Is Wal-Mart floating America?

Originally posted by crisko
Like the original poster, I am not much of an economist, but I can tell you this; we are not almost broke.

Please allow me to break down the American economy for you, it's really quite simple. We pulled ourselves out of the great depression by removing the ideology that our money is backed by gold (the war helped too).

See, a dollar is worth a dollar, because we say it is. Foriegn investors may start selling off U.S. securities, in which case we buy them back at an inflated price, thus increasing the value again.

Now, how can we almost be broke? We control most of the oil in the world (Alaskan Reserves and Iraq). No, we are fine.

We are not at your mercy, your at ours. This may not be a good thing, but it's the truth. Do you really think we have been there (Iraq) that long and haven't pumped an ounce of Texas crude? I bet thats what you think. Those insurgent's keep blowing up the pipelines

[edit on 24-11-2004 by crisko]

Partner,

You are lost in a dream. Are you smoking Opium again?

In 2000, Wal-Mart's assets totaled more than the GDP of 155 of the 192 countries in the world, with annual sales of more than $137.6 billion.

and


Wal-Mart, which operates 3,100 stores in the U.S., had $191 billion in sales last year and employs more than 962,000 workers. It is the largest private employer in the U.S. and the world's largest retailer

The United States is not going to go bankrupt. We are bieng monopolized and given basic choices as to where we can shop or eat. THe small business is a thing of the past in any city over 200 people. Wal MArt is everywhere, and has choked the life out of the appliance man, TV Salesman, and local grocer.

Initially they lured the American public in with the "Made in America" tag line. People ate that # up. Low prices, supporting America, Credit cards, life was good in the 80's. The niniety gave baby boomers more money, and they wanted more stuff at a cheaper price. Enter Wal-MArt. YOu can go to Wal MArt and do your banking, get a hiarcut, eat dinner, shop for everything from groceries to automobile tires.

Wal-mart is not floating America, it is slowly killing it and making it dependant. Now, 7 years from now when there is nothing but Target and Wal-Mart, the prices will slowly rise. We will have no choice at that point but to pay the prices as all the small, home grown business will be gone.

Originally posted by crisko
The debt hasn't increased. Did you take inflation into account?

It's a known fact that the U.S. debt was at an all time low during the Clinton Administration, not becase he was a genious, but because it was a relatively peaceful time for the U.S.

In fact, it was the first time in over 60 years that we were not in a "war" of some sort. Conflicts, yes.

Deny ignorance okay guy?

[edit on 24-11-2004 by crisko]

And what is inflation? It is the devaluation of a currency. Nothing more nothing less. We are NOT only 8 trillion in debt. We are more like 118 Trillion in debt, which I�ve broken down in this discussion, so I�m not going to repeat myself here:

Link

The dollar is about to break, like all floating fiat money, it has no backing and thus no stability. We cannot pay back this amount of debt so confidence in our money is falling (thus a rise in the euro).

China really is addicted to exports to the United States, which is why they have been buying our dollars. However, we are approaching a time when China may feel they can survive without us. I say this because they are finally starting to raise interest rates. If they peg the Yuen to a different currency or they simply allow it to float like other international currencies�that sir is your surest sign of coming crash.

One big point about all these graphs is that they are not in same currency for all points in time! We have suffered 2 major collapses of our national currency in this country and we are about to suffer another. The collapses came about because of the use of un-backed fiat notes. The dollar (or FRN, which is what it actually is) is not our first currency by any stretch of the imagination.

Oh, and I do believe we'll get along fine once we resturcture the nation's currency back to a silver or gold based base. The world will not end with the collapse of the dollar.

companies governments and others stop free trade stop out sourcing.the only way to have a good job is to keep it.sharing is good but share half.companies doing this practice well they need out sourcing taxes. so to stop them from running away from paying there workers.walmart is nice and all that but someone has to bring those prices down.time for price freezes.the world is going broke fast.we cant keep up to all this greed.greed starts wars kills people and makes the world a bad place to live in. greedy = outsourcing = no money = unhappy human race.we know where it goes from there......

