Next year the baby boomers will start taking social security and medicare bennies. We still have a 9.8% "unemployment" rate. How are we going to pay for these liabilities? Then throw on top of that all the pension obligations to federal and state workers. Then put all future unemployment benefits on top of that. Then lets put all the states' food stamp programs on top of that. Anyone besides me worried?

cool, usa half price sale, i'll buy a peice of california, not the bit that keeps shorting out though.........

Did you ever consider something really radical like maybe, just maybe, we could get by with a military budget that was merely 3x as large as the next biggest defense spending level on the planet? I do not understand why giving poor people food (or joining the rest of the civilized world in providing universal access to health care) is seen as such a peril to the solvency of our nation, when the real pointless wasteful blight is continuously adored as sacrosanct. If we as a nation matured enough to outgrow imperialist thinking, we could comfortably engage in much higher levels of social spending while buying down the debt and maintaining reasonably low rates of taxation.

Seriously, this nation is suffering far more from dangerous ignorance than from any fresh wave of spending. It fosters alarmism uniquely in opposition to initiatives that actually could make our society a more peaceful and prosperous place to inhabit. When it comes to enormous top end tax cuts, monumental corporate subsidies, and pointless military aggression, nary a peep can be heard from self-styled "deficit hawks." Yet dare to suggest it should be our policy that no American should die on the street for lack of food or medicine, and the klaxons of financial doom resound from coast to coast. Certainly our nation should take a hard look at spending and move toward a more sustainable national budgetary process. However, it should not take a serious look at the kind of idiocy that keeps us 50 years behind the rest of the world in basic human decency while we continue to send our bravest men and women into meat grinders that serve only to perpetuate a dogma of cripplingly intense militarism.

Regards,
messydom

Solve unemployment?

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Where-are-the-jobs-For-many-apf-2052621322.html

Long as this keeps up, unemployment will stay.

I for one think we should lower the age at which we retire on Social Security to 55 so we can all start getting paid about the time we actually really are tossed out of work force for good anyway.

Who to tax for this bold new move? No problem. Target all multi-million-dollar corporations with big profits who are hiring aggressively overseas.

Won't hurt the rest of us at all. They got it.

Nessie

I can't remember the numbers, but the top 1-2% of the population in the US own more than the rest put together? Something awful like that.

Wealth redistribution - progressive taxation. Make them actually pay their tax by stopping loopholes/offshore tax havens etc. And, cut military spending.

Just a thought.

Everyone has it wrong. The government doesn't run the country, Corporations do. They give plenty of campaign contributions and who knows what else. Who knows, maybe corps. are threatening to move all their jobs overseas if congress doesn't do what they say. Does anyone REALLY know what happens behind the closed doors of congress?

A little more socialism would go a long way in the U.S.A right now.


I think we have seen enough results of non or deregulation right now.


... also a new amendment to the constitution stopping politicians from having any other form of job or interest in business while they are politicians. No being on the board of this. Just do their job the country has honoured them with. Nothing more, nothing less.

Also, while I am imaginary president... the whole lobbying system is absolute bollocks and seriously counter productive to doing right by the people of the country, and we can drop the whole pork thing now as well as filibustering - that one is just ridiculous to the point of... well, ridicule.

Oh, and pay off California's debts and instal an emergency government there to raise taxes on the rich and stop it going absolutely bankrupt. We will be first.

What he said. But in caps lock.

Yes, you are pretty much correct.

Noise is correct. Ignorance is the reason for our downfall. People are dumb enough to vote in the very people who tear this country apart. This is why I don't vote. When things go to hell, nobody can blame me Can nobody figure out that both republicans and democrats don't care about this country? They still get paid regardless of how things in this country turn out. Boy if I could find a job like that.

The things is people bitch and they moan but they don't DO ANYTHING. The most important level, and where everything rises up from is your city, then your county, then state then at federal level.

People are fucking ignorant, and even more ignorant at local level where they can impact the people directly around them. Can you name your local councilor? Have you ever contacted your senator on an issue affecting people at a local or national level? Can you name your senator?

It's one thing to bitch or moan about how your country has gone to shit, but yes, blame lies with you if you do nothing about it any level.

America has probably the most well written constitution in the world, people cite it, they brag about it... yet it mostly remains unused and even worse, misunderstood by the average person. Government is to be used by people, but all I see in the states is government using people.

Just as my family fled oppression in Europe, soon I will have to flee America.

You, nor anyone else, has any right to my labor and my life but me.

Yes, DiscoStu, you are welcome to go live in the woods and the taxman is not going to send Tommy Lee Jones to hunt you down. However, if you ship on public roads, hire publicly educated workers, enjoy the protection of the costliest military force in the entire universe, etc. then there are responsibilities that go along with those benefits. Seriously, how much of your wealth could exist in a world where there was no authority to govern the medium of exchange, only mercenaries to provide protection against robbery, and only toll roads linking cities together? Ayn Rand spun some interesting tales, but history reveals that Galt's Gulch scenarios inevitably either evolve into a governed entity or devolve into unchecked violence.

