run the airplanes. Our customers praised what we provided them. Our customers continue to praise what we are providing them.

1 Reply

We are facing a grim future -- breakdown of infrastructure, corruption, decline, etc. But don't you dare raise taxes on the wealthy.

Unpaved: Out-Of-Cash America Undoing Its Infrastructure
By Dave Johnson

August 10, 2010 - 1:35am ET

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In case you missed Rachel Maddow last night, she had a segment on American cities and counties actually undoing their infrastructure because they are out of money. She listed city after city across the country that is shutting off its streetlights, turning paved roads into gravel, shutting down bus systems, shutting down schools, firing police, and other steps to save money.

To me, the most striking comment was, "Somewhere in China it is entirely possible that a businessperson sat down for a ride on a 200mph state-of-the-art levitating bullet train, and cracked open the Wall Street Journal, and read about how in American we've decided we can't afford paved roads anymore."

Is that how we want the rest of the world to think of us? Do we really want to become a broken-down, corrupt, uncompetitive 3rd-world country? Well, that is where we are going. We can see the infrastructure crumbling around us.

Meanwhile, as the country falls further and further behind the rest of the world the government is unable to function. In Washington the conservative Senate minority continues to use the filibuster -- over 110 times since President Obama took office -- to block every effort to do anything about our problems. They block helping states keep teachers. They block helping the unemployed. They block job-creation efforts. They block everything government does for We, the People.

And at the same time as they resist spending to help the country, publicly pleading that the deficit and debt are too high, the conservatives also resist doing the things that will fix the problem: raise tax rates on the wealthy, and cut the huge, massive, bloated, more than $1 trillion per year military and military-related budget.

They think a worsening economy with no solutions will demoralize enough voters that they can turn out their "base' and win in November. Destroy the economy and the country to get votes. Great. You'll make marvelous leaders -- oh wait, been there, that's how we got into this mess.

Yes, we know how we got here. Everyone this knows that the deficits and debt come from tax cuts for the wealthy, and huge increases in military spending. AConservatives know. They said their plan was to cut taxes and thereby "starve the beast" as a way to cut government. Their reason to cut government is to make way for the only available alternative: so that the large corporations and the wealthy can rule instead. Cutting government means cutting the controls and protections that We, the People have been able to build up over the years, ensuring that we get a slice of the pie. This has been going on for thousands, even ten thousand years, as the broad masses of regular people work to assert their rights over whatever wealthy and powerful group has seized the reigns of power and is trying to grab everything for themselves as fast as they can.

Look where this cynical strategy is taking the whole country! We are not only not maintaining and modernizing our infrastructure, we are falling into 3rd-world status. This can't even help the wealthy and the big corporations they control. The conservatives still have to live here even if this scheme does bring them control. They will still have to live with fewer police, fewer teachers, fewer streetlights, unpaved roads, crumbling factories, and an ever-less-competitive economy.

Will it be worth it?

--ourfuture.org

1 Reply

@Advocate,

Advocate, I was recently in Turkey and Greece; we all know the financial problems of Greece, but they are maintaining their roads and building new ones. We traveled on a new, huge, clean, bus for seven days in Greece, and saw maintenance and building of new roads on-going. This is the country that is essentially bankrupt as a country based on western standards, but they know something the rest of us are missing in the US.

We're trimming school funding, and road maintenance in our country is a joke. Even in California, the seventh richest country in the world, we have pot-holed freeways and city roads.

All this while we spend over $600 billion on "defense."

Don't they understand that the education of our children is all part and parcel of national "defense?"

3 Replies

@ican711nm,

IBM (Invented By Monkeys) doesn't impress me even though I held shares of IBM at one time. I knew an electrical engineer who made a bid for a project with all the engineering details. You know what they rejected his bid and did the project themselves with all his engineering. Sleaze if there was such a thing to identify. Knowing that you worked there makes me understand why they did that.

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@cicerone imposter,

Hey, you are exactly right. The Reps are incredibly reckless with their stupid and dangerous schemes. It never ceases to amaze me that they get the support they do.