Originally posted by Psychoses


Polar Bear shows this to be incorrect so you come straight back with links to the CIA showing that US has the largest economy in the world which is a totally different thing altogether.



It still doesn't change the fact that the U.S is virtually bankrupt.

UH Wrong!


The United States is still the worlds largest exporter, the CIA numbers were from 2003, that is EXPORT VALUES

[edit on 24-11-2004 by edsinger]

esdad71 - I wont comment on bits and pieces of what you said because the whole damn post was garbage.

MrNice - What is backing the Euro?
and the US cant and wont go back to gold or silver, becaus there isn't enough gold to back all the money out there.

[edit on 24-11-2004 by Murcielago]

Originally posted by edsinger
The United States is still the worlds largest exporter, the CIA numbers were from 2003, that is EXPORT VALUES

Of course, the CIA wouldn't lie to the american people...

LOL

DE

Muceuhhh whatever.. Try please to take apart anything I said or quoted. Not sure what your short statement meant except that maybe you could not come up with a comprehensive responsive. Why the attack, are you a Wal Mart greeter?




[edit on 24-11-2004 by esdad71]

The dollar sell-off has gathered pace over the week as concerns over the US's twin deficits combined with talk the Russian Central Bank is reviewing the structure of its currency reserves away from the US currency. hit by signs that central banks in Russia and elsewhere could step up sales of the ailing US currency to buy euros.

also..

More broadly, it's a shock to the global economy. Sunday in Germany, officials from the Group of 20 industrial and major developing countries called for the United States to cut its federal deficit, which is seen as a key factor in the dollar's fall.

The dollar is sinking,given, but gold is very powerful in the market right now, so what gives with the remarks?

Originally posted by boogyman
Just out of curiousity what exactly are our exports? I'm just a little puzzled because as a nation what do we produce domestically (other then bad music:lol

? most major manufacturing jobs are sent overseas.

Heres something made in the US you might not have thought we made, here every BMW X5 and Z4 at the only BMW factory in the US. So if you drive either of those cars they were made in the US.

www.bmwusfactory.com...

The German HK USP 40 Compact Pistol and soon armies new service rifle at Heckler & Koch Gun Plant in Columbus, Ga


www.conway.com...

fine German tech made right here in the US China can keep the toy making
jobs.

and Honda, and Toyota, and even Mercedes Benz builds components now in its's Diamler Chrysler plants. All foriegn companies employing Americans nad exporting cars. It is actually cheaper for Toyota to build and export back for sale.

Ok, fine, i'll pick it appart.

71 dad or something
We are bieng monopolized and given basic choices as to where we can shop or eat.

There are more food resturants and other shopping stores then ever, so in other words, "we have a bigger selection".

THe small business is a thing of the past in any city over 200 people.

Not true, small businesses are a bigger part of our econmoy then ever before, but yes, there is less Mom & Pop stores.

Wal Mart is everywhere, and has choked the life out of the appliance man, TV Salesman, and local grocer.

wrong again, walmart hires poeople to fill those rolls, and nearly everytown still has a local grociery store to go to. Like them or not they hire a LOT of people.

Wal-mart is not floating America, it is slowly killing it and making it dependant

Are you talking about America dependant on Wal-mart, or Wal-mart dependant on out-sourcing? America will never fully rely on one store, people like choices, I know several people who dont go to wal-mart because they view it as Un-American, I go there every now and then but its certainly not my favorite store, and not just because they make all there products in Asia, its because the store is so F-ing big that its hard to find the # your looking for.

BTW - I dont think they give haircuts. (ahhh, yet), ares has a freaking Mcdonalds in it, it seems that wallmart is trying to compete with the malls.

