Should the US government inject more money to its economy?
| Votes | Answer |
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| 13 | not sure | | 8 | yes -- inject more money | | 7 | no -- don't inject more money | | 4 | don't care | | 3 | other |
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| User | Comment |
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Galomorro   | | posted 22-Mar-2008 11:06pm |
Yes. | JessicaWoman99  | | posted 23-Mar-2008 12:59am |
yes if it can help with this recession we are in and blame it all on Bush whack | southernyankee  | | posted 23-Mar-2008 1:00am |
No. As much as it would help boast the economy and help lesson unemployment, creating more inflation wouldn't be fair to people who already have jobs / money. We already have one of the lowest unemployment rates in history and one of the highest inflation rates, so no I don't think its worth the trade off. Also, lending people money carries a risk that they won't pay it back. I think that banks should just eat those costs and move on. Yes, it also means more difficultly for people in the future to borrow money. | dab   | | posted 23-Mar-2008 8:09am |
The government should take less money out of the economy in the first place. | bill  | | posted 23-Mar-2008 9:01am |
I don't know. I don't think I understand the situation well enough to give a valuable opinion. I suspect no one really knows. I know that some believe the Federal Reserve may have caused the current crisis, by essentially printing too much money over the past decade or two. They have been keeping interest rates too low. This has encouraged too much consumer spending, too much consumer debt. This somehow equates to printing money, though the as I understand it, the relationship is actually quite indirect. Anyway what the Fed has been doing is like keeping your foot pushed all the way down on the gas pedal, then wondering why you ran out of gas so fast. Well, that's what some people think anyway.
On the other hand, the more I read about economics, the more I come to believe there's a huge psychological component to it. It's not the money supply that causes inflation, but more esoteric things like consumer confidence or just general feelings that prices are too high and/or that we need raises. The psychology of investors has a huge effect on our economy too. This lack of confidence for investors means they are selling more than buying, so stock prices are going and everything slows down, no growth. That's what recession means, negative growth. So, we've all come to expect that constant growth is the only acceptable condition.
Perhaps, the most dangerous thing is that the news media keep reporting doom and gloom about the economy and thus people believe it and thus it's a self-fulfilling prophesy. Or, perhaps, it just amplifies it. Even in this article, I read "current financial crisis—perhaps the biggest since the Great Depression" and I just cringe because that just seems like exaggerative phrasing, to get the attention of their readers, but given that the economy is all about psychology, it's like juggling nuclear bombs to say crap like that. The Great Depression was way way way worse that the current problems.
Actually, the guy in my avatar, currently, Milton Friedman, is one of the people (and this guy was a very intelligent, well respected economist) who is down on the Federal Reserve. I think he even said they Fed may have caused the Great Depression. He was in favor of the government staying out of the economy, in general. He believed in markets and their ability to self-regulate. That government tinkering most often caused problems and did not fix them. If he was alive today, I'm sure he would not be happy with the idea that the Federal Reserve is taking on a greater role to try to fix the current crisis (which, I assume he would also believe they caused).
This is all Keynesian versus laissez-faire.
Some people question whether the government should have any role in the economy. It didn't used to, or it used to have a much less significant role. Today, we were all born and raised with a government which is held responsible for the economy. But, 100 years ago, this was not the case. Crisis occurred which motivated people to accept more and more government control. The Federal Reserve was created (1913). Now, even our Federal Income Tax system is commonly used as a tool to adjust the economy. We're getting a check from the government now, as part of an economic stimulus package. It's all very bizarre from a certain point of view. It's hard to imagine going back. I'm really not sure what is best, personally. Though, more and more government control makes me uneasy.
Crisis seem to happen regardless, and it's human nature to respond to a crisis with a fix, but there's some evidence that the cure may be worse than the disease. | | Gomezy3k | | posted 23-Mar-2008 9:15am |
Yes by dropping a lot of taxes that they steal...I mean take from people... The lower the taxes the more money people would have to spend... | | justjulie | | posted 23-Mar-2008 10:12am |
should inject themselves w/ whatever they are trying to inject us with | | Iseult | | posted 23-Mar-2008 10:16am |
I'm sorry, no offense or anything, but who do I look to you like? Alan Greenspan?
