What can the United States do to avoid this economic collapse?

[Deja Q]

http://www.thepropheticyears.com/comments/Imminent%20Danger%203%20-%20Economic%20collapse.htm

She should not have gotten into this situation in the first place. All people and nations must live within their means. The U.S. is now so far into debt that the collapse is probably unavoidable. To now drastically curtail spending or increase taxes to lower debt would only bring about the depression and economic collapse sooner than doing nothing. As I said, the only way out of this is through growth. Nevertheless, I simply do not see that kind of growth over the next twenty-five years unless the nation returns to God.


There is one other way that the coming economic collapse can be delayed and that is to do what the globalist banker loan sharks want. They want us to let in 100 million more young immigrants who will help pay the unfunded liabilities that are coming due to support the old. This may be the real reason why the government is doing nothing to stop the millions of immigrants from entering the U.S. legally or legally. Next, when the U.S. becomes much like Mexico the loan sharks will push for the creation of the North American Union. Of course when that happens the American Constitution will be dead and everyone will be slaves of the loan sharks.

Article has more. Agree or not, it's at least an interesting read.

[Selatius]

1. Step 1: End the war and slash the Pentagon Budget by 2/3rds.

The Pentagon got 600+ billion for Fiscal Year 2006.

Step 2: Let Bush's tax cuts on the top 10 percent of income earners expire.

Step 3: Raise income taxes on the top 1 percent of income earners and drop them for the bottom 90 percent, especially for working poor and lower middle class people.

Step 4: Get out of NAFTA and abandon the Washington Consensus in favor of fair trade that embraces labor rights and environmental protections. Fair trade should replace free trade, and the president should not have fast track authority to OK these trade agreements without the consent of the Senate. Workers on both sides should get a fair deal.

[Deja Q]

3. Hmmm

Step 1 - Calculated military spending is necessary. It should not be dismantled, but it shouldn't be given bloated budgets to be mindlessly squandered.

Step 2 - agreed. This is not a tax increase, but the replacement of taxes removed under the guise it would help everyone. It has not helped everyone, and nobody was hurting during the times those 'cuts' were made.

Step 3 - disagreed. This could cause a halt or collapse. We need more people in the US economic system, which means jobs and everybody using their talents to make money. As it's been claimed those getting the best of the tax cuts would in turn create jobs because they had more money to spend, it will not hurt America to reincorporate more American jobs. We both know how unemployment figures are tabulated, and they are not whole figures.

Step 4 - agreed. With more countries now on level ground with equal technology, we can rescind a lot of what is happening and engage in fair trade once again. This, to my current understanding of economics, would hurt absolutely nobody.

[Selatius]

6. I disagree with your response to step 1 and step 3.

The US could afford to only spend 250 billion on the Pentagon and still outstrip the next nearest military spender on the planet by several factors, and no nation would be dumb enough to invade a country with thousands of nuclear warheads. In fact, military spending came down to such levels during the Clinton years, and terrorism by the likes of Al Qaeda is mainly, as John Kerry posited, a law enforcement problem, not a military one.

The notion that giving rich people more money so that they'll spur economic growth by creating more jobs sounds to me like a reiteration of supply side theory in the 1980s or the older version of trickle down economics. The level of taxation of the rich in truth is likely a lot lower than that seen with working class people. Working class people do not have the financial sophistication to take advantage of the various special interest tax credits that the wealthy enjoy. As it stands, the current tax code is actually quite regressive, taking more money from your average worker than from somebody in the top half percent of income earners. I'd like to end that mainly because the evidence gathered doesn't really support that notion, the idea of supply side economics.

A progressive tax code serves as a bulwark against heavy inequalities seen in economies with flatter tax codes, like Russia which does have a true flat tax or any number of Latin American countries. It helps to redistribute income from the upper levels down to the lower levels. The evidence gathered over the last 100 years suggests that the best way to spur economic growth is to put money into people's pockets, and the best way to do that was to use the money taxed from the rich for vocational education/community college funding and funding for higher education in general, investments in infrastructure such as mass transit and reconstruction efforts in Katrina-hit areas, and investments in the health care infrastructure of the US to alleviate the high cost of health care. Other things that help spur growth are things like the food stamp program, pell grants, research grants into the development of future technology, etc. Few could possibly deny that the longest economic expansions seen in the 1950s and 1960s had their foundations laid in the New Deal of the 1930s.

