One sentence sums up what is wrong with this country

[frankcjames]

Speaking at a White House news conference, Obama said:

"We have to have a strong, effective financial sector in order for us to grow."

Which makes me wonder : "Why do we have to "grow" ?

Perhaps if we simply held a steady course for a few years we'd be better off. Instead of the Fed "growing" inflation, instead of corporations "growing" bonuses, instead of Unions "growing" salaries and instead of government "growing" wars, maybe if we had a stable economy we'd all be better off.

Why must our leaders always think of "growing" ? Can it be that "growing" has always been a fictional facade under which the 1% keep the 99% in their place ? By giving them the illusion of having something they never had ?

As in:

"Look ! You have 4% more income than you had last year". While not mentioning it will buy 2% less.

[randr]

1. To the contrary

We must have a strong, effective population in order for the financial sector to survive!

[ewagner]

2. the flaw

in our current capitalist structure is that it cannot survive without growth...balance and consistency are not acceptable...

[TBF]

5. Not just our current capitalist structure - any capitalism. It's unsustainable and unequal by

definition. nt

[MH1]

10. you'd better add population growth to that equation. nt.

(edited for spelling)

[TBF]

12. I don't have a problem with adding that -

especially if we could sterilize republicans ..

joking, joking, ... sort of.

:D

[Odin2005]

3. Anyone who belives infinite exponential growth is both necessary and good...

...is either insane or an economist.

[TBF]

4. He isn't talking to us Frank, he is talking to the bankers who fund his campaign. nt

[frankcjames]

22. That's true. It's Bernanke that worries me

I recently read where he "promises" us inflation. I thought the Fed's job was to "control" inflation. Not to force it upon us.

"If inflation falls too low or inflation expectations fall too low,
that would be ... " Bernanke signaled

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/09/29/usa-fed-bernanke-idUSL3E7KT0TR20110929

I'd suggest that inflated house prices would help to bail out the banks, but would hurt everybody else.

[banned from Kos]

28. Inflation is dead - get a grip, man.

10yr Ts at 1.96%.

Go back to your day job.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. Infinite growth is not sustainable.

We need to move toward a sustainable relationship with the biosphere. For starters, we need zero (or, for a while at least, preferably negative) population growth.

Well, actually, we're gonna get negative pop growth anyway, but I would rather accomplish it through rational planning rather than waiting for mass starvation and epidemics to do it for us.

[Blue Meany]

7. Growth is real and the evidence is the depeltion of natural

resources world wide. But growth is unsustainable because we live and world with limited resources. Maybe the battle that is going on now is really about what kind of social order we will have in a post-growth world.

[DefenseLawyer]

8. "Growth" = sucking more money out of the masses.

There is still a little money out there to be had. That's what growth is for big business, getting the rest of it.

[Lizzie Poppet]

17. But only a little.

The corporate powers-that-be have already figured out that they don't need us any more. Not as workers, not as consumers. They make more money exporting jobs to slave wage countries...and now that Americans have less and less to spend because of that trend, they're concentrating on emerging markets like India and China.

Of course, that works both ways: we don't need them any more, either...and they haven't managed to export all their assets yet. Just sayin'...

[DefenseLawyer]

18. Once all the money is gone

the only thing of value left is your labor. Luckily for them they don't leave out suppressing wages from their "growth" plans.

[dkf]

9. Because our population is growing.

If our economy doesn't grow that means more people are unemployed.

[Arctic Dave]

11. The reason they need "growth" is becuase that is what the parasite class skims off

of the working class. How do you think a person can afford a 20 million dollar mansion without working. They take it from people who do.

[Amonester]

13. This planet cannot sustain infinite growth.

Stating the contrary is just confirmation of living in a state of denial.

[RKP5637]

14. Capitalistic Growth + Population Growth in a finite space, Earth = Failure.

[saras]

15. For our system to "grow", the profit MARGIN must increase. Think about THAT exponential curve.

[quaker bill]

16. The available workforce grows by about

150,000 people a month. Either the economy grows or unemployment grows. At this point it is all about what the birthrate was 18 years ago.

