Global Economic Crisis...

[David Collard]

So sad, this mess. Our forefathers would be rolling in their graves.
Wall Street types never got the firing squad because most of them are running the country.
You can't shoot management.
Venerable banks like Washington Mutual go belly up in a decade after a long history of diligence.
Greenspan kept rates too low for too long and added to the greed around the world.

At the end of days, Jim and the Red team could still feel proud of actually creating something and helping all of us.

 

[Andrae Palmer]

Without debt, there wouldn't be a U.S. -- the colonies went into debt to fight the American Revolution and Lincoln went into debt to preserve the Union. Debt is an aspect of basic reality, of economics and business. People go into debt to create companies, upgrade equipment, etc. While I think everyone, privately and publicly, has taken the concept of "buy now, pay later" to ridiculous extremes, credit and debt have been a fundamental aspect of economies for thousands of years. When the U.S. was mainly agrarian, farmer owners were basically cash poor and did a lot of purchasing based on estimates of future profits from selling their harvest. And yes, some of them got into trouble doing that, for obvious reasons. But buying on credit per se is not intrinsically bad. And keep in mind that something like 60% of the deficit last year came from the recession and the dramatic drop in revenue, not from an increase in spending.

Yeah but we are not in debt... what we are is bankrupt. S&P is basically saying that they don't see how we can pay our debt. During our last recession we should have taken our medicine... we didn't and put ourselves in more debt which is now leading to bankruptcy. We can't print our way out of this one.

 

[rod bradley]

As usual David chimes in with good sense that’s needed in the political class -- and does exist there with a few. I think of the one man in the senate outside the party “gang” mentality, who has single-handedly been trying to bring common sense before the public -- Bernie Sanders.

Yes, our excessive financialization is an historically honored mark of “end of empire” -- along with foreign adventurism (we’ve got that aplenty) -- and a privileged ruling “let them eat cake” class -- add to this the wider the gulf between the have-mores and the have-nothings, the more unstable a culture becomes.

We’ve got it all going -- and add to that no leadership. Well-meaning, bright (but visionless and without moral gravitas or wisdom) college professor types do not make good leaders in times of crisis. (The equally incapable and in some cases
downright insane and psychotic offerings of the “fascist” party are even worse.)

This country is in far deeper trouble than is generally acknowledged.

And of course, the recent “deal” is exactly the opposite of what is needed. Although really what is needed is a transformation of the economy from a consumer economy, to a creative and making useful and sustainable tools economy, an obsolescence is obsolete economy. And of course, a sharing the wealth economy that is in tune with mother earth.

As usual, the true heros, the people actually doing something to strengthen it, are
invisible or little known -- like our own JJ.

Which gives glimmers of hope.

 

[Kalani Prince]

Unfortunately the true country was stolen long ago, today we live in a corporation based out of the district of Columbia that is called THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA <-------all caps fiction. Go ahead, fact check it to death, it's true. A lot of humans are waking up to his harsh reality and demanding their sovereignty be recognized. Here's a video that touches on this unfortunate truth.

 

[Daniel Reichenbach]

RED shows best what makes the world turns round: passion, courage, an innovative business idea and a lot of respect to there customers. Bankers and politicians, so called the etablishment, have forgotten, that we, the people (the customers) allows them to be, where they are, to do, what they do. Democracy is the art of finding the balance between individualism (egoism) and community. Now again we have a new kind of monarchy, of a two class system. This is dangerous, very dangerous because it is the perfect time for a comeback of the dump people and there tea party happenings, not only in the US but also in Switzerland. Who will stop them, who will fix that?

 

[Jeff Kilgroe]

"The final act of any administration is to loot the treasury."

...The final act of a moderator in a political thread is to close it down.