Is this where we are headed as a society?

[VMI77]

Would you accept it without fact if he had said "Financial collapse is a mathematical certainty if we don't change from our current course... " ?
That's how I read his statement. I think it's fairly well established that you can't spend more than you take in without financial consequence indefinitely...

We either spend less, pay more, do both, or pass it off to the kids. Some combination of those options. Elect someone who says that they'll increase your taxes and decrease your benefits....

And indeed, that is what I meant. I used to think I was fairly knowledgeable about economics but the last decade has turned what I thought I knew on it's head, and I've been reading whoever puts forth a cogent theory and trying to get a grasp on what's happening. The general options you mentioned are certainly true.....spend less, pay more, do both, or foist it off on someone else....though I think the actual machinations in the financial system are more nefarious than these simple alternatives would lead most people to believe. Via debt and credit there has been a systematic transfer of wealth from the middle class ever since the Fed was created.

[The Annoyed Man]

Financial collapse is a mathematical certainty.....the timing and extent are the only questions.

Facts would be awesome to support such a statement. How many countries in Western Europe have financially collapsed in the the last 100 years? The only one I can think of is the Weimar Republic and that was due to the combination of crippling post WWI debt sanctions and the Great Depression. Even in the Americas, Argentina is the great exception, and even it could have righted itself.

So the crippling debt we labor under today, and today's Great Recession (Obama's words) don't in some way parallel the woes of the Weimar Republic? When enough people are unemployed for a long enough time, it's no longer a recession. For tens of millions of unemployed/underemployed Americans, this IS a depression, and it has been so for the past 5 or 6 years. I saw a headline a day or so ago saying that the federal government opened the year of 2014 by charging an average of $1,088 in additional per capita taxes of varying types......to try and offset the debt it keeps running up and refusing to reign in.

I submit that we are, at this point in our history, far closer than most people are aware of to a financial collapse similar to that of the Weimar Republic.

.....incidentally, there were some serious moral failures in the Weimar culture similar to what we are witnessing today, not just the financial failure that many are aware of....

[JALLEN]

What do you expect where it is better to have been in the KKK than be a Boy Scout? All the values that previous generations were expected to live by are going the way of the dinosaur now.

Sometimes I wonder if we are not on the edge of an abyss, a new and more terrible Dark Ages where learning, culture, justice, liberty, privacy and the other values developed over many centuries in Western Christian democratic culture that have produced a standard of living, and not just economic, undreamed of by previous cultures and generations, are going to disappear, and their opposite become the norm.

I recall that Archie Bunker (and my grandparents) felt the same way about my generation.
Maybe it's just the natural order of things that us older folks think the younger folk are mostly rotten apples?

Pass me another Ensure, please.

I had the opportunity to spend some time in Cairo some years ago with my host, a man who had grown up there, "in the shadows of the Pyramids." He graduated from the Military Academy there, a classmate of Sadat and Mubarek, rose to be a General in the Army, managed the Suez Canal. He wasn't a government official but he was pals with almost all of them.

He told me about a newspaper editor he knew who had run a letter to the Editor, decrying the young people as lazy, ill-groomed, rude, irresponsible, crude, worthless, uneducated, wastrels. This letter got the most response of any letter the newspaper had ever published. Letters came pouring in from all over the place for weeks, agreeing with the original author, citing new examples, haranguing about the decline in civility and manners, hand-wringing over the future, etc. After some weeks the Editor revealed that the original letter had come from an ancient scroll found in an old crypt and recently deciphered. The letter was dated about 4000 years before, which is why it didn't mention Elvis, I guess.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose is not a new concept, it turns out.

[mojo84]

Financial collapse is a mathematical certainty.....the timing and extent are the only questions.

Facts would be awesome to support such a statement. How many countries in Western Europe have financially collapsed in the the last 100 years? The only one I can think of is the Weimar Republic and that was due to the combination of crippling post WWI debt sanctions and the Great Depression. Even in the Americas, Argentina is the great exception, and even it could have righted itself.

$17 TRILLION

$17,000,000,000,000

$17,000 BILLION

and growing. Do you really think that is sustainable?

[rbwhatever1]

It appears to me we're already there and have been for some time. This is our character. We have become a nation of indoctrinated cowards. Thank god our forefathers had something they were willing to die for and did. Most Americans today are much too busy to die for anything and definitely not for each other. I doubt half of this Society would freely give their lives to protect their own children. Crime is the result of apathy.


http://www.wwmt.com/news/features/featu ... 4292.shtml" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

32-year-old Clarence Edward Ross is accused of killing Jheryl Wright at the Quick Stop on Portage Street back in September of 2012.
Investigators say Ross took off after the murder and was found in Atlanta in January.
Friday night a jury convicted Ross of first degree murder, felony firearm and solicitation to commit murder.

http://www.11alive.com/News/Crime/26891 ... in-Atlanta" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Also, investigators issued a warrant for another Kalamazoo resident, 30, who they say was responsible for a September 29 shooting in Kalamazoo. This incident happened three hours before Wright was shot, Ledbetter said.

