So, is there really hope now?

[upi402]

Economically speaking, I mean. Can we dig ourselves out of this sand hole, of is it more like quick sand?
And if we can, how?

[CLANG]

1. Silly!

[But....]

2. Hope...

Yes...




Also tons of work:woohoo:

[Cobalt-60]

3. a qualified yes

Before inauguration day holding the line against further Bush plunder is essential.
After Inauguration Day, as much money as possible must be recovered from Bush Iraq War cronies.
Wherever it can be proved we didn't get value for money from them all funds paid them must be returned.
And military spending should be cut immediately, at least 50%.
The foreign corporations that bear the names of formerly American corporations need to be taxed like the foreign entities that they are.
If a company doesn't have its physical headquarters, funds, and production here, it's not an American company.
The tax break for off shoring jobs needs to become a savage penalty for off shoring jobs.
I'm sure there's a lot more that can be done, but it would be a start.

[GSPowner]

4. why do we want to cut 50% of our military budget

is that enough/to much? please provide imperical data and not feeling so I can undertand and get behind something like that

[phantom power]

6. I can provide a couple reasons:

1) we spend more on defense than all other nations in the world, put together.

2) We have a 10 trillion dollar debt that badly needs to start getting paid off.

3) Our two biggest budget items are (a) defense spending and (b) paying interest on our current debt.

4) We have huge infrastructure, energy, and economic problems that will all require a lot of money to fix.


If we cut defense spending by 50% we will still be spending tons of money on defense. We will free up a lot of money to start paying down our debt, and/or fixing infrastructure and putting people back to work.

[upi402]

10. The fall of the Roman Empire, Russia, US next? n/t

[GSPowner]

11. Putin back in Power???? it would seem

the demise of the USA would happen faster if we cut our defense budget by 50%....as a percentage we spend a comparable amount to the rest of the world..but that is not how we need to look at it. We need to make sure we spend what is necessary to defend us in the worst case senario...not some rosey pie in the sky ideal...and why shouldn't we...nothing has been said here to prove we dont' need a strong defense.

Check out this link...this is not a good sign. He is KGB...so does it makes sense to weaken our military with people like him in the world or China that is spending more and more every year to modernize their forces?

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081106/wl_nm/us_russia_medvedev_putin

[clixtox]

12. WE (the USA) are the world's most aggressive, intimidating country!

The USA is constantly,ceaselessly, consistently aggressive, both overtly and passively. Intimidating the rest of the world with our wasteful, corrupt and corrupting military spending is the reason that the rest of the world also devotes a significant amount of their limited resources similarly . They really need military spending for defense and too often they are as concerned, afraid, terrified, or more, about us, our government here in the USA, as they are about their more immediate neighbors.

The USA doesn't need to actually spend much on "Defense". Our only supposed enemies have usually been created by us and our hubris, consistent meddling and long history of treachery. You might need to pause here and do some critical thinking to understand the truth of this...

All right then...

With a Main $tream "Media" solely dedicated to spreading the "conventional" wisdom, which is made easily digestible with a ceaseless leavening of celebrity contretemps, ignorance is planned and expected. Actually ignorance is gleefully celebrated in many quarters, like in many "churches", and among Republicans, homophobes and racists, etc.

With a loose cannon like g.w.shrub in the White House and USAs foreign policy dictated by obviously crazed Neo-cons, it's no wonder we have "enemies". Once we pullback our military from the rest of the world, the fluctuating list of our "enemies" will totally disappear. The rest of the world isn't as crazy as our media, and those who control almost all of USA media, would prefer us to believe. No other nation would dare attack us.

For what?

We, as a nation, have a well deserved international reputation as being violent, heartless, brutal, war- criminals, greedy and vindictive. Our true, horrible nature is artfully hidden beneath a thin veneer, a glossy patina, of good deeds.

Fortunately!

Otherwisw USA citizen tourists possibly would be in danger while traveling to civilized countries aware of our persistent perfidy.

Think!

Don't believe any of the propaganda you read and see on TV.