Where would the money come from? And it's not such a simple issue as 'economy'. | | Biggles | | posted 23-Mar-2008 10:46am |
I don't understand economics  | | LJD | | posted 23-Mar-2008 4:07pm |
NO. The Federal Reserve is the reason we're in trouble now.....the filthy b- - - - -ds. Be aware....the evil one world elitists are planning a bad depression for us...wants to destroy our freedoms, destroy property rights, destroy our food supply....the list goes on. These are Satan's children. Those spoken of in Genesis 3:15.....Cain, of Satan's lineage. | | kcthedog | | posted 23-Mar-2008 4:31pm |
While I like the sound of money coming to me to spend in order to stimulate the economy, but who do you think pays for that money? We do! With interest! The economy of the US would be better if is could solve the immigration problem get out for war in Iraq, and invest more in environmentally friendly renewable energy sources more money would make it way to the average americium instead of inflating the economy with a quick fix (near an election) to keep the people from getting upset with how the country is run. | | Kristal_Rose | | posted 23-Mar-2008 6:32pm |
It's bizarre, but I think necessary. Someday it may be most of what our economy conists of. It eventually comes back as taxes on each transaction anyhow. People who can save money don't need the money. Bankers are like barons; we work for them; the better we are doing, the more they have.
Honestly though, $300 won't even compensate for the increased cost of groceries as we switch to biofuel and distribution costs increase.
Perhaps not the right thread here, but just as humanitarianism was a coverup for the oil war in Iraq (people deny it's about oil, when of course it's about oil), the oil war is yet another coverup. Oil has risen to $110/barrel, tripled since the war, and people figure it's because of the state of affairs in Iraq, but Iraq is not where all the worlds oil comes from, nor has the cost of processing a barrel tripled. Crude tripling to $110/b only accounts for additional $1.36. Gas cost 35¢/gal back in 1974, between the first and second gas crunches, same as a can of soda.
Back on subject, it's like we are forced to live on credit. Any stimulus issued is in the context of a nation already trillions in debt. Debt is fictitious though. At this point it indicates increased productivity and material gain at the lower rungs. From the moment the reserve issues money, it's issued at interest, and represents debt. A game of musical chairs ensues to gain the money portion without the debt portion, and not be the person stuck working to provide the value added to the dollar. Essentially people work, buy tangigble things, and the money goes to corportae CEOs and bankers who can claim to own our stuff or otherwise have the power to buy us out if they wished to. At the moment China is strong in that position too. If they ever chose to collect on their debt, we'd start printing money like mad, in a race to put our physical assets in the hands of our citizens rather than their investors.
To better understand our economics consider that we are no longer a society bartering durable goods. The goods aren't durable, but even more importantly, they are made by factories. We are approaching the day when humans aren't required to produce goods at all, and their production costs nothing, but, the flip side is that industrial producers who own the machines still ask for money, so the reserve issues credit, the US disburses it to gov't employees and contractors, it trades hands as we do a ton of meaningless (not directly producing food, vital clothing, or shelter) service jobs like security, law, video game design, telemarketing, and hand it all to the machine owners who end up with a ton of money they can't use (the economy would collapse if Bill Gates spent $6B on bread and bicycles), but which gives them the right to say they can control what society does, who they work for, where they live, what media they subscribe to.
People worry about passing on huge debt to our children. The debt is ficitious. The Reserve bankers we owe money to are often long dead. They can only operate with the US gov't complicity, which means they can't collect on the quadrillions of dollars issued since 1913, except to whatever extent the gov't feels it can tax us and pay back the debt.