[Speck Tater]

19. Growth is necessary for the wealthy to be able to siphon off money for doing nothing.

Without growth those Wall Street traders would have to find productive work because there would be no excess for them to skim and put in their own pockets.

[frankcjames]

At the rate the Fed is going, they will have a lot to skim

The Fed has already printed $1.8 trillion since September 2007. This exceeds by a factor of two all the money the Fed had printed since its creation in 1913. Printing even more money can’t be the answer.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-09-28/five-prescriptions-to-heal-economic-ills-commentary-by-laurence-kotlikoff.html

In 1913, when the Fed set up it's criminal enterprise, the dollar
have been pretty stable for the previous 100 years.

In the past 98 years, look how much the dollar has deflated.

What cost $1 in 1913 would cost $21.78 in 2010.

http://www.westegg.com/inflation/infl.cgi

[RevStPatrick]

20. How do you build an economic system based on shrinkage?

Serious question.
How do you have a healthy economy based on the opposite of growth?
One where they don't have to gas or machine gun people out in the streets?
How does that work?
I really want to know...

[Lasher]

27. It starts with mandatory population control like China's one-child policy.

Population can be humanely reduced by limiting reproduction. That's how you do it without machine guns and gas chambers. If we do not achieve this ourselves, nature will eventually do it for us with mass starvation and wars over resources.

Here is some food for thought from the late great Steve Kangas: http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-growth.htm">Myth: Growth is good

http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/tenets.htm">LIBERALISM RESURGENT: A Response to the Right (Steve Kangas home page)

[lunatica]

31. But people will kill the child if it isn't the right sex, just like in China

Those Big Brother tactics don't work.

The result of that law in China means that now men outnumber women so much that a huge number of men will never have a girlfriend or a wife. And a lot of their frustration comes out in violence.

[Lasher]

32. Oh but those Big Brother tactics do work to control population growth.

You are just not satisfied with the way they work. You are correct about the negatives you cite. But would you prefer gas chambers and machine guns? Mass starvation enforced by nature?

If you have a better idea I'd love to know about it.

[lunatica]

33. See that's why I don't get anarchists

You think your decision to control population growth is superior to nature's. The gas chambers? Are those the ones used in the Holocaust?

I simply don't get it. Are anarchists worse than libertarians about caring nothing to others and everyone is on their own?

Never mind. I won't get it if you answer anyway.

[Tesha]

29. You cut the birth rate far below the replacement rate and then you wait.

After a while, your economy can contract along with
the contracting population while still keeping per-
capita wealth (etc.) roughly constant.

Tesha

[Cal Carpenter]

21. Capitalism requires growth

That's why it can't work forever.

We will continue to experience these crises and 'bubbles' - they will get closer together and larger as time goes on. This is the inevitable result of the capitalist economic system.

It cannot be reformed/regulated into submission, it must be replaced.

[pintobean]

23. I guessing you either

have a job, or don't need one.

[frankcjames]

26. Neither, really. I'm retired

Just when I thought I could relax and grow old in peace, the thieves in banking decided not to pay any interest on my retirement account that I had accumulated for 35 years. So if I sound a little PO'd, please forgive me.

[Taverner]

24. Grow or die. This is the logic of capitalism.

If you don't like it (and I don't) work for a more equitable system

[DFW]

25. Here's a statement that I thought sums up what's wrong with the USA

It has an educational system and media that spawn people who come out with statements like this one:

"Barack Obama's sole purpose in life is the payoff. Obamacare will make him a very, very wealthy
socialist with latent capitalist tendencies."

I lifted that from a blog today. This is not some attempt at dry British humor. This manic really believed what he posted.

[lunatica]

30. If the population had the same amount of people starting jobs as retiring then

it would be OK to just sustain the economy and everything would work out. But it isn't that way. Younger people hit the work force at the same ages as always, but older people are living much longer and working longer. And some generations are far more numerous than others. The Boomers are still the largest generation in this country. Of course things are different in other countries.