"Journalism is publishing what someone doesn't want us to know, the rest is propaganda." -Horacio Verbitsky, journalist in Argentina(b. 1942-)

[GSPowner]

17. so let me get this straight...

You area saying we have created this environment...and that Russia and China are not really as bad as we think or as bad as we are told, in fact they are solely responding to US agression. So then if we cut our military spending, close bases, stop trying to influence them we will see Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Venezuela do likewise and they will stop their agression and their military spending...and in short the majority of the world that hates us will then begin to like us...

What of Isreal? Seems like if we do that then the whole bunch would then bee free to run rough-shod over Isreal...right?

Just curious how have you arrived at this conclusion? are you privy to classified information about US activities and foreign intentions or is this just a philosophical perspective and reasoning you have developed through historical and philosophical analysis?

[clixtox]

18. What aggression?

You wrote. "we will see Russia, China, North Korea, Syria, Iran, Venezuela do likewise and they will stop their agression(sic)".

I am not aware of any aggression perpetrated by any of these countries you listed in recent history, say the last 60 or so years except perhaps the former USSR getting bogged down in Afghanistan while fighting our proxies at that time the "Taliban". Can you list some/any of these countries recent aggressions for me?

The total number of aggressive military acts, if any have occurred at all, by all of these nations you list pales in any comparison to the multitude of war-crimes we, the USA, have done in Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, Panama, Grenada, the Sudan, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Paraguay, Chile, Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan and others in just the last six+ decades, my lifetime. Even the God-less USSR never dropped an atomic bomb on civilians or ever literally blew up two large cities.

The USA has been both hubs of the "axis of evil" for a very long time, for sure since we brutally decimated most of the original inhabitants of North America.

The first of the genocides we have so self-righteously perpetrated.

Israel (a before e, FYI) is another renegade state, like the USA who can take care of themselves despite creating the enmity surrounding them needlessly.

I can imagine that you would be curious about how I arrived at my conclusions!

Classified information?

What a joke! The citizens of the USA are those who the "classified" information must not be divulged to, our supposed enemies already know what is happening. It is us who are kept in the dark about what is actually going on in the world. Really!


I use the agile brain that I have developed through paying attention while hearing the lies/propaganda and speaking the truth while thinking critically. You probably could do the same if you don't allow yourself to take the easy way and be one of the many sheeple. Up to you!

Think for yourself and read, read, read almost anything, especially different perspectives than those out and out lies spoon fed to you be the craven M$M.

Three posts in one thread, a new record for me! Now you know, or not!

By the way. What is the GSP that you own??

[GSPowner]

20. so you like GSPs huh?

Well I have to respectufully dissagree with you on most of what you wrote as I see us working with our allies to protect theirs and our interests...I will provide a list but to be accurate but it will take some time and compile it...but Vietnam Korean, and the recent Georgia conflict comes to mind. As far as Iraq...the UN is simply worthless...they pass a lot of "paper" 17 different condemnations/junk for Iraq and that didn't work.

Dropping a nuclear bomb does not mean the US is anything you are claiming we are. It was a war and we needed to defeat an enemy that attacked us. Saying they would have done the same while probably true is not much of an agrument, however when you engage in a war with another contry it is not the goal to tie.

One of the things we get hammered for it seams is that when we respond with force it is has tended to be swift and overwhelming and we are hated becasue it was not in proportion..."pashaw"...war is not a "tit for tat" kind of thing. My only regret with Afganistan is that the Tora Bora Mountains are still standing. Sorry but you cant talk sense in to people like Bin Laden, Hitler, Mao, Akmadinijad,...they won't "play nice" if we simple leave them alone. We have allies and we have commitments to them. We seem to have made some progress with NK but we shall see. Akmadinijad continually calls for the destruction of one of our closest ally not someone we can sit down and have a rational conversation with...not calling to bomb him but certainly talking to that guy is not a smart thing to do. That will only ligitmize him and his ideals.