Originally posted by astroblade
you must be a pretty ignorant person Torus, to make such blanket statements. i suggest you take on the motto of this website and go do some real research. perhaps even get past that "america sucks" mentality oh so many brain-washed canadians have.

Why dont you take your mentality and get past it. Just because someone else notices something about the way we are living and how it is
SCREWING us, doesn't mean they hate us. WHERE in his post were ANY of his comments UN American??????

I am not writing a manifesto, but attempting to ask people to please stop and take a look. Yes, there are other places to go to shop, but a mom with 3 kids can go to Wal MArt and do everything in one stop now. We as a nation have become VERY dependant on going to the local supermarket to find food and water and toiler paper and doing it in the most time efficient manner so Americans can go home and watch "AMerican Idol' and FOXnews and order delivery pizza.

There are more food resturants and other shopping stores then ever, so in other words, "we have a bigger selection".

not more choices, just more buildings with the same stuff.....

San Walton�s own autobiography where he makes no apologies for driving hundreds of family-run stores out of business, "What happened was as inevitable as the replacement of the buggy by the car," he says. "Some people try to turn it into this �Save the Small-Town Merchant�s deal, like they were whales or something that has a right to be protected." The same article quotes a survey from the state of Iowa examining the impact of Wal-Mart�s arrival. "Since Wal-Mart arrived, 50 percent of Iowa�s clothing stores had shut down, along with 30 per cent of the hardware stores, 26 percent of department stores, 25 percent of DIY stores." The article stresses that the impact which Wal-Mart has already made on communities in the US is beginning to be felt in countries such as UK, since Wal-Mart has become the new owner of Asda, one of the largest UK supermarket chains.

or this


www.wal-martchina.com...



People choose convienence over preference, you said it your self in your post, knowing you could get something you wanted from Wal Mart. and

I go there every now and then but its certainly not my favorite store, and not just because they make all there products in Asia, its because the store is so F-ing big that its hard to find the your looking for.

Wal-Mart offers banking, optometry, nails, hair, pictures, McDonalds, credit cards and one stop shopping.....

[edit on 24-11-2004 by esdad71]

[edit on 24-11-2004 by esdad71]

[edit on 24-11-2004 by esdad71]

One Wal-mart is a company that employs lots of people and is basically no different than a mall with less options on items. Wal-Mart like K-Mart is the early 80-90's offer basically the same items and we heard all this crap before in regards to K-Mart.So now Wal-Mart isnt hurting anything, I buy odds and ends at Wal-Mart, but my clothes are all from various fashion stores, my food from a supermarket and various other locations. Inflation is also defined as increase in price of general goods and services in a aeconomy. It happens all the time and it balances out our market.
Anyone that thinks America is broke is out of their mind, assets count in a company and a nations economic standing and we have more assets than any other nation on earth. Money while it may be a portion is not seen as a whole in a debt related status. The US has lived throughout its history in Debt and while it may seem high now, it ALWAYS is at times of war and when we make broad governmental changes. We had large debts after WWI, WWII and Vietnam.
Anyone that thinks America is broke is losing it. We have 5% unemployment in a nation of 300m +. While we may be losing Mom and Pop stores(that actually started in the early 70's) we are gaining more small industrial business'. Our debt may be large, but it is no larger than at other periods throughout our history, the only reason it seems more apperant now is the internet and the hating of America crowd that will say any propaganda without either knowing the facts or intentionally trying to mislead. Dont forget law of demand, if America was broke our consumers would stop spending. They have not.

"Wal-Mart offers banking, optometry, nails, hair, pictures, McDonalds, credit cards and one stop shopping..... "

Wal-Mart does not own these companies other than the credit they offer and the pictures which is no different than any other large retail chain that offers similiar items. Almost every store offers credit cards. So in terms Wal-Mart is laying out leases for more business to be opened inside of them, thats leasing, not owning which is a large difference.

[edit on 24-11-2004 by Dreamz]

Just one thing to add, the US is fine, but when the US consumer stops spending , the world goes into recession.


what are the US assets?

over 350 trillion?