Money has two levels of value, that at the level actively exchanged piecemeal for groceries, and that at the level exchanged wholesale by corporate buyouts. Once money gets congregated wholesale it tends not to go back into active sidewalk barter. Effectively it is taken back out of comission, as it must be. It came from nowhere, it must go back to nowhere, otherwise the money in active goods circulation would become meaningless as well. Buying things like million dollar paintings helps take it out of active circulation. Any thinking that that money could be used to help the poor is fallatious. That could only happen if the power brokers chose to divert our employment and produce towards helping the poor, which would really be at our cost, increasing the money at the active circulation level and forcing us into real inflation to whatever extent we helped.
The easist way to think about the possible consequences of macro economics is to briefly forget that it even exists and merely examine our planets physical resources and labor, not to ask who would pay for such a thing. Could we build colonies on the moon, utopian social centers on street corners, improve education, and feed Africa? Absolutely, but not without sacrifice. We would have to work again at meaningful tasks instead of making and playing video games. As is, it's much easier for the power brokers to claim they own our lives when we subscribe to mass media rather than create farms in Africa. Do you think Bush is worried about the debt? Of course not. If anything the mistakes made lately are not about increased debt, but handing it over to nations like China. That too is the fault of national laziness. We didn't have to make video games instead of sew shoes. Like oil and forests and such, I believe that is part of a master plan to use up other nations resources before using up our own. It's a gamble though that other nations don't return to collect the favor.
Increasingly the aristocracy has sheltered themselves (perhaps unwittingly) from this likelihood by investing in global rather than national corporations. This puts them in the security of tapping wealth between classes even if physical geographies like the US get collected as foreign debts.
While we've been building up cause for global geography war (if we never repay our debts), at the same time we have been converting towards unnecessitating that, by making it into a global class war instead. Increasingly the power broker aristocracy of the planet can just tap the physical and labor resources of the planet regardless of national geography (including the US, hence immigration no matter concerns them). The ideological and physical wars going on now are with countries like Afghanistan, Iraq, and Venezuela, and are not so much about the resources themselves as it is about these countries watching out for their own populations rather than buying into the paradigm of global class wars. This war has existed since the cold war. Communism was much the same threat. It discluded our aristocracy from being the power brokers and global resource owners in such nations.
We are complicit in whom we have empowered to tell us how our lives will be lived. Everytime your money goes to a global corporation instead of a local business you have further shifted who has the power to control the globe and tax the populace. Investing in the winner will always pu you beneath the winner. Better to support who becomes the winner in the first place, like solar energy companies and those with a mission to save the planet and create stakeholder democracy. | Melf  | | posted 23-Mar-2008 7:08pm |
Do people get angry at LJD just for the sake of it? | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to bill) posted 23-Mar-2008 7:19pm |
It sure is psychology and consumer confidence. That's why the USSR collapsed with far less debt than us. People stopped believing in the value of currency and continued prosperity. Buckets of money to buy bread in Germany wouldn't have happened if people coveted money instead.
The thing is, the Federal reserve is exactly the inevitable outcome of laissez-faire. If not them, then some other bank. Which ever bank rises to the top becomes responsible for regulating keynesianism. Unless (and even then) money has an absolutely fixed translation to land and raw materials (some super gold standard on a zero-sum planet) money is not about wealth value, but about 'relative' wealth.
Automated post-industrialisation means some method must exist to distribute production to people. Our labors too are relative fictions having little to do with tangible commodity disbursement. I'd rather that inevitable role of disbursement be somewhat in the hands of democracy than corporate aristocracy.
When this money is injected into the system it increases the relative buying power of the poor, hopefully to whatever lowest common denominator sustains society. It might mean that the wealthy are only 320 times wealthier than the poor rather than 470 times wealtier, but still the person 850 times wealthier can claim some ego leverage over the person only 510 times wealthier than the poor base, even if the poor are catching to them. It's socialism to sustain the lower rung, but nothing else is possible in post-industrialism other than failure to sustain society. The fact is that the labor of the masses is no longer vitally needed to sustain ourselves, nor ever will be again unless we have another dark ages. Employing ourselves in telemarketing roles is just more of that system confidence and power broker charity. They can afford to pay people for nearly meaningless services, and in turn boost their position of relative wealth. They tax their eemployee value, and they tax their consumers. It's about who controls the lives of who. Look at how many lives Gates and Turner somewhat control, and the relative power that gives them. They too are in the position of Keynesian society regulators, determing exactly what society can bear, to be most efficiently tapped.