[bbobb]

$17 TRILLION

$17,000,000,000,000

$17,000 BILLION

and growing. Do you really think that is sustainable?

Looking at what promises get politicians elected, many people in both parties don't care if it's sustainable forever. As long as they think it will keep going for the rest of their lives, it's somebody else's problem in their mind.

[WildBill]

What do you expect where it is better to have been in the KKK than be a Boy Scout? All the values that previous generations were expected to live by are going the way of the dinosaur now.

Sometimes I wonder if we are not on the edge of an abyss, a new and more terrible Dark Ages where learning, culture, justice, liberty, privacy and the other values developed over many centuries in Western Christian democratic culture that have produced a standard of living, and not just economic, undreamed of by previous cultures and generations, are going to disappear, and their opposite become the norm.

I recall that Archie Bunker (and my grandparents) felt the same way about my generation.
Maybe it's just the natural order of things that us older folks think the younger folk are mostly rotten apples?

Pass me another Ensure, please.

I had the opportunity to spend some time in Cairo some years ago with my host, a man who had grown up there, "in the shadows of the Pyramids." He graduated from the Military Academy there, a classmate of Sadat and Mubarek, rose to be a General in the Army, managed the Suez Canal. He wasn't a government official but he was pals with almost all of them.

He told me about a newspaper editor he knew who had run a letter to the Editor, decrying the young people as lazy, ill-groomed, rude, irresponsible, crude, worthless, uneducated, wastrels. This letter got the most response of any letter the newspaper had ever published. Letters came pouring in from all over the place for weeks, agreeing with the original author, citing new examples, haranguing about the decline in civility and manners, hand-wringing over the future, etc. After some weeks the Editor revealed that the original letter had come from an ancient scroll found in an old crypt and recently deciphered. The letter was dated about 4000 years before, which is why it didn't mention Elvis, I guess.

Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose is not a new concept, it turns out.

This helps keep some things in perspective.

[mojo84]

For those that are in disbelief and have trouble realizing what is wrong. This was when the debt was approaching $15 TRILLION. Pay attention to the unfunded liabilities.

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Now explain to me how we are not in deep financial trouble.

[Cedar Park Dad]

For those that are in disbelief and have trouble realizing what is wrong. This was when the debt was approaching $15 TRILLION. Pay attention to the unfunded liabilities.

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Now explain to me how we are not in deep financial trouble.

On the positive unfunded liabilities can be changed by agreement, law, or bankruptcy court.

[mojo84]

No big deal then? So, who do you decide not pay and you believe their will be no ramifications from such changes "by agreement, law, or bankruptcy court"?

[Cedar Park Dad]

No big deal then? So, who do you decide not pay and you believe their will be no ramifications from such changes "by agreement, law, or bankruptcy court"?

Everything has ramifications, but nothing in the future is set in stone.

[cb1000rider]

Looking at what promises get politicians elected, many people in both parties don't care if it's sustainable forever. As long as they think it will keep going for the rest of their lives, it's somebody else's problem in their mind.

Who elects politicians? Again, show me a successful politician that said he was going to increase taxes and decrease benefits? If there was such a beast, how many people on this forum would elect him/her?

The arguments against tax more are constant. The arguments against spend less are constant. Generally they are:
1) If we tax more the government will just spend more.
2) If we tax more, we'll slow the economy and there will be a net loss of revenue at a greater burden on the people.
3) If we spend less, there will be a net slowing of the economy and again, the net gain will be negative.

So we'll continue to fund a massive military, a huge social entitlement program - which, lets face it - the vast majority of Americans are going to be dependent on. And disability? Don't get me started there.. We've got a massive industry just built up around making sure people don't ever have to work again in some cases.

I'm with VM - this will not stand. How long it'll continue to stand, I have no idea. Likely it'll be passed on to my children, if my generation is "lucky"...
Realistically, at retirement time, I'm probably going to re-assess where I want to live - not because I don't love this country, but because I don't necessarily want to have massive devaluation of my money.

[JALLEN]

On the federal debt question, you should recall that John Nance Garner, Veep under FDR in the 30's, first two terms, broke with Roosevelt on the question of spending, believing it was ruinous, and he was of course a Democrat, and "a labor-baiting, poker-playing, whiskey-drinking, evil old man." The Roosevelt court-packing scheme was the final straw, of course.

The point is that even 80 years ago, knowledgeable folk were predicting ruin right around the corner if we kept on living beyond our means. So far at least, that ruin has been postponed. No one, of course, knows when it will strike, of if it ever will.

When I was at UT, 45 years ago, I took the view that if someone didn't like all the government debt, give it to me and I would live off the interest on as much of the filthy government bonds as the naysayers were willing to part with. It never happened either.

If you read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, some parallels are unmistakable. You know what happened to those Roman guys? They all ended up a bunch of Italians!

[WildBill]

You know what happened to those Roman guys? They all ended up a bunch of Italians!

I have always wondered about that.

[mojo84]

More pathetic attitude about helping one another. I realize this is not knew. I do believe it is getting more pervasive.

http://foxnewsinsider.com/2014/01/10/vi ... ad-helping" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;