When the Riots Begin

Post Reply New Topic

Good morning America! Change is indeed coming to the land of the free. It looks likely that Brown will prevail over Coakley. By tomorrow morning, Barrack Obama will be a lame duck president and he will be a dead duck politically come 2012. None of his cherished political ideas are going to see the light of day once the Democrats lose the supermajority in the Senate. It will be filibuster all the way from here on out to November when both Senate and Congress are likely to turn over to the Republicans. Obama is going to seem so lame that he is going to make Jimmy Carter look good in comparison.

Now the show begins. A few months ago, Barrack Obama made the decision to focus on healthcare instead of tending to the country’s grave economic crisis. Despite all indications pointing to the dissolution of the economy, Obama insisted that reforming healthcare was a more important priority. He wants to expand entitlement programs at a time when America’s ability to pay its bills is becoming increasingly questionable. And so time and energy was lost as the President travelled around the country to drum up support for his healthcare plans while working himself into a sweat to berate bankers at every given opportunity. He really seemed to believe that given time, the American economy would right itself.

Now that the Republicans have won the Massachusetts by-elections, Barrack Obama must be wishing that he had done more for the economy when he had unfettered command of Congress. Without the Senate supermajority, nothing is going to get past the Republican’s filibuster. Why should they cooperate with a President who has been so partisan that he brooks absolutely no compromise? Why should they help Obama shine or even survive when he has all that he can to hurt Republican losers in the 2008 elections? Alas! You know how dysfunction on Capitol Hill will play out on the broader canvas of Americana.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

Read this article to understand why there will be riots. In the face of a massive shock defeat, apparently, it is the people who are to blame for being uninformed and stupid. The solution they propose is more talk and more speeches to explain to the ignorant masses what their interest really is. Why give people the vote if you believe that they do not know what they are doing eh?

The economy is like a bad flu that causes social decay and major natural disasters (Katrina, New Madrid Faultline erupting) are the bloody diarrhea that causes riots.

Then of course you have the issues of cultural resilience. If you have a disaster in a place where people have been conditioned to rely on an external force for help, then things get worse quick.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co ... id=topnews

Of the mistakes made by the Obama administration, the decision to print money to buy mortgage backed securities was perhaps the most serious. In a misguided effort to save the foolhardy and the irresponsible, America’s leaders have imperiled the position of the U.S. dollar as the world’s pre-eminent currency and set the stage for a devastating decline. The effects will not be felt in the near term, but all Americans will be paying for these acts of folly for decades to come. They chose to spare this generation the pain, only to ensure that future generations will be left with nothing but the crushing burden of a worthless currency and debt which the children have no hope of repaying.

Hmmm...I can definitely see it getting worse from now.

Too bad I don't have the financial means to get out of the U.S. >_<

More and more Americans will start to think of leaving but, for the time being at least, nowhere else can offer the same standard of living or else reserves the privileges only for its own citizens. But as conditions start to deteriorate, there will be an exodus of the best and brightest that fatally undermines the strength of the economy. Other countries in Central and South America have experienced the same crushing effects of debt and capital flight (human and financial). Mexico is a very good example of what happens when mismanagement, financial crises and social dislocation pushes its most talented people out of the country. No matter what is done, the Mexican economy seems stuck in second gear. And no matter what measures are taken, the country is increasingly, and perhaps inexorably, becoming a narco-state.

The flow of drugs across the Mexican border is another vector that bears watching. The pain of unemployment and underemployment will lead to a sharp rise in substance abuse in the United States. Whatever you want – ice, crack, smack or just plain old pot – the Mexicans stand as the lowest cost and most reliable supplier. America uses guns against the cartels, but the cartels uses drugs against America’s youth. Who do you think will win? This epidemic of drug use, especially amongst America’s frustrated youth, will radically alter the makeup of American society. The violence and hopelessness will engulf America’s cities as a generation brought up to believe that they could not lose stumble straight out of the gate and fall into the pit of addiction. Perhaps then some of America’s legislators will look back and regret pushing so many Latino kids out of school and onto the streets, thereby providing the best corps of foot soldiers that the Mexican cartels could hope for, when their own children or grandchildren are ensnared by the fatal claws of the snuff demon.

It will get worse, a lot worse and it will not improve. The price for 2009’s extravagant economic band aids will have to be paid for throughout the rest of this decade. Who knows how the tab for years prior to 2009 will be covered. It is not healthy for Americans to do so little and yet want so much, but I have come to conclude that Americans simply cannot help themselves. It is like the fat guy and the chocolate fudge cake – does it make sense to blame the cake for being so delicious?

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/26/us/po ... et.html?hp

The State of the Union address this Wednesday marks the end of the time when things could still have been done to turn around an increasingly desperate situation. This is perhaps the last budget where an American President can still claim some degree of initiative. Gridlock politics and the unwillingness of creditors to continue funding American profligacy will basically mean that American fiscal policy henceforth will no longer be in executive hands.

There are things that America could have done to reverse the decline. Cutting Afghanistan loose for example would have helped a great deal. Unlike most people, I believe that Osama Bin Laden should not be killed because he is far too valuable to the American agenda. Why drop million dollar laser guided missiles on mud huts and rocks to kill a man whose projection helps win America critical support? Why pay for a fruitless and unwinnable war when the money could have been better spent keeping alive the critical agenda in education that is vital for American hope? It is far better to keep one Black or Latino child in school and off the streets then to chase the shadow of a ghost through ragged and hostile lands.

It has been said several times by different people that my indignation at how Latino children have been treated in this downturn is offensive. Since these kids are not Americans, or if they are born in the United States and are thus citizens their parents are often not Americans, these children have no claim to the public purse. Why then educate them at the public expense? The simplest reason would be to deny Mexican drug cartels access to these youths. The drug trade is all about distribution and in particular the quality of one’s distribution network. The better the people you recruit, the more efficient and profitable your operation will be. By choosing the military and retirees over the nation’s youth, America is quite literally burning its corn seed. These kids know how to find their way around and they blend right in. Often, if they did not tell you, you would not know that they were of Latino heritage. When the best of these Hispanic kids are sent into the waiting arms of the cartels, you can be guaranteed an explosion in the drug epidemic.

Why do I see what you so blatantly refuse to acknowledge? Ask yourself how the world has changed. Would any of you have believed just a few months ago that a Republican would win the Senate seat which Kennedy had held for so long? Perhaps it is because momentous change occurs in little increments that the gravity of the moment is lost on those who live it.