[Deja Q]

7. I miscommunicated step 3

The supply-side bait'n'switch makes a claim that by helping the top, the bottom shall benefit. My ultimate point was that it's about time the bottom starts to benefit too. There is nothing immoral or indecent for my suggesting the promises are kept. Especially as that was what was told to the American people to justify the concept.

Let me re-think about step 1...

[Selatius]

10. I don't see how dropping taxes on the bottom 90 percent and pushing it to the top violates promises?

If anything, it should be more in keeping with the social agreement that helps people out of poverty provided such proposals are revenue neutral and also take into consideration payments on the national debt and also aim for balancing the budget.

[TheFarseer]

9. you've got the basics nailed

I want to add a few details though

1. tax investment income at ordinary income rates and then make investment income (including savings accounts etc.) non-taxable for the first $1,000 as a real incentive to small savers.

2. Cut all services to illegal aliens except lifesaving surgery, not including chronic conditions.

3. Bring down healthcare costs. I have alot of ideas on this but it would take to long to list them here.

4. End no child left behind.

5. End this idiotic war.

6. Doughnut hole the tax for Medicare on wages. It ends at 90K, I believe, make from 90K to 250K tax free and then renew the tax above 250K.

7. Genetically engineer talking fish that grant wishes.

[1932]

11. #2 - making life harder for people who labor, whether immigrants or not,

isn't the solution.

We don't have to be cruel to working people in order to make the economy work better.

[Selatius]

12. As far as health care and education goes, my position is this:

For health care, I support single-payer universal health care. The government will act as the sole negotiating agent for all US citizens in bartering the price of prescription drugs and the cost of health care procedures, hence the term "single-payer.

For education, I propose building more schools and hiring more qualified teachers with good pay. It's gotten so bad in urban areas that if everybody there decided not to drop out, there literally would not be enough teachers and schools to house them all. This program should simply replace NCLB. The aim here is to cut classroom sizes, which is less stressful on teachers and more helpful for students who need individual attention.

[TheFarseer]

14. NCLB money would be much better spend

on more teachers and schools like you said. I feel more local control is the best answer for an overall education policy. The local school board doesn't want their schools to be graduating dumb kids and they'll do what it takes to get their schools working.

[KharmaTrain]

2. The Similarities To Vietnam Continue...

Johnson and Nixon borrowed this country into a big debt to pay for their war...starting the inflation ball rolling...which was then followed by the oil embargo and price run-ups of the mid and late 70's. The result: double digit inflation. The same elements are in play now with even bigger troubles. Personal debt far worse now than it was 30 years ago and any major economic downturn will destroy what is left of the middle class. Look at the sub-prime mortgage crisis and you'll get an idea of how things may turn out when credit it tightened on those with bad credit.

On the other hand, the rich will hedge against the dollar...many already are. They're nutting their money away in foreign currencies and moving it off shore to avoid both the taxes and seeing their net worth shrink.

This is a very, very good article...well worth the time to read. Thank you for posting it!

[Deja Q]

4. Hmmm. If these folks are indeed abandoning America,

what is yet to come?

And as they have allowed America's government to give them incentives and tax breaks, why do they in turn compel people to go into debt?

The Bible has much of interest to say, according to this website, including:

Answer: Paul's charge to us to owe nothing but love in Romans 13:8 is a powerful reminder of God's distaste for all forms of debt that are not being paid in a timely manner (see also Psalms 37:21). Usually we think of debt in terms of a monetary obligation. But in light of the context of this entire passage (Romans 13:1-10), Paul seems to have a broader view of debt in mind (Romans 13:07). Not only does he speak of taxes, tolls, and tariffs that are imposed on us by our government, but also the respect, honor and praise we owe to those in high authority. All of us are debtors to God's grace. As He has shown us love, we need to extend love to those around us with whom we live and work - even those who tax and govern us.

Some people question the charging of any interest on loans, but several times in the Bible we see that a fair interest rate is expected to be received on borrowed money (Proverbs 28:8, Matthew 25:27). In ancient Israel the Law did prohibit charging interest on one category of loans - those made to the poor (Leviticus 25:35-38). This law had many social, financial, and spiritual implications, but two are especially worth mentioning. First, the law genuinely helped the poor by not making their situation worse. It was bad enough to have fallen into poverty, and it could be humiliating to have to seek assistance. But if in addition to repaying the loan a poor person had to make crushing interest payments, the obligation would be more hurtful than helpful.

