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The end of an empire

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visagrunt
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21 Jan 2013, 3:13 pm

What a load of complete and utter rubbish.

The United States has many significant economic problems. But none of them is fundamental. At root the United States economy is still the single largest enconomy on the planet, creating the benchmark in per-capita economic productivity and purchasing power against which all the rest of us are measured.

You produce vastly more goods and services per person than any of the emerging powerhouses. China's economy may be huge, but it also has 800,000,000 rural peasants to bring along for the ride. India is little better off.

The only real issue in the United States is how to divide up the wealth. Economic rightists will argue that wealth must remain, to the extent possible, in private hands, and that the market will eventually force corrections when consumers run out of money and credit with which to buy things. Economic leftists will argue that it is the role of government to redistribute wealth in advance of market corrections to avoid the negative impacts of large scale shifts. Centrists will argue that neither approach is correct and that a hybrid approach of economic smoothing is the safest way to grow.

But this is all argument about needlework. The United States is engaged in a prolonged political battle over how to divide up the wealth. Let me repeat that: how to divide up the wealth. One more time: the wealth. There is wealth in the United States. A lot of it. Your problem isn't creating wealth--you do that superlatively well. Your problem is figuring out how to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate in that generation of wealth.

These are what are know on the interwebz as First World Problems. So quit the Chicken Little act and get on with figuring out how to solve your petty problem.


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21 Jan 2013, 5:26 pm

visagrunt wrote:
What a load of complete and utter rubbish.

The United States has many significant economic problems. But none of them is fundamental. At root the United States economy is still the single largest enconomy on the planet, creating the benchmark in per-capita economic productivity and purchasing power against which all the rest of us are measured.

You produce vastly more goods and services per person than any of the emerging powerhouses. China's economy may be huge, but it also has 800,000,000 rural peasants to bring along for the ride. India is little better off.

The only real issue in the United States is how to divide up the wealth. Economic rightists will argue that wealth must remain, to the extent possible, in private hands, and that the market will eventually force corrections when consumers run out of money and credit with which to buy things. Economic leftists will argue that it is the role of government to redistribute wealth in advance of market corrections to avoid the negative impacts of large scale shifts. Centrists will argue that neither approach is correct and that a hybrid approach of economic smoothing is the safest way to grow.

But this is all argument about needlework. The United States is engaged in a prolonged political battle over how to divide up the wealth. Let me repeat that: how to divide up the wealth. One more time: the wealth. There is wealth in the United States. A lot of it. Your problem isn't creating wealth--you do that superlatively well. Your problem is figuring out how to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate in that generation of wealth.

These are what are know on the interwebz as First World Problems. So quit the Chicken Little act and get on with figuring out how to solve your petty problem.


I agree, but this kind of stuff requires thinking, since there's nothing emotional about understanding what you described above, it's boring for most Americans. Americans don't want to come home from a hard days work and think about this kind of stuff. If there's a meme that can encapsulate a persons view on society or the economy, it's easier to post that meme in facebook, and call it a day.


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androbot2084
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21 Jan 2013, 6:00 pm

If the United States goes bankrupt on the debt the recession will end.



techstepgenr8tion
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21 Jan 2013, 6:34 pm

visagrunt wrote:
...

Our deficit will be hitting a point soon enough where we could spend nothing in a year and exceed our budget in interest payments. I don't know how we're getting out of that.



ruveyn
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21 Jan 2013, 10:12 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
visagrunt wrote:
...

Our deficit will be hitting a point soon enough where we could spend nothing in a year and exceed our budget in interest payments. I don't know how we're getting out of that.


Only one way. Repudiate the debt.

Mucho sh*t will hit the fan, but that is what happens when one has no real money, but only I.O.U. s.

ruveyn



androbot2084
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21 Jan 2013, 11:11 pm

China will be upset if we deadbeat on them but our credit rating will go up because we have a fresh start.



ripped
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22 Jan 2013, 3:50 am

visagrunt wrote:
What a load of complete and utter rubbish.

The United States has many significant economic problems. But none of them is fundamental. At root the United States economy is still the single largest enconomy on the planet, creating the benchmark in per-capita economic productivity and purchasing power against which all the rest of us are measured.

You produce vastly more goods and services per person than any of the emerging powerhouses. China's economy may be huge, but it also has 800,000,000 rural peasants to bring along for the ride. India is little better off.

The only real issue in the United States is how to divide up the wealth. Economic rightists will argue that wealth must remain, to the extent possible, in private hands, and that the market will eventually force corrections when consumers run out of money and credit with which to buy things. Economic leftists will argue that it is the role of government to redistribute wealth in advance of market corrections to avoid the negative impacts of large scale shifts. Centrists will argue that neither approach is correct and that a hybrid approach of economic smoothing is the safest way to grow.

But this is all argument about needlework. The United States is engaged in a prolonged political battle over how to divide up the wealth. Let me repeat that: how to divide up the wealth. One more time: the wealth. There is wealth in the United States. A lot of it. Your problem isn't creating wealth--you do that superlatively well. Your problem is figuring out how to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate in that generation of wealth.