But it does seem we have a mutual interest in dogs. I have two. A Roux and a speckeled...Impressive Remington Roux and Nutmeg both female...it has been so long I can not remember her full name right now as we call her "Meg". We love hunting and spending time flushing and running up birds. Meg is 7 years old this December and Roux is 1.5 years.

[jman0]

39. Ahmadinejad never called for the destruction of israel

I'm tired of seeing this nonsense repeated.
It was a politically manipulated translation you got.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mahmoud_Ahmadinejad_and_Israel#.22Wiped_off_the_map.22_or_.22Vanish_from_the_pages_of_time.22_translation

[eridani]

15. Yes, we need a "strong" defense. But what does it have to be strong enough to actually do?

I'd say fuck dominating the rest of the world by military force, for starters. It isn't Russia that has 700+ military bses all over the world, nor China. Hell, the Brits and the Romans never had more than 40 or so.

[GSPowner]

21. List on military powers.

Here is a link to an estimate of the Forces thorugh out the world. 3 of the top 5 countries are not our best friends and had doctrins of global expansion at one time and have grown their military forces. At one time Iraq was in the top 5 as well. The goal with a military force it to provide a deterance...and we must keep our military strong and current with do so.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_size_of_armed_forces

Of the top 20 there are only about 4 fairly democratic countries, USA, Germany, France, Republic of Korea (South Korea)...the others are either Communists, dictators or heavy handed monarchies, or possibly psudo-democracies with weak governments. I'd rather be in our position than in a weaker one.

[eridani]

22. How does focusing on the defense of our actual territory make us "weak"?

The Soviet Union gave up all its bases in Eastern Europe because they couldn't afford them. China has never had any foreign military installations other than in Tibet, an adjacent neighbor. What can any of these powers actually do to us if we close 80% of our foreign outposts?

What in HOLY FUCK is the justification for such institutions as AFRICOM or SOUTHCOM? Name a single country in South America or Africa that has the capacity to invade us.

[GSPowner]

23. you go it all figured out dont you...

your arrogance is incredible and your language base...

[eridani]

25. Care to answer the question about what threats any country in South America

--or Africa poses to us? We need a military to defend our territory. Focusing on domination of the rest of the world distracts us from that essential task.

Russia: big country with nukes, therefore we'll have to match that with our own capacity. Unilaterally gave up imperial domination of eastern Europe, and most of the czarist empire as well.
China: no navy. Since they got their pinkies slapped good by Vietnam ca. 1000 AD and then in 1979 have pretty much left southeast Asia alone. Tibet is the only addition to their territory for the last 1200 years or so.
Iran: it and its predecessors have not waged an aggressive war since the Sassanid dynasty of the 9th century.
Other significant powers: all on our side, more or less.

So WTF is up with the 700+ military bases?

[GSPowner]

26. Military and other knowledgable people

know our military needs and generally not civilians...we also have treaties and alliances we need to fulfill...the idea is not to weaken our military to match our enemies but to be more powerful and crush them. The USSR gave up because they could not keep up with the US economic and military machine.

China and Russia are growing again by the way and I would not presume I know more than the people who have the experience and knowledge. Iran has called for the destruction of Isreal along with nearly every other militant muslim in the world...NK has built a nucler weapon, credible evidence that Iran is on the path... I think there are others more qualified to justify our bases and our military needs, and what we need to do to fulfill our commitments.

[eridani]

27. What if we destroy ourselves by spending the country into oblivion first?

I don't think we need to be massively more powerful than potential adversaries; we just need to be able to prevent them from attacking us.

I don't see why Iran shouldn't become a nuclear power (not that there is any evidence at all of their imminent success). Iraq was not a nuclear power and we destroyed the infrastructure of their society. NK had credible progress on becoming a nuclear power and was left alone. What lesson does that teach? Iran is surrounded by the nuclear powers of India, Pakistan, Russia, China and Israel, and has never waged aggressive war for many centuries. There is nothing they could conceivably do to Israel that wouldn't result in their own total obliteration. It's bullshit to regard simply being an obstacle to our dominance as some sort of a threat.

