patrick.net

This is exactly the reason I've acquired 2 other citizenships over the last 15 years. Hedging my life just in case. Everyone thinks I'm crazy whenever I say that the housing crisis is only the opening act, that the real debt bomb is going to explode later. They all say this is America not Argentina or Italy, it's different here. The magic words of apocalypse, its different (choose one:here, now, this time,for us,in this situation). As a serious student of history I can assure you it's NEVER different. Only the names change, not the results.

100% right-on bob.

yep, like the railroads. not sure what is like that now-a-days ...

Nomograph says

In the end, neither Italy nor Argentina underwent an apocalypse, and it is unlikely we will either.

I didn't mean literally apocalypse. It certainly seemed like apocalypse to all the people who had their lives destroyed at the time of collapse. Income generating, inflation-resistant business and land holdings can be seized by the state in a moments notice. Ask anyone who lived under Peron. Better yet, ask the American citizens who just happened to be of Japanese ancestry who just happened to live in California in 1943. They never got anything back. In the end it will just be a hugely lower standard of living in America, with very real economic hardship for large numbers of people.

There seems to be some fantasy denial of reality about the idea of debt, that it is just some kind of vague meaningless number that doesn't matter. Huge amounts of the public and private debt is very real money owed to foreigners. They really do expect it to be paid back with interest. At some point the debt service will not be able to be sustained. Then the government will be forced to decide between confiscatory taxation or destruction of the currency. No country in history has ever lived off of ever increasing borrowing forever. America won't either. It's never different.

The best alternative would be to put ss and medicare on sound financial footing, reduce the military dramatically, increase taxes enough to begin paying back the accumulated debt, stop subsidizing failed businesses with public money, and start building toward the future. I've been hoping for this since Reagan took office and am beginning to get a little discouraged at this point.

Just out of curiosity Nomo, why do you seem to believe we have some divine right to have the largest most vibrant economy in the world in perpetuity? You don't think America could be eclipsed? America built up a huge unprecedented economic reserve in the 30 years following WWII until the mid 1970's, the other industrialized countries were totally destroyed in WWII and starting from basically zero. Since the mid 1970's we have exported most of manufacturing, finance is moving globally at a very fast pace, other countries are putting huge amounts of funds into upgrading their higher education and research. Yes it will take a long time for countries like china and india that have an economy one fourth the size of America to catch up, but they certainly could.

Under Bush the debt ceiling was raised 8X totaling $5.4 TRILLION. How much of that accounts for leftist policy? How much accounts for tax cuts during a very expensive war(s)?

http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D9CPP3G01&show_article=1

"With the exception of Voinovich, Republicans uniformly derided the bill, though they routinely supplied votes for eight previous increases totaling $5.4 trillion under President George W. Bush."

Bush was too liberal. I agree.

Since when are tax cuts and war considered liberal agenda?

Shh. This is bap. Enjoy his posts.

Bap:
Where's Merced?