Gridlock-The Collapse of the US Economy(UPDATED)

Of course I agree that the US government is a leviathan that is devouring the Constitution, but when you say that our current economic predicament is the result of excess regulation and social programs, it would seem to me that you're forgetting who pulls the government's strings.

You idealize the free market, but whether it was engineered or out of sheer ignorance, you better believe it was the highest levels of the market (including many politicians, Cheney and Halliburton comes to mind) brought about the recent economic crises.

Regulations are necessary because the 'invisible hand' lacks foresight, and prevention (of fraud, product toxicity, environmental disaster, etc.) is preferable to correction.

Well-conceived and implemented social programs are necessary to raise the intelligence and productivity (broad definition) of the population, which ideally lead to a wiser government and wiser market.

The fact of the matter is humans don't always do what is in their best interests, let alone others interests. One way to curb this is through peer-review (although it's not perfect). Thus freedom is an essential ingredient but not a virtue in and of itself; it depends on what we do with that freedom.

I understand you're concerned with the immediate threat of the US economy collapsing, but deregulating and cutting necessary social programs will only make it easier for the wealthiest 5% of the country to continue engaging in self-destructive behavior leaving the other 95% to bear the burden and pick up the pieces.

If I am misunderstanding you I apologize, but please clarify by answering these questions:

What are the consequences of 'captured' regulatory agencies?
Do you imagine that non-existent regulatory agencies would produces different results?

Just yesterday we had a TERRIBLE 30-year note auction on just $16Bn worth of notes. Already Ben is pretty much the only buyer of Tim’s trash paper and, as that bid to cover ratio drops below 2:1, you’ll see rates begin to tick up dramatically, despite the Fed’s best efforts to contain them and that will put pressure on houses, corporate debt, government debt, municipal debt etc and suddenly we’re Greece.



Bernanke saves his little brother Timmy. In fact, yesterday, Brother Ben rolled out the new POMO schedule and, rather than $2.5Bn twice a week that has been handed out for the last 90 days, the new schedule takes the game to a whole new level as the Fed h is now offering as much as $9Bn per session and the schedule for those sessions is (and I kid you not):

* November 12,15,16,17,18,19,22,23,29,29 (again!),30
* December 1,2,3,6,7,8 and 9.

That’s right. Pretty much EVERY SINGLE DAY the market is open and twice on the 29th, the Fed will hand out Billions to "fix" the economy. Keep in mind they have no intention of stopping on the 9th, that’s just the end of month one! I know that we have all gotten comfortably numb with regards to large numbers but let’s consider for a moment how much money EACH $8Bn is as this is OUR money the Fed is spending:



* It’s enough to pay 5.33M $1,500 Mortgage Payments – enough to pay off every home in America each month!
* It’s enough to buy out 40,000 $200,000 Mortgages EACH DAY.
* It’s enough to pay a full year’s $50,000 Salary for 160,000 workers – EACH DAY. In a single month, the Fed could put 4.8M people back to work rather than flushing it back through the banks and Treasury in the hopes that a few jobs will trickle down to the people.
* It’s more than the ENTIRE Federal Education Budget for 2010 EACH MONTH!
* It’s the ENTIRE EPA budget for the year EACH WEEK. Also EACH WEEK, it’s the ENTIRE budged for the Department of Labor or the Department of Commerce for the year. If you want to create jobs – perhaps we could send a few dollar their way instead?
* Every 2 Weeks it’s the ENTIRE budget of the DOE, HUD or Homeland Security.
* EVERY WEEK it’s also the ENTIRE budget of the Department of the Interior, NASA, the NSA or the SBA (oh yes, we really care about small business, don’t we?).

How can anyone doubt that there is an incredible amount of fraud taking place? These guys are not stupid, they know what it takes to fix an economy, but they've instilled in the minds of normal people what a difficult task it is when really their best interest is to keep the ponzi scheme going so they can reap the wealth of America.

We are facing problems in regards to wars (military industry), economy, and healthcare...why oh why could that be?

Well, just look at the biggest political campaign contributors by industry:

- Weapons industry
- Healthcare industry
- Energy industry
- Finance industry

All those sectors benefited from either ridiculous deregulation or "special deals" once "their" politicians got elected. And it's not just "Obama" has been bought, it's ALL OF THE POLITICIANS! Just look at who blocked the financial reform, who blocked a bill that would have prevented companies for shipping jobs abroad without paying taxes, who said we should "leave BP alone".