Rather than getting immediately theoretical, I think the best way to determine the best system is to figure out which leaves us with power brokers who feed the poor, prevent the rainforests and oceans from being depleted, and ensure some means of energy will exist in the future. Even though providing solar power might be profitable when the oil is gone, profit won't work alone as a motive, because the immediate profit is in depleting the planets resources and ignoring the poor.
There's no telling unless we hear another Friedman lecture to the public, but unfortunately I think you're right that even the those who control the system may not understand it. They may learn the formulae in college for affecting the economy, but still miss the outside-the-box view of what they are actually working with. I have heard top economists speak who seem to vastly learned and intelligent of working within the system, but accept it prima-facie without apparently seeing the nature of the paradigm itself.
Any good fix should involve examining the whole role of wealth and power, not merely trying to figure out how to shift what gets paid for while maintaining the value of currency. | | LindaH | | posted 23-Mar-2008 7:21pm |
I don't know. I think someone, somewhere should inject more money into my bank account. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LJD) posted 23-Mar-2008 7:46pm |
Generally I think they are not out to destroy us. Their relative wealth and power is contingent upon our wealth. Nor are they necessarily doing or considering themselves evil. Often destruction of the planet or limiting peoples options is purely a matter of profit. Possibly though it can even be at the hands of people trying to do good. Consider for instance someone trying to feed the planet by draining the oceans of fish beyond the means for them to replenish themselves.
You may not consider yourself evil when you drive a car or leave the lights on, but you are still part of the problem by doing so. Does that make you Satans child? I think not.
For the most part our problems are the result of ignorance, lack of compassion, and accepting the status quo as the only viable system rather than thinking outside the box. That's true at every level of leadership. I don't think that makes us Satan's children either, just ignorant, compassionless, complacent, and creatively lazy. It's true though that those qualities somewhat match up with the seven deadly sins. The planet believes that what we have now is how the system works. It would only fit into a 'satan's children' description if our leaders were visionaries aware that an alternative utopia could exist, and then chose personal glory anyhow. As is, I doubt most have such vision and only see that personal glory is the only mechanism here.
Our planets relative subjugation and desperation has remained fairly constant over the millenia. I figure new answers and global crimes will continue to emerge for long to come.
As far as a one world government goes, consider that in biblical times we lived in tribes. People spent their whole life belonging to that one tribe, subject to it's one leader. It was their whole universe. I don't see a one world government as being any different, just larger. It's how the tribe is administrated, not that it's one tribe which is a possible problem.
For what it's worth, at the same time as we are heading towards a one world government, I think we are also heading back towards local geography tribalism. | | bill |
happy birthday  | | LJD |
As the Bible says, there are Satan's children on the earth. As far as, one world government....small is better. The law is slow now, can you imagine it worldwide? There will be no place to turn for freedom. The love of money is a sin. People have lost their conscience, when it comes to money. Greed and the love of money. | | RGirl | | posted 23-Mar-2008 11:10pm |
Not sure, I'm not good with the economy. | | jettles | | (reply to Melf) posted 24-Mar-2008 8:38am |
> Do people get angry at LJD just for the sake of it?
i just get angry............. 
