We can either slam into the ground at 200 MPH or 500 MPH.

[originalpckelly]

It's your choice, but there is going to be a hard landing at some point in this nation.

The debt situation in America is much worse than it was during the late twenties. Sometimes you just cannot outrun reality.

[Fumesucker]

1. Yah, but the question is: Do we land on top of the rich or do they land on top of us? n/t

[hobbit709]

3. They have parachutes

[Fumesucker]

5. Social dissolutions can happen with startling rapidity..

There's no community of any size in the US that's more than a week away from food riots.. At the outside.

[hobbit709]

9. It wasn't the rich that were hurting after the 1929 crash.

they managed to get throgh it quite well.
It was the working class that got screwed every which way but loose.

[Fumesucker]

15. Some did, some didn't...

And Roosevelt basically set out to save capitalism from itself, things could have gotten much more violent in the US in that era than they did.

From pampered aristocracy to tumbrel riders sometimes is a remarkably short fall.

[ladjf]

28. Yes. They bought property at 5 cents on a dollar. nt

[originalpckelly]

11. You're completely correct, unfortunately.

With the just in time shipping that is used, most stores do not hold enough on hand to keep things going in an emergency situation.

[Junkdrawer]

2. It's a good thing military spending and tax cuts for the rich don't cause deficits...

Now Social Security and Medicare, there's your problem.



:sarcasm:

[originalpckelly]

4. Yeah, especially when it's been giving the government surpluses for many years.

[Junkdrawer]

12. Yes, but what are you going to do for the next 20 years?

Demand the government pay back the trust fund?

Never going to happen.

No, Social Security was OK as long as it was a net revenue generator. But now that it's payback time, it has to go.

What is great is all the political theater used to justify the cuts.

[leveymg]

6. Or, we can use a coffee cart and take back this sucker, maybe. Let's roll. . .

Really, I don't think we should be so damn passive in the face of the hijacking of the U.S. economy and government.

In fact, when this is all over, Wall St. and the Pentagon should be majorly downsized.

[woo me with science]

22. We are being played.

We are now told to be grateful for Medicare and SS cuts if the plan also includes some revenue increases. This is how far they have taken the game.

As long as we continue to rationalize and accept our own destruction because the "bad cop" would have destroyed us faster, we have no hope of stopping this takeover.

This is not a fight over the debt ceiling between Obama and Boehner. That is just the tableau we are being fed. This is a fight to the death between us and the corporate-bought oligarchy, which has infected both parties.

Follow the money.

[leveymg]

29. If it's a fight to the death, only one side is fighting. I agree - follow the money, and fight back

But, fight intelligently.

[MadHound]

7. Well, slamming into the ground at either speed is fatal,

Which is not a real encouraging thought now, is it?

[Cool Logic]

8. Regrettably, many do believe that the fedgov has the mystical powers that are required

to traverse beyond the boundaries of reality and into the realm of the supernatural.

[Junkdrawer]

10. Self Delete - Posted wrong spot.

[B Calm]

13. The choices are to go back to taxing corporations, the wealthy, end

subsidies to rich oil companies, end NAFTA, and go back to fair trade tariffs that protected American manufacturing jobs. That would be just a start!

[originalpckelly]

14. And what are you going to do about the odious debt...

that their oligarchy ran up for their own benefit?

[leveymg]

16. The same thing Jim Baker did in '87 - deflate it, and let the Asian note holders take the hit

Most people don't know about that, but the voluntary devaluation of US currency and the undelying value of bonds mostly held by the Japanese paid off much of the Cold War. It was sort of an honorable default. Look it up.

[originalpckelly]

17. And it's not the government either.

Personal debt is just outrageous.

[leveymg]

18. That also needs to be deflated. The bursting of the housing bubble was a start

Inflated costs for health care, education and excessive expectations for returns on investment on Wall St. need to be popped.

The whole damn Zeppelin -- the sectors that have plenty of cash and an ability to come back -- needs to be allowed to find its natural bottom.

[originalpckelly]

19. I don't know if deflation is really the way forward

It causes people to hoard money and makes them stop spending, which causes even more economic hardship. The best thing is to inflate our way out of the debt, thereby devaluing it, because newer dollars would be worth less than the old dollars in which the debt was originally denominated. (That's how you suck the air out of a debt in the good way.)

[leveymg]

20. It doesn't when it's done in a controlled way. The 1980s showed that.

The other thing the country needs to do is to embark on the crisis-driven rebuilding of green infrastructure which Obama promised, but never delivered because the stim was stingy. Go World War Two-style full-employment, high taxes, and austerity for the rich. Brand those who oppose it as traitors.

We would need some coalescing event to create national unity and purpose behind this. Unmask the treasons of the Bush Administration.

[grahamhgreen]

25. Tax the rich at Eisenhowers 91% rate and the DEBT is gone in ten years!!!

[originalpckelly]

27. Um, yeah, not the private debt.

And you know they're not going to like that. And they own the government.

[Igel]

30. Only if you actually make the rate stick.

Those rates produced some pretty incredible tax shelters. So incredible, that people like the Bushes, the Kennedys, and the Heinzes are still living off them.

In fact, there's a pretty good argument that the rates and shelters were in a kind of symbiosis--if not for the shelters, the rates would have been treated rather like those notorious fascists The Beatles treated them, and the money would have moved.

[Motown_Johnny]

21. I could do 200 MPH as long as there is a ramp to redirect my momentum

Of course the debt is a serious problem, but you need to look as serious problems seriously.

Social Security has a surplus of over $2 trillion right now, it has not contributed to our debt. Attacking something that has not contributed to the debt while ignoring things that have (defense spending and tax policy) is not a serious approach.



200 MPH? I can do that, as long as it is done right.

[damntexdem]

23. Or try for a soft landing atop "tax the rich."

It could be done.

[grahamhgreen]

24. OR YOU CAN RE-TAX the RICH!!!

[originalpckelly]

26. You know, it's not even about the government.

The kind of stuff that's going on in the private sector makes the government debt look puny.