I appreciate that libertarian supply-side economic thinking is nice, neat, and simple. As we do not inhabit a nice, neat, and simple world; that should be the first clue that perhaps it is also a wildly wrong and profoundly unhelpful perspective on economics. It completely ignores the reality that collective actions sometimes actually can contribute more to quality of life than competitive actions. In the realms of national defense and criminal justice, that is a fairly non-controversial assertion. Yet there is no area of human endeavor where wisdom follows from rejecting either a collective or a competitive approach without first comparing the particulars of each.

Given a struggling tribe of nomadic herders, their day to day survival directly dependent on a small population of goats, a number of cutthroat economic policies make sense. Maintaining the captivity of a criminal may be impractical, so brutal measures like mutilation as punishment may make sense in that context. Likewise, providing bedrest, medicine, and expert care to the seriously ill may amount to trading many lives for one. A community living on the razor's edge of subsistence cannot afford much in the way of collective action to elevate the standards of their civilization.

However, a prosperous industrialized modern democracy is a far cry from nomadic goatherders. We can afford a wide range of initiatives that curtail extremes of deprivation while creating an economic environment in which more citizens are better positioned to apply more of their human potential to productive pursuits. For example, it is especially the wealthiest Americans who pay the price for the lack of a national health care system, as it is their investments that underperform by vast sums when workforces are afflicted with countless cases of preventable absenteeism and disability. A healthier citizenry would involve government intervention, but it would also involve a less sickly and more productive domestic workforce. Factor in the efficiency of more widespread preventative care and earlier treatment of developing conditions, and we would be trading the enormous profits of a small sector of economic parasites (health insurers) for an across-the-board increase in profits in every sector dependent upon the American worker.

Of course, the fact that actual human beings would die less (to the tune of 40,000 per year in the U.S.) and experience much less suffering from illness and injury is also a consideration. Contrary to popular propaganda, the Founding Fathers did pave the way for whatever economic policies this nation might choose to implement. The very first sentence of the Constitution prominently features "the general welfare" as a duty of the federal government. One would think with all this Tea Party bluster about reading the document, a few among them would gather some inkling of what the document actually says. Instead we have a stale rehash of supply-side economics dressed up as a stand on principle. For those willing to favor a nice, neat, simple, and absurd explanation of economics over the embrace of the difficult, messy, and complex reality we inhabit; "small government" may seem like a virtue unto itself. For those willing to be adults in the face of civic responsibility, the appropriate role of government ought be derived from analysis of the actual context in which a proposed policy would take effect.

Regards,
messydom

You are mistaking socialism for communism.


My long time spent in America has taught me something - a lot of Americans mix up socialism with communism. They are not the same, and it should be taught in schools.

Which part of Military, schools, police, roads etc etc do you not think are not socialism in action?

Americ'a biggest problem is endless polarising rhetoric and wearing a single political point of view as a fucking badge. Thinking in terms of "I am an ___ therefore ____ must be wrong."

Nothing is black and white. Except racism of course.

If a country is made of a single form of political thinking it always ends in disaster. Capitalism has it's place next to a little socialism. I come from the UK where guess what? We look after people that are ill and can't afford private care or insurance are treated at the tax payers expense.

According to right wing rhetoric the UK is communist, and if you let a little bit of socialism in YOU WILL BECOME COMMUNIST BECAUSE... well. BECAUSE.

Ever been to France? I'm going to bet not. France is a fucking amazing country, they really have their shit worked out.

Here is an example of socialist leaning at work.

I used to have a house in France, somewhere towards Italy in a tiny village.

In the winter it would snow and lock up all the roads, no one can get in and out of the villages... except the dirty socialist government pays the farmers who aren't doing very much and have a bunch of heavy machinery laying about to go out and grit/salt the roads before the snow sets in.

Beautifull, well kept roads they are as well.

Right now I am in southern California. A place where capitalism and greed run riot. The roads are FUCKED. Tire wear is insane here because the roads are so torn up. When it rains the roads floods here... and why? Because no one wants to pay any tax and the government is both poor AND corrupt. Then they bitch about the roads they won't pay for, and moan about the lack of jobs... while not paying people to go out and fix the roads and the drainage.

Balance. It's all balance. Personally at the moment, I am a libertarian, a capitalist with socialist leanings. I am also socially a liberal with fiscally conservative leanings.

Wow. Speaking of the rhetoric... just watched some news...

"America United" is probably the most blatant bold-faced lie ever told. September 11th can happen over and over again,but this country will always be comprised of democrats and republicans for the most part. I'm surprised the 2 parties haven't started their own countries/religions. No matter, we're all human and greed will always run rampant,at least in this country. Can't wait to see what happens when all the baby boomers cash in on their depleted 401k plans,realize their pensions are obsolete, and finally see that there aren't enough doctors to treat all the sick people in this country. We will then see what this country is really made of........mostly disillusioned people who didn't realize what was going on until it's too late

Intense and too true I am afraid for us all. In a perfect world I could see changes taking place without global strife ....

we're currently up a serious creek with proverbial toothpicks for paddles.



I wished for ross perot sp? to be american president... or at least come work for canada. This whole world needs more people like ross.

Rebuilding is required from the ground up. absolutely

Wonder what president obama will have for dinner tonight at that state dinner with Hu Jintao. Probably not chinese