| | Melf | | (reply to jettles) posted 24-Mar-2008 10:14am |
| | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to bill) posted 24-Mar-2008 7:24pm |
Yay. Thanks. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LJD) posted 24-Mar-2008 9:10pm |
The US is pretty big already, and I don't see the world as being vastly different. Really though what I see happening is a shift towards an international political body of corporations and regional democracies doing nothing but controlling international trade or fighting to protect regional human rights and global resources. They won't be concerned about nudity or religion or traffic laws, just business and global sustainment/plundering. Laws affecting lifestyle will only be ones they can all agree on for international trade policy reasons. Any continuity and commitment of a local cultural nature will be a gap filled by increasing republican style state anarchy and grassroots local community forming. International law may intervene on selling the apples from your front yard, but local community will determine lifestyle things which were once state and national law. More so than anything else, our liberty will be determined by the regulation of the global media and the police/prison industries. Corporations in a purely interantional scene will only be able to get away with things which leaders of every culture can agree upon, which isn't much, and thus I see international government as not such a bad thing. What concerns me most is whethar or not we can get it democratized. The scene now is no different though than it was a century ago in that several world super-powers are still in competiton with each other. The difference now is that these powers are more ones of ideology (like socialism vs. capitalism) than of gegraphy as they were a century ago.
It's not greed for money which is the problem. Money is merely a token of power. Power is the ultimte greed, and increasingly it takes the form of having the wills of a populace at your command, irrespective of physical concern. Subscriber/audience is power now. Television reverends are no exception. They glory in the ability to personally transform the planet, just like the CEOs. As the world becomes more connected though, it becomes increasingly more difficult for any single vision of the planet to overide all the others. | | Irene007 | | posted 25-Mar-2008 12:56am |
And where is the government to get this money? It has none, it's all borrowed and the federal income tax serves only to pay for the interest on all that borrowed money... The Federal Bank is not owned by the government; IT owns the government so if they inject more, it's still all borrowed.
The Federal Reserve holds the gold that represents the printed money? So where is "the people's gold" now?
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldSeek/1164211260.php | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 25-Mar-2008 7:39am |
Whethr it even exists or not, $10B is a far cry from the national debt. The gold standard is cleary ancient history now.
I covered your post, but I covered so much that it bears repeating for less industrious readers.
Speaking of gold, I heard Bush gave his father's Canadian mining company free rights to ours. Apparently it was never specified that our national resources must at least go to citizens, if not somehow compensating citizens for the loss of national resources.
I heard tons of Gold disappeared from the WTC during 9/11, but that story was dropped by the 9/11 Truth movement, so it's rather dubious. Ack, here's a thought, perhaps even the 9/11 Truth movement is part of the same inside job conspiracy. I'm still amazed that it took us years to realize that the towers fell at freefall speed (though at least i figured that out a year before the media did.) I also found right away that similar planes have been equipped with remote control flight, something else the Truth movement hasn't considered yet. | | Enheduanna | | posted 25-Mar-2008 11:38am |
I don't really know. Where would the money come from? | | Kristal_Rose |
That's what Irene and I are on about, the money doesn't come from anywhere really. At this point the gov't in cahoots with the bankers and main CEOs simply redistributes relative consumption of production and service resources. People had stopped spending lately, which isn't how our economic system is designed to work. It's more of a process flow pyramid scheme than an asset system. There is a slight asset aspect remaining to it though, so if we don't keep spending and making increasingly more money, we are at risk of the chinese collecting on debt we traded them for goods and services.
Unfortunately I don't think the designers had a contigency plan in mind if it ever stopped working as a pyramid scheme, except maybe this, simply issuing money to the poor which will eventually be congregated to the fortune 500, and taken out of active bread & butter circulation. It's the start of a strange precedent which will confuse or spook those who still thought our system was primarily about the necessity of working for a living. Mostly all that does is affect the rate of our consumption and technical/entertainment advancement. We could lay off 4/5 of the nation and still be eating in warm homes with decent clothes, and just give all the unemployed economic stimulus checks which made farmers the next relative Gates/Turners of the world, but it wouldn't be as fun as everyone running aound thinking they need to work.