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FACTS NOT OBAMA-DEMOCRAT FAIRY TALES

Quote:

http://www.whitehouse.gov/omb/budget/fy2009/pdf/hist.pdf
Year.......FEDERAL RECEIPTS FINAL FULL YEAR OF TERM
1980......$0.517 trillion [CARTER]
1988….…$0.909 trillion [REAGAN]
1992.......$1.091 trillion [BUSH41]
2000......$2.025 trillion [CLINTON]
2008......$2.521 trillion [BUSH43]
2010.......$2,931[OBAMA] (June and not final year of term)

Year.......FEDERAL OUTLAYS FINAL FULL YEAR OF TERM
1980.......$0.591 trillion [CARTER]
1988….….$1.064 trillion [REAGAN]
1992........$1,.382 trillion [BUSH41]
2000.......$1.789 trillion [CLINTON]
2008.......$2,931 trillion [BUSH43]
2010........$3,091 trillion [OBAMA] (June and not final year of term)

Year………FEDERAL DEFICITS
1980.......$0.074 trillion [CARTER]
1988….….$0.155 trillion [REAGAN]
1992........$0.291 trillion [BUSH41]
2000.......SURPLUS $0.236 trillion [CLINTON]
2008.......$0.410 trillion [BUSH43]
2010........$0.160 trillion [OBAMA] (June and not final year of term)

Year………GROSS FEDERAL DEBT
1980.......$0.909 trillion [CARTER]
1988….….$2.601 trillion [REAGAN]
1992........$4.002 trillion [BUSH41]
2000.......$5.629 trillion [CLINTON]
2008.......$9.654 trillion [BUSH43]
2010.......$10.954 trillion [OBAMA] (estimate)

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/suppl/empsit.cpseea1.txt
Year……TOTAL US CIVIL EMPLOYMENT
1980……………..99 million [CARTER]
1988…………… 115 million [REAGAN]
1992…………….118 million [BUSH41]
2000……………137 million [CLINTON]
2007………..….146 million [BUSH43]
2008………….. 145 million [BUSH43]
2009,……….....140 million [OBAMA]
2010.……………139 million [OBAMA] (June)

Year.…….PERCENT OF CIVILIAN POPULATION EMPLOYED
1980…………………………………….59.2 [CARTER]
1988…………………………………….62.3 [REAGAN]
1992…………………………………….61.5 [BUSH41]
2000…………………………………….64.4 [CLINTON]
2007…………………………………….63.0 [BUSH43]
2008…………………………………….62.2 [BUSH43]
2009…………………………………….59.3 [OBAMA]
2010…………………………………….58.5 [OBAMA] (June)

INCOME TAX
1982-1986 12 brackets 12%
1987 5 brackets 11%
1988-1990 3 brackets 15%
1991-1992 3 brackets 15%
1993-2000 5 brackets 15%
2001 5 brackets 15%
2002 6 brackets 10%
2003-2007 6 brackets 10%
2007-2010 6 brackets 10% 35% IRS

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@cicerone imposter,

cicerone imposter wrote:

Advocate, I was recently in Turkey and Greece; we all know the financial problems of Greece, but they are maintaining their roads and building new ones. We traveled on a new, huge, clean, bus for seven days in Greece, and saw maintenance and building of new roads on-going. This is the country that is essentially bankrupt as a country based on western standards, but they know something the rest of us are missing in the US.

We're trimming school funding, and road maintenance in our country is a joke. Even in California, the seventh richest country in the world, we have pot-holed freeways and city roads.

All this while we spend over $600 billion on "defense."

Don't they understand that the education of our children is all part and parcel of national "defense?"

CI, did you by chance read this article in Newsweek today? We've apparently managed to achieve 3rd world status....at least in the eyes of Europeans.

http://www.newsweek.com/2010/08/09/post-anti-americanism.html

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@ican711nm,

Boy, Obama is looking pretty good compared to Bush..

Federal receipts for Obama - up .4 trillion over Bush

Federal outlays - up only .16 trillion over Bush

Bush's last deficit? .41 trillion
Obama's deficit? .16 trillion
Which do you think is larger ican?