Billionaires of the world agree the US is the place to be

Number of Billionaires

USA=269
Japan=29
Germany=28
France=15
UK=12
Saudi Arabia=8
China=1

www.forbes.com... 001/charts.jhtml?passListId=10&passYear=2001&passListType=Person

[edit on 24-11-2004 by ShadowXIX]

Originally posted by ShadowXIX

The German HK USP 40 Compact Pistol and soon armies new service rifle at Heckler & Koch Gun Plant in Columbus, Ga


www.conway.com...

fine German tech made right here in the US China can keep the toy making
jobs.

Sweet

Good move for H&K, Columbus is a hop, skip and a spit from where I am. Columbus GA might just become the next Atlanta, a lot of room to grow. Maybe that can come up with more plants that make stuf you can't buy in Wallyworld.

Found this thread in my log files. The graphs edsinger posted aren't "straight from the US Treasury," they're straight from my site.

The National Budget, Debt & Deficit - MarkTAW.com

I took the numbers from places like the treasury, but did the number crunching myself, and I wouldn't mind some credit for the work I did, edsinger. I added watermarks to the graphics so future hotlinkers will at least know what domain they're from.

The debt has been increasing steadily since we paid down the debt from WWII (to a reasonable level), and that includes inflation. Clinton got the *deficit* down, but did little to pay off the debt. The economy helped a lot there - boom economy = more tax revenue.

The government always pay it's debts, and they can always float more debt to pay off the old debt, or they can reduce spending. In 1997 or so Congress closed down parts of the government for a few days to pay off old debt obligations.

There is a major difference between US Government debt and the Trade deficit. Let's take these things one at a time.

The US Government won't go broke. Even though our economy isn't that great, they still get tons of tax revenue, and they can cut down on spending to pay off the debt if they're having trouble floating new debt.

America the country isn't about to go broke. Read some financial statements from some of our mega corporations like Wal Mart, Citigroup, Microsoft and so on. None of these companies are about to go broke, so who's going broke?

People have a hard time differentiating between the economy and the government's fiscal policy. Wal Mart imports from places like China. The Government borrows money from places like China. The two are related, but they're not the same. And, incidentally, I don't think it's a coincidence. The former CEO of Citigroup was helping determine economic policy with China.

A devaluation of the dollar could be a good thiing in some respects - our products will become more attractive in the world marketplace because they're cheaper. Sure imports will be more expensive, but more people will be buying our exports. Funny thing is, a few years ago this is exactly what everyone wanted - more expensive imports so locally made products can be more competitive. Now that it's happening, everyone is yelling "the sky is falling" for precisely the opposite reason they were yelling "the sky is falling" then.

On the other hand, for the government, a declining dollar means the interest we pay on the debt is less attractive, so we'll may have to raise interest rates to keep other countries interested, but that assumes all of the government's debt is to other countries, not all of it is, a lot of it is to people & companies within the US.

Going back on the gold standard isn't going to help us. Nobody cares that they can't turn in their dollars for gold as long as they can turn in their debt for dollars.

Let me share a little secret with you. The US economy & the global economy are always on the brink of complete disaster. Doom sayers have been predicting a complete and utter failure of our economy system since the end of the great depression.

I'm also guessing at least some of you saw the Frontline special Is Wal Mart Good for America. If not, you should watch it (and probably read my debt article) before returning.

Doesnt the states have around a 10 trillion dollar a year economy? With that much business going on the world would have to continue to lend the states money even if they didnt want to. Imagine if what happened with Mexico in teh 80's happened to the states, would be a disaster. Also the devaluation of the US dollar i would guess has been planned. It doesnt take a genious to figure out that a country with a lower valued dollar would be able to be more competitive on a manufacturing and exporting level (look and us in canada and china). China does it one purpose and the the french do it for us . Of course this is all speculation.