[GSPowner]

29. Iran and China have a vested interest in

The nuclear aspirations of Iran so of course they don't care...they are making billions off of them. They had an 8 year war with Iraq if I remember correctly and are horribly oppressive to their people and any foreigner that has a different perspective or religion. They are also calling for the destruction of Israel and they also supported Hamas and Hezbollah when they kidnapped the Israeli soldiers and supplied them with weapons.

And why would dwe want to be second to anyone in military power when there are countries that hate us and are calling their follower to wage holy war on us and our allies in Europe and again Isreal...remember the idea is not to even out the military forces but to be superior.

I get the idea you favor unilateral deconstruction of our military to where we are even with Russia or China or who everelse that may pose some threat...if that is the case that sounds rather foolish.

[eridani]

30. I am in favor of a military that is for defense and not domination

The Iran-Iraq war was an invasion of Iran by Iraq, encouraged by the emirates, Europe and the US. They are vastly less oppressive to their people than Saudi Arabia is, and our aggressive posture toward Iran just empowers religious whackjobs like Adjmenidad. Conservative religious whackjobs are always empowered by real or threatened attacks--have you forgotten the Bush approval ratings after 9/11 already?

So what if they support Hezbollah? Israel created Hezbollah in the first place by invading Lebanon in the 80s. Both Israel and Hezbollah have been doing kidnappings off and on for 20 years (and then doing kidnapee swaps)--as a causus belli a kidnapping is just a bunch of bullshit. Israel was also one of the early supporters of Hamas, which started as an Islamic charitable aid dispensing organization. They were hoping to promote a split among Palestinians, pitting their Muslim majority against their Christian minority. People whose policy is domination of others by force deserve anything that happens to them as a result IMO. Our own domination games in Afghanistan in the 80s created the Taliban and Al Qaeda. If we would just have stayed the hell out of everyone else's business, none of the resulting bad things would have ever happened.

Why do we have to be superior? You merely assert this without giving any rational justification for it.

[GSPowner]

32. ....

It is illogical to blame all of today’s problems on the past. Your ideological argument is flawed and naïve. It also presumes you have powers of seeing into the future. While we may not have a lot of today’s problems we would have others. Who is to say they would be better or worse. Instead of finger pointing an dbalming we need to focus on how to extract ourselves from our current problems with out making things worse for US the USA. I am not so concerned about everyone else…USA 1st our allies 2nd and everyone else is last if that.

It is pretty clear that we need to be superior economically and militarily, the world is full of bad guys looking to make a name.

Would your question asking why we need to be superior imply that if we were equal the world would be safer for the USA? It surely seems to say we need to do as much.

[eridani]

35. A world full of Swiss-style citizen armies would be the safest possible world

If we spend ourselves into oblivion trying to dominate the rest of the world, that is not safety. You still haven't said why superiority = safety.

[GSPowner]

36. idealistic nonsense...you will never get the world to go along

Strength in numbers... It would be stupid going to a gun fight with a stick...

[eridani]

37. The Swiss have a fully modern army and airforce

They aren't using sticks. Explain why we need 700+ military bases all over the world. Why is there such a thing as Southcom or Africom? Name a country in South America or Africa that could credibly attack us.

[OwnedByFerrets]

34. Because that money is not spent on lasting goods or services...

when you build a bullet and it is used, its usefulness is gone forever. When you, instead, build infrastructure like bridges and schools, the usefulness is counted in dozens of years. The money that is being spent on "defense" MUST be used for infrastructure.

[upi402]

9. I agree

My hope is that Obama will begin many many investigations with the power of confiscation, punitive recovery, and federal penitentiary time for crimes.

A tracking of the pile of money visible from space would help refill out depleted treasury too.

[Warpy]

5. Yes, but it's not going to happen for a while

because it requires the total destruction of the silly supply side theories of 40 years of conservative rule from both parties.

This economy won't progress toward health until and unless the demand side of the equation is finally addressed.

[phantom power]

7. There's surely more hope than if McCain had won...

But a lot of damage has been done. Still being done. To me the big win is that we at least elected somebody who is reality-based, and might be able to help solve our huge problems.