Politicians used to work FOR the people...now they work FOR corporations and only the people who can pay to keep them in power, the rich! Just look at the people screaming to extend the tax cuts for the rich. All those politicians soooooo eager to claim we should extend the tax cuts because the rich will kickstart the economy with that money...hogwash! The same politicians also claimed the banks would start lending again once they got bailed out...and just look how well that worked

Wanna fix the economy? Stop treating people like lesser corporations when it comes to rights. Make sure there's enough regulations in place to protect the PEOPLE.

The easiest solution would be to limit campaign durations to a month (similar to the UK), limit campaign spending to force politicians to actually focus on facts again rather than whoo people with flashy presentations and a myriad of opinionated non-factual adds, outlaw lobbyists handing out gifts to politicians once they've been elected.

This isn't a party problem, GOP, Dems, Tea Party...it doesn't matter! The whole system is broken in that corporations have total control of politicians. And since corporations only care about one thing, making money, the interest of the people takes a backseat ever since the first lobbyist paid "his" politicians a free vacation in Hawaii if he stops tougher environmental laws that are in the way of oil profits.

reply to post by mindovermatter88


I believe these "regulatory" agencies have been facilitating fraud rather than mitigating and prosecuting it to the fullest extent of the written law that created them in the first place.

All that aside, let me address social programs:

Social programs are not a terrible thing. I think there are ways of maintaining the social safety net without breaking the bank. But that is going to require that those who love their social programs so much, make a few adjustments and swallow hard the tough medicine.

Social Security and Medicare are the biggest problems on our books right now. Social Security is funded primarily through non-transferable treasury bonds issued during the Clinton Administration to the tune of 2.5 trillion dollars. The unfunded liability on those bonds comes from the interest owed on them. The problem with those bonds is that they are NOT marketable outside of the Treasury, so they are locked to whatever fate the treasury is sealing for itself. The rest of the unfunded liability comes from people rolling on to receive benefits, the increase in life expectancy, the retirement age, age of the population, workers paying in vs. people taking benefits out, so forth and so on.

The answer to this is diversified and invested personal retirement accounts, with a government insurance policy. I'm not saying gamble it away on Wall St. That's not what investment means. I'm saying that government is not a good institution to run this program and the problems with social security today are paramount evidence of that. People can get far better returns in the private sector with market based interest rates, and better yet, one can choose to opt out of the system. All of this is for new workers and younger people several decades away from retirement. The people on SS right now, and going into retirement over the next 5 years will not be affected by this change. But by the time those people die, the system will have switched over to what I have described. This way at current tax rates, the system would be maintained. But we have to act fast.

Medicare is simply a scam. They drive up costs by stifling competition. I think it should be phased out altogether over a period of 30 years. Let those who are currently in the program enjoy their current benefits, but FREEZE anymore enrollments. Defund and abolish DHS, the Dept of Education, Dept of Energy, and cut the federal workforce to pay for it. Let the states balance their books and if they want to run their own Medicare let them.

I believe most social programs we have in the states can be done better by the private sector, or local governments. States and locales have a much better understanding of their economic needs than does the federal government with their one size fits all economies approach. The Private sector knows how to grow wealth. What we NEED is cops on the beat that will nip the fraud in the bud...Which means purging the political system of corruption, That's going to require a lot more anger and far more direct Free Speech.

The layoffs are already being announced or planned for. From City governments to the private sector. Firefighters and police, to convenience store workers.

Yahoo layoffs coming?

Layoffs coming at Dex One

Police Union Prepares New Officers For Possible Layoffs
LAYOFFS MAY BE COMING IN SANTA CLARA
SRNS outlines restructuring that will cut 1,400 jobs
750 Health Net workers to lose jobs in Shelton
State letters warn of layoffs
MASSIVE LAYOFFS REPORTED AT TRUMP CASINOS
Astorino’s first budget coming out Tuesday

All of this within the last two days since this post was originally made.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Rockpuck

 

I think we agree on quite a bit here. But I think Goldman Sachs, wants to devalue the dollar so they can continue their little carry-trade scams and make a huge profit... They have all the right people in place. The rest of the country can't afford their little game with the Fed:

Goldman Says Fed May Need To Print $4 Trillion To Start Inflation They don't want a few billion in monetization they want a few trillion. And they will get it.

reply to post by projectvxn


First this is an excellent post.i have been telling people ( that i know ) the same thing for quite some time.
but it seems they think that if one party or the other get in it will change.i don't think so. until what you suggest happens,i hope the majority of the people wake up to the that fact.

reply to post by reiner123


I've been a loudmouth about it for 3 years now...And my head is beginning to hurt.

Most of my friends aren't my friends anymore. I only have one friend left and that's my girlfriend. Because she has been here as I do my research.