In slightly diffent take of an answer to your question, the $300 per person stimulus check is not unlike the $2000 per person per year spent on defense contractors (then add teachers and such). The only difference there is that a less specific culture is in charge of setting the chain of trade in motion. Now money will congregate more with entertainment producers than steel producers. Congregate wealth used to buy out other companies or million dollar paintings doesn't affect the economy like the same money in the hands of consumers. Basically it's taken out of circulation by the primary profiteers like banks, and more then has to created from thin air to keep the lower rungs working and consuming. If we were unemployed, creating jobs would be much the same charity paradigm. The thing is we really don't need much labor. We could have robots build our shoes, but at the moment it's cheaper to outsource that to Asia.
My reason for explaining this is that once people realize it's not about working and survival, but about gov't and power brokers determining relative wealh and what gets accomplished, we're a step closer to asking that we build utopia instead, with community plazas, solar energy, mars programs, and such. Perhaps though better cell phones and better video games are the utopia people want, and hopefully increasingly, a planet that won't melt down and run out of fish before we have grandchildren. To get there we need CEOs and consumers offering and sponsoring a green planet rather than hyper-media. The thing is those industries are less profitable, so CEOs alone won't foster that change. | | Enheduanna |
It's funny, I hadn't even connected this question with the check I'll presumably be getting in the mail some time soon. I forgot about that "stimulus" plan, which seems next to useless to me. I'm a complete dunce where economics is concerned, but that plan seems like pissing into the wind. It looks to me like we have much larger economic problems. $300 certainly isn't going to let someone with an ARM magically keep their home. | | Irene007 |
The whole thing is fishy really - apparently, there isn't even any more gold belonging to the people; like it was all stolen and moved elswhere. I, personally, would like to see currency return to gold and silver coins - at least you can count on that... | | LindaH | | posted 25-Mar-2008 7:21pm |
Wouldn't it be better to send it to people who need it most? They are more likely to spend it, I think. A bunch of people getting their roof fixed, going to the doctor, or buying new plumbing would stimulate the economy as much as a bunch of people buying more fast food and game consoles. Someone who doesn't really need it is more likely to stash it. | | LJD |
I understand. I see a world emerging that isn't going to be a free, nor good one. | | Kristal_Rose |
No, it's sure not, though that had a hand in making consumers wary in the first place about increasing debt. That fiasco is a clear sign that the system isn't as thoughtfully regulated for our benefit as a positive conspiracy theorist might hope for. Like stimulus checks and gov't contracting, bankruptcy bail outs are another means of regulating what the low standard of living is, and how much cash needs injected to keep the sytem going. This recent mortgage thing represents a huge shift in the acceptable discrepancy between rich and poor, a major reduction of those at middle class. Currently about 12% of Americans are on the verge of bankruptcy, meaning pouring all their spare income just into minimum credit payments. (Alas, I'm one of them).
That $300 actually will make quite a difference to people like me (of which there are plenty). It won't cover the rise of groceries to be expected this year, and I'm grateful I'm not paying for gasoline, but I can easily see how it would give people the notion that they have a spare $300 to spend on non-essentials. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 26-Mar-2008 3:22am |
Supposedly (a reasonable conspiracy theory), one of the reasons we went to war with Iraq is that they were thinking to switch to using the Euro, and moreover, actually equating the Euro to oil much like the old gold standard. One might think who cares?, but the implications are immense. Every nation with a choice between dealing in Euros and dollars would choose something representing tangible wealth over something fictionally created on a fluctuating whim from thin air. The dollar would have done a nose dive, and us americans would be screwed.
The gold probably was stolen (bought) and moved elsewhere, starting immediately after the gold standard was removed. I mean theoretically why not? Plus, it's the only explanation I can imagine for even demanding to collect all gold. | | Irene007 |
Did you know that a proposal (how far its gone now, I don't know...) for the Americas (Canada, US and Mexico) to have a common currency exists? It's in the works now - I don't like the idea at all... | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LJD) posted 26-Mar-2008 5:18am |
What are you worried about? In some ways our freedoms will increase, in the manner of you being able to study chinese medicine. On the other hand, a century from now, there will like be one international corporation responsible for handling all parking tickets and parking enforcement, a corporation folks like Turner will buy and sell, and any country part of the global trade system will be forced to abide by their policies. It's just a projection of what we have now with media subscriptions, credit agencies, and such, but increasingly corporations handling aspects of peoples lives like drinking water will become one and the same as the law.