And we still have to live with our current govt until Jan 20th. Gonna be a long three months.

[JohnWxy]

8. We have to be like the Chinese. IF everybody picks up a rock and totes it over and add's it to the

pile and keeps doing and doing that - eventually they built the Great Wall without heavy equipment. If you just never say die and keep on pluggin' you'll be amazed what people can do.

......OH YEAH, one more thing ...


...... KEEP THE REPUBLICANS OUT OF POWER!!!


(that last part is essential).

[Art_from_Ark]

13. I was talking to a Japanese banker the other day

She said that the Japanese bankers she knew had absolutely no idea what steps Obama might take with regard to the economy. So she predicted that the American economy would be like a rudderless lifeboat for at least the next 3-6 months.

[clixtox]

14. Japanese bankers? I am not surprised they are reticent to opine...

They have been trying unsuccessfully to recover from somewhat similar credit meltdown and confidence deficit for over 15 years!

Their "prime rate" has hovered around 1% or less for over a decade.

A lot of the overly exuberant "investors" in the recently ended commodity boom used borrowed yen to finance their positions and as their situation unwinds or crashes the demand for yen to square up has made the yen the strongest currency lately.

[Morpheal]

16. Economic Reform : More Than Another Flip Of A Vanishing Coin ?

Economic Reform : More Than Another Flip Of A Vanishing Coin ?

Anyone may reproduce, copy, publish and distribute this article by any means, and is in fact encouratged to do so.

Along with plans for economic reform, now being discussed by EU leaders, and about to include the United States, there is more need for change. We already know that the most fundamental change in economic thinking is one that must abandon the dialectic conflicts that plagued the world for nearly a century. Dialectic is likenable to blind faith in a religion. Dialectic conflict over ways and means, methods and principles, must be abandoned in favour of a purely scientific, economic fact based, analytical, rational, economic pragmatism that is fully intent on serving real human needs. However there is need for more change. That is not all that is necessary.

We must remember the viciously cyclical patterns and common methods used for remedy and control of the faith based capitalism that America has continued to blindly push, stalwartly upholding a dialectical position, in conflict with all other ideas other than its own, have continuously eroded savings and pensions, seriously weakening or even cutting many financial lifelines. Reduced prime interest rates always mean less interest paid on whatever might be saved, further damaging and cutting those vital lifelines. With Wall Street type investments, and even the most expertly managed mutual funds that represented them, having proven largely a failure, providing only repeated losses, negating gains and often depleting the original capital invested, the average worker has little, if any recourse. Confusion, emotional pain and abject terror of what the economic system, as it exists, is doing to the means accumulated and meant to grow for the sake of provision for sickness, old age, and other significant human needs, have increasingly become the rule rather than the exception. This needs to change. We might well wonder if Barack Obama was thinking of that need for change when he said "change has come to America".

Compounding this difficult issue is the fact that a large percentage of workers have become "independent" of corporate pensions, benefits and paid vacactions. They have been made into "contractors", forced into nomadic instability moving from company to company, and expected to save themselves. Many have no salvation. They are cursed to the same cycles of losses, the vicious cycles of the economic system, and though they may be expert in their own fields of work, they cannot be expected to become financial Wall Street wizards in addition to whatever other skills they have mastered. Enough to be incessantly searching for additional opportunity to use what they know and can build upon without searching for Wall Street's "truths".

Corporations, big business and medium business, has largely moved away from running pension fund investments. They have tacitly agreed that neither they nor the financial geniuses whom the banks and other investment institutions employ, really know how to reliably build a pension fund to provide for the needs of their employees. They have given up the ghost on it and the largest number of pension funds are merely "self investment" with "matching contributions" cashed towards what then becomes a dwindling pot, self managed by the worker who is then personally responsible for his or her own failure to be a Wall Street genius. We might wonder if Barack Obama has a plan for change that will provide a reliable means to restore real pensions and real provision for old age. A plan for real and adequate old age security, sufficient for a quality standard of living, rather than a tumble down into near destitution. Has "change" really come to America ?