Most people find it hard to accept these new realities of American society. But in time, they'll be knocking on my door asking me what we should do. Same will probably happen to you.

I didn't read any comments, so this may have been mentioned, but the whole Gridlock is going to be bad for the economy is a load of cr AP. "A standoff between the Obama administration and emboldened Republicans will probably block any new help for an economy squeezed by slow growth and high unemployment. Congress might also create paralyzing uncertainty for investors and businesses by fighting over taxes, deficits, health care and financial regulation."

A major reason that our economy is so uncertain and unstable is because the Obama regime is doing their best to destroy it, businesses don't know if they'll have to drop their healthcare, they don't know if the tax cuts will sunset, they don't know if there will be new taxes or regulations, and they are praying that Cap and Trade never happens, these are all Obama agenda items. They claim that fighting over these things causes uncertainty, I'd say uncertainty for them happening is far better than the certainty that they were going to destroy your business. Republicans attempting to keep this Obama agenda from further destroying the economy is supposed to make businesses more uncertain, that's a load of hogwash. Gridlock is the best thing to happen to our economy, here's why: the government never passes good legislation, their bills do nothing but make things worse, every single time, be it Republican or Democrat. So not having bills passed means that the economy can't be further destroyed, but the AP is trying to convince us that gridlock will keep positive legislation from being passed, which really just means Democrat legislation, and this will keep the corrupt politicians from helping the economy, you know...the economy that they are purposely destroying. But, as it turns out, we actually have quite a few anti-establishment true conservatives who could be helping, they're likely going to introduce bills as often as they can write them, knowing full well that it won't pass the Senate, and certainly not the veto. The MSM is trying to convince us that the Republicans are going to be at fault for the gridlock, but it's really going to be the Dems stopping the Repub bills, so it's the Dems actually standing in the way, creating gridlock, and keeping positive legislation from being passed, and keeping destructive legislation from being repealed and defunded. But yeah, our economy is already collapsed, we just haven't pushed the ACME style wooden wall over with our economy painted on it, our economy is literally being held up by nothing other than those in charge telling us that it isn't destroyed. Look at California, they're completely bankrupt, but the only thing that keeps them from being officially bankrupt is that they won't admit it, while at the same time paying something like 40 million dollars a day in unemployment and voting for the incumbents that got them there. This is also like the EU countries who are in trouble, the only reason they haven't officially collapsed is because it would destroy the EU and strong countries like Germany would even be wrecked by that.

Luckily though, we have that benevolent, world saving secret organization that wants to pay off all our debt (by giving us a different group to pay our debt to), those sweet sweet fellows, they don't even want anything in return...except your soul...mwahhahaha.

We MUST STOP feeding the WAR machine!! LOOK at the WAR machine spending right here: www.costofwar.com...

Also not continuing the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy is another. We are talking TRILLIONS by these two areas alone!!!!!!!!!!

American Debt PROBLEM SOLVED.

What is SO hard about that Washington?

This post contains the ANSWER to getting America OUT OF DEBT!!!!!!!

HELLO???

HELLO??

reply to post by projectvxn
I quit telling people a long time ago about the financial crisis or anything else for that matter,.
For me many things are clear and inevitable and I have prepared the best I can.
Many just look at you like your a few bricks short,.
So,. I stopped.
Hope you all have things in line

I remember the day I started learning about bonds. It was 3 years ago, and I was reading a NYT article on the bond market in general. It shook me to my core. The bond market was the biggest market in the world. I "knew" alot up till that point, but i didnt understand bonds. If the average american really understood how it all works, they would shudder.

I saw the writing on the wall. I stopped spending money on frivolous things. My new "toys" were an axe, or some buckshot. i started buying rice and beans here and there. What I recognized is that I was going to have expenditures in the now and the then. I have to pay my bills in the now, and prepare for then. I knew that there would be less acess,i.e. money and time to acquire needed things for then.

In the last 6 months, i have taken a 30% pay cut. i dont have that extra 25 bucks for rice or ammo.

Start now, if you havent. I dont know exactly how its gonna go down, but the important thing to know is its going to be reallly bad. Thouhgt and action now will save you many many hours of work and distress later.

Originally posted by projectvxn
reply to post by Perseus Apex

 

I'm saving gold for when I really need it. And food is ALWAYS a good investment, not just having food, but buying food commodities.

edit on 12-11-2010 by projectvxn because: (no reason given)

I already have 6 months of food and water stored, I think things are going to get pretty hairy and the Fed's recent decisions aren't going to make things any better. I'm with you on buying silver, that's my next step for sure.