These are what are know on the interwebz as First World Problems. So quit the Chicken Little act and get on with figuring out how to solve your petty problem.

Tax the rich?



ripped
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22 Jan 2013, 3:55 am

ruveyn wrote:
techstepgenr8tion wrote:
visagrunt wrote:
...

Our deficit will be hitting a point soon enough where we could spend nothing in a year and exceed our budget in interest payments. I don't know how we're getting out of that.


Only one way. Repudiate the debt.

Mucho sh*t will hit the fan, but that is what happens when one has no real money, but only I.O.U. s.

ruveyn


There is no money in America?
You are arguing against a fiat currency?
Or that the size and growth of the economy is smaller than what the ratings agencies have slated?



ruveyn
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22 Jan 2013, 6:01 am

ripped wrote:
ruveyn wrote:
techstepgenr8tion wrote:
visagrunt wrote:
...

Our deficit will be hitting a point soon enough where we could spend nothing in a year and exceed our budget in interest payments. I don't know how we're getting out of that.


Only one way. Repudiate the debt.

Mucho sh*t will hit the fan, but that is what happens when one has no real money, but only I.O.U. s.

ruveyn


There is no money in America?
You are arguing against a fiat currency?
Or that the size and growth of the economy is smaller than what the ratings agencies have slated?


Not as bitterly as the people in Germany under the Weimar Republic argued against their fiat currency which had become nearly worthless.

We have not yet reached that stage but that is where we are heading or being driven by our Lords and Masters.

ruveyn



androbot2084
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22 Jan 2013, 1:14 pm

Fiat currency is as good as gold.



visagrunt
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22 Jan 2013, 2:16 pm

techstepgenr8tion wrote:
visagrunt wrote:
...

Our deficit will be hitting a point soon enough where we could spend nothing in a year and exceed our budget in interest payments. I don't know how we're getting out of that.


How much of those interest payments go into domestic hands, though? Who owns the bonds on which the government owes interest? What is the tax treatment of those interest payments? The interest:revenue ratio is an important number, to be sure, but it needs to be understood in the context of how money moves in the United States, and how much of that movement involves the public sector.


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22 Jan 2013, 2:29 pm

visagrunt wrote:
What a load of complete and utter rubbish.

The United States has many significant economic problems. But none of them is fundamental. At root the United States economy is still the single largest enconomy on the planet, creating the benchmark in per-capita economic productivity and purchasing power against which all the rest of us are measured.

You produce vastly more goods and services per person than any of the emerging powerhouses. China's economy may be huge, but it also has 800,000,000 rural peasants to bring along for the ride. India is little better off.

The only real issue in the United States is how to divide up the wealth. Economic rightists will argue that wealth must remain, to the extent possible, in private hands, and that the market will eventually force corrections when consumers run out of money and credit with which to buy things. Economic leftists will argue that it is the role of government to redistribute wealth in advance of market corrections to avoid the negative impacts of large scale shifts. Centrists will argue that neither approach is correct and that a hybrid approach of economic smoothing is the safest way to grow.

But this is all argument about needlework. The United States is engaged in a prolonged political battle over how to divide up the wealth. Let me repeat that: how to divide up the wealth. One more time: the wealth. There is wealth in the United States. A lot of it. Your problem isn't creating wealth--you do that superlatively well. Your problem is figuring out how to ensure that everyone gets a fair opportunity to participate in that generation of wealth.

These are what are know on the interwebz as First World Problems. So quit the Chicken Little act and get on with figuring out how to solve your petty problem.


No one seems to realise that be indebting a nation you can claim lands and assets as payments?
yeah talk about rubbish comments



androbot2084
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22 Jan 2013, 4:39 pm

China will never claim land in the United States.



ripped
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22 Jan 2013, 7:50 pm

androbot2084 wrote:
Fiat currency is as good as gold.


Thanks man, I've been dying to share this.
A Fiat currency is way better than a gold standard.
The reason for moving off the gold standard was: Why should the economies of the world be bound by the amount of bullion in their vaults.
What makes gold so special a commodity that all economic activity must be constrained to its equivalent value in weight?
Why not allow all of the other quantifiable commodities and services to back the currency as well?
When the value of an economy is in the commodities and services it produces, a gold standard limits the amount of currency in circulation and artificially restrains the amount of demand ( money ) in that economy, while artificially pushing up the price of gold.
Its a con job by people with major stocks in gold.

And you're right, a fiat currency is as good as gold.



Last edited by ripped on 22 Jan 2013, 7:54 pm, edited 1 time in total.

androbot2084
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22 Jan 2013, 7:54 pm

A gold standard means that gold is worth more than people.



ruveyn
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22 Jan 2013, 8:03 pm

ripped wrote:

And you're right, a fiat currency is as good as gold.


Fiat money can be inflated. Look at what happened in Germany in the Weimar Republic. The money turned worthless as more and more was printed.

ruveyn