Certainly we all know of instances where someone has had an inside tip, and we all suspect the role of insider trading having grown by leaps and bounds, because some still seem to make a killing while the average person simply cannot figure any of it out. We might wonder if Barack Obama meant to change this growing fact of economic life when he said "change has come to America".

Yes, there is the need for change. The rest of the world cannot wait for change to come to America, and to prove itself there. The world must move ahead, shaking loose from the brutal consuming jaws of continued dialectic, where one system strives to murder another, by any means. It is dialectic itself that must end. A rational, fact based, rule governed, scientific economics, can be created such that it serves real human needs and ends the terror that otherwise continues to grow and to consume the human spirit, its hopes and plans, its todays and its tomorrows.

Change must come to the world, not only to America.

Robert Morpheal

[dhpgetsit]

19. Recovering from this recession will take some time.

Our economy is like a huge ship. It can't quickly turn around and reverse directions. But I think it is useful to study how we got out of the Great Depression. Many people will say that WWII was what lifted us out, but I believe it was FDR and the New Deal.

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/Causes.htm

I suggest we launch a program like the CCC to build green power infrastructure. This will not only provide jobs but also improve our economic security and Independence. CCC projects included bridges, highways and dams that are still paying dividends to this day. The Cons will whine about the cost, but the real cost is in NOT investing in infrastructure.

[upi402]

24. or the NRA

National Recovery Administration of 1933;

"The NRA allowed industries to create "codes of fair competition," which were intended to reduce "destructive competition" and to help workers by setting minimum wages and maximum weekly hours. It also allowed industry heads to collectively set minimum prices."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Recovery_Administration

[cabluedem]

28. I am with you on that idea 100 percent.

[barb162]

31. If everything is done right, it will take several years to get back

where we were when we were prosperous. There's lots of toxicity in this economy and I don't just mean housing.

[ozone_man]

33. In the short term, no.

In the long term, I hope so.

The short term problem is that we're entering into a deep recession/depression and will have little money to fund some off the programs that we need. We have spent foolishly, like wars with Iraq and Afghanistan, and bailing out Wall Street. Things that Democrast voted for as well as Republicans.

Yet, there is some hope for reducing the severity and duration of the economic recession/depression. An FDR program (New Deal II) will be required to accomplish that, rebuilding decaying infrastructure and launching an aggressive renewable energy program. If we create jobs, they must have a payback, not just throwing money down a rat hole like the military. Investing in Green energy, health care, and infrastructure, education, and the environment are all sound investments short term, and have long term paybacks. So, I see this as priority number one. Implement a green energy plan like Gore's, an aggressive 10 year plan. Implement national health care. Cut the military in half.

[TomClash]

38. PRINT MONEY nt

[GliderGuider]

40. Maybe not.

There is a good chance that global economic activity will reset to a much lower level over the next decade, and may never recover to its current level. I know that seems incomprehensible to many, but I think it's a supportable argument.

Current discussions of recovery fail to take into account the worsening global energy situation (aka Peak Oil, happening now), the fact that the USA imports two thirds of its oil (making it extraordinarily vulnerable to the draining of the international oil market) and the fact that you have decimated your manufacturing capacity. Any economic recovery needs two things -- cheap, plentiful energy and the means to turn that energy into economically valuable stuff. At the moment the USA does not have the latter, and the former will keep becoming more scarce as time goes by.

[Hawkowl]

41. Hope of pain not death

Obama means I will no longer plan on fleeing the country. His election doesn't mean that I think we will be able to avoid a depression. It does mean that I think we will be able to eventually recover in about 4-6 years. If you lose your job;and you are uneducated or underskilled or can't adapt, you are in for a world of hurt.

[leftofthedial]

42. maybe we can hope that things don't get too much worse

but they probably will

[JohnWxy]

43. If it were left up to just you - would you send an email to Washington?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=114x47979#47990


If the domestic auto industry goes under because of the Credit Catastrophe you can be sure the whole economy is going down.

Or you can just sit there and watch it happen to you: Song of a (former) Freemarketeer