[Sadie5]

5. SS needs a fund apart from the General Fund

Seems like the problems with SS started when SS was added to the general fund. This was done to fund the Viet Nam war. Remember Al Gore talking about thr SS trust in the 2000 election and how it should be a separate trust.

[NewJeffCT]

8. There is no economic collapse coming, unless it is worldwide

while we may go through some hard times - recession, inflation, stagflation - I don't see a collapse happening any time soon. If the US has a collapse, the rest of the world does as well - tens of millions of Chinese & Japanese will have lost their biggest export market and will be out jobs as their factories are shuttered. And, that will reverberate throughout the world.

And, if you think our $8 trillion deficit is huge, it is peanuts compared to Japan and some European countries as a percent of GDP... We'd have to be up closer to $20 trillion if we were on par with Japan. It terms of overall dollars, our is the highest by far.

[TheFarseer]

13. all you need to know

is that interest for the national debt is the third largest expense in the budget and we don't get ANYTHING in return for that - no roads, no schools, no jobs, no healthcare, no nothing. It's got to be paid off so we can spend that money on something else. Even giving it back in tax cuts would be much better than handing it to Chinese banks. I don't think anyone can deny that.

[antigop]

17. US Comptroller General David Walker on "60 Minutes"

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/03/01/60minutes/main2528226.shtml?source=search_story

>>
When the stock market plunges like it did this week, everyone pays attention. The man you're about to meet says hardly anyone is paying attention to what really threatens our financial future. Like an Old Testament prophet, David Walker has been traveling the country, urging people to "wake up before it's too late."

But David Walker is no wild-eyed zealot. As Steve Kroft reports, David Walker is an accountant, the nation’s top accountant to be exact, the comptroller general of the United States. He has totaled up our government's income, liabilities, and future obligations and concluded the numbers simply don’t add up. And he’s not alone. Its been called the "dirty little secret everyone in Washington knows" – a set of financial truths so inconvenient that most elected officials don’t even want to talk about them, which is exactly why David Walker does.
>>

[kestrel91316]

15. Want to balance the budget? Get the hell out of Iraq. NOW.

Either that, or charge a windfall profits tax on capital gains of the wealthiest 20%, and windfall profits tax on oil companies. I'm sure THAT will do the trick, too.

[elocs]

16. What "can" the U.S. do is a much different question than what "will" the U.S. do?

My guess would be to wait until the boat starts to fill with water and then take measures to bail it out in order to stay afloat for awhile longer.

[Tierra_y_Libertad]

18. The author's solution is to get back to the Bible.

From the same lunatic.

http://www.thepropheticyears.com/comments/Imminent%20Danger%20to%20the%20United%20States%20of%20America.htm

"God will bless a nation that follows him, and He has blessed the United States tremendously but America for the most part has turned her back on God. Ancient Israel was God's people but the majority of its citizens fell into corruption and God judged the whole nation and sent the whole nation into exile including the true faithful Jews within her. What then makes the United States of America exempt from judgment because it also has "some" true believers?

In this series, I will only write about the dangers that are imminent to the United States of America that should any one of them occur the impact would remove America from world superpower status. There certainly will be other events of a more regional nature like earthquakes, terrorism, local wars, storms etc. that will not significantly reduce the superpower status of the United States.

If my thesis is correct that the United States is not in Bible prophecy and is no longer a world superpower when the end time events occur, the question one might ask is how does the fall of the United States from superpower status happen? I will suggest some possible scenarios that either most do not know about or the blind optimists think can never happen to America. The imminent dangers I outline are clear and present dangers for the United States of America before the biblical tribulation.

I believe world trends, church trends and Bible prophecy indicate the great tribulation will come around AD 2020 to 2040. Thus, the dangers imminent to the United States that I am writing about span the time from now until the beginning of the end time events described by Jesus, Revelation and the prophets. Therefore, I believe one or more of the dangers described in the links below will occur in the next two decades (from 2006), unless there is a radical unforeseen change of direction in the United States of America back to the God of the Bible."