1 Reply

@ican711nm,

Quote:

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2051527/posts

Partial History of U.S. Federal Income Tax Rates
Highest and lowest Income Tax Rates 1971 to 2009
...
1971-1981: minimum = 14%; maximum = 70% [CARTER 1977-1981]

1982-1986: minimum = 11%; maximum = 50% [REAGAN 1981-1989]

1987-1987: minimum = 11%; maximum = 38.5%

1988-1990: minimum = 15%; maximum = 33% [BUSH 41 1989-1993]

1991-1992: minimum = 15%; maximum = 31%

1993-2000: minimum = 15%; maximum = 39.6% [CLINTON 1993-2001]

2001-2001: minimum = 15%; maximum = 39.1% [BUSH 43 2001-2009]

2002-2002: minimum = 10%; maximum = 38.6%

2003-2009: minimum = 10%; maximum = 35%

2009-2010: minimum = 10%; maximum = 35%[OBAMA 2001-2009]

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@cicerone imposter,

I thought after all the infrastructure disasters of the 1980s, that we, as a nation, would never let our roads deteriorate to the level they have. Three years ago, a bridge over the Mississippi collapsed. I live 1/4 mile from a bridge that looks like it hasn't been painted since it was built in 1951. Four miles northwest on the same road, is an identical bridge, which crosses the same river. This one was built in 1948 and is in the same abysmal condition.

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@Irishk,

Many of our cities look like cities from Third World nations.

Maybe its been a plan all along to keep immigrants out.

1 Reply

@plainoldme,

A few months ago, CNN was doing a daily segment on how the stimulus money is being spent. I watched for maybe a week or so before finding something else to do with that time slot. They had even started to warn people to take their BP meds before viewing LOL. I remember one that stood out...they spent millions revamping an abandoned train station building...at a defunct railroad. As they pointed out, no new jobs were created because they merely borrowed the workers from another project. They were very good at following up...many times returning to a project to question the end result, or confirm their original suspicions.

1 Reply

@Irishk,

Thanks for sharing that article; it only confirms what I've seen myself in Turkey and Greece.

On top of all that, they seem much happier in their daily lives - which says a lot.

When greed took over wall street, and the middle class and poor got it in the chin, nobody - including Obama - seems to care. Obama's decision to expand the war in Afghanistan is one of his worst decisions. He doesn't see the need in our schools or our infrastructure which has been crumbling before GW Bush took over the white house. Wars are more important.

Most people outside the US see our country fading away.

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@Irishk,

Quote:

As they pointed out, no new jobs were created because they merely borrowed the workers from another project.

That doesn't even make any sense Irishk. If you move workers from one job to another it doesn't mean the first job gets done with fewer man hours. It only means you prolong the time that people have work by having them work on 2 projects instead of one.

Project 1 requires 3000 man hours to finish.
Now you introduce Project 2 which requires 1000 man hours to finish.
By including Project 2 you now have 4000 man hours worth of work. It doesn't remain 3000 hours just because you move people from project 1 to project 2. No matter how you count the hours, you have created more work and put people to work.

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@parados,

What Irishk is trying to explain is that the shifting of workers did not create jobs for the unemployed.

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@parados,

Irish didn't shift people around. She reported what she saw on television.

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@parados,

parados wrote:

Boy, Obama is looking pretty good compared to Bush..

Federal receipts for Obama - up .4 trillion over Bush

Federal outlays - up only .16 trillion over Bush

Bush's last deficit? .41 trillion
Obama's deficit? .16 trillion
Which do you think is larger ican?

Frankly I have not taken the time to worry myself to death over how big Obama's deficits are, but my gut reaction is that you must either be lying or twisting numbers, because we have all heard Obama's deficits are in the neighborhood of 1 trillion plus, approaching 2 trill, Parados. So I see no possible way his deficit could be 160 bill, no way, and frankly it is a waste of time arguing with you, Parados, but obviously you must be miles off with your numbers.

Actually, a quick search turns this up which I will add as an edit to this post, which of course confirms what I have said about your ridiculous claims, Parados. I think the deficit will likely be approximately 1 1/2 trillion, probably the biggest on record, with Obama's 2009 a close second.
http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/20100722/obama-budget-review-may-trim-deficit-forecast.htm
"If the 2010 deficit came in at $1.45 trillion, it would still be the widest on record, followed by the $1.41 trillion deficit in 2009."

1 Reply

@okie,

They are ican's numbers. Take it up with him.

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@parados,

You are obviously comparing apples and oranges, dummie. Ican's info says:
"2010........$0.160 trillion [OBAMA] (June and not final year of term)"
which apparently must mean the deficit of 0.16 trill is maybe for one month, not one year, heck I don't know but the number is obviously not accurate for one of the years of Obama's presidency. Use your head instead of cherrypicking a number in an effort to defend an obviously lousy president.

1 Reply

Where is the US economy headed?

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