I suspect that, leaving behind the old stereotypical religious fears in the 50's of a one world UN government which have pretty much proved wrong already, that your deeper concern is that you carry the torch of the pioneer woman, and there's just not going to be room in the world of the future for that sentiment no matter what form of government(s) come to exist.
Compare us to a century ago. We have fewer legal liberties but more social liberties. Instead of putting in 12 hour days then chopping wood, we watch video games. Which is better? The sentiment mostly comes down to familiarity. The thing is, rather building a log cabin (a brief american phenomenon), it was always the case that everyone had to do their job for a villge or tribe to survive, and now on a generic global level the whole world will have to be tightly orchestrated on what the average person eats or puts in the gas tank in order for the whole planet to survive. Essentially we will become one tightly knit evolving ant colony simply because of our predicament of having already surpassed our planets ability to sustain us under our current reckless resource administration with the population here already. It's either that or a lot of us need to die off. Water has become a precious commodity in LA. It's not like the 60's where it was legal to water your yard in the noonday sun. Such things have to become law because few will voluntarily comply with what needs done, and it's certainly not fair to let the market decide, letting the rich water lawns while the poor can't afford showers.
Watch the movie The Island, not for the surface scene, but for the clone colony. That's my closest estimation of what the planet's culture will look like in 200 years. The book Brave New World also comes close. Like our kids choosing the present over the 1900's lifestyle, it's what I think informed people would choose then, though people with your upbringing would not. Perhaps your fears more resemble 1984 though. I hope you read that one too. It resembles 9/11 being an inside job to keep the populace in fear of an enemy and going along with thought surveillance to prevent thought crimes against the state. It more represents the dark aspect of what the USSR was becoming in the 30's. - It's worth mentioning though, that to my surprise, immigrants from the USSR I've met were stunned at what sheep we are in the US, all watching SuprBowl Sunday and otherwise going along with whatever was suggested. Apparently they kept diverse folk culture alive over there, and unlike us, could identify what all was corporate or government propoganda. Since we believe ourselves free to complain and discuss amongst what's offered, we ignore that the most desirabl portion is also a set up. Take our presidential elections for instance. In the USSR they knew any choice they had was fake. Here we have nearly as little real choice, but take pride that we do have a choice. Somehow Americans have been brainwashed into thinking that they aren't brainwashed to a degree which surpasses any totalitarian government, which implies that closer to the soul of things, the citizens of those dictatorships are actually freer people than us.
I don't know for sure what you mean by free. It is inevitable physics that our actions will be more prescribed. Building a cabin in the rainforest won't be an option, on the other hand we might manage to even improve on current international jet-flight liberty as new technolgy comes along. Tons of mental options like the internet and diverse cultural saturation will be available. One thing is for sure though, the options will be the same across the globe, just as the same products are found in American and Italian shopping malls now. On one hand freedom of religion will improve, but so will the trend of homogenous political correctness. You can do whatever you want, but you can't go around belittling anything some other micro-culture does legally either.
Personally I don't think any age of mankinds history was superior to any others, or if I did, it would probably be the 1960's, where one could choose between the last embers of rural ranch life or the emerging metropolitan kaleidoscope, and have good health care and diet either way. I'm not the first to imagine that american life in the 1960's was the global peak of personal prosperity. That was the point at which we had learned how to industrially tap all our physical resources before running low on them. An 8' wide solid oak entertainment center, common then, would be unthinkable now. As a customization mechanic my dad had a home, camper, and ski-boat in the 60's. Doing the same job in the 80's, I was renting an apartment and could afford a pizza and video on weekends. That wasn't culture and politics making the difference, it was pure global physics. Anyhow, back to the point of this paragraph, and that is that I don't expect 2140 to be any less rich a human experience than 1500 B.C, 400 A.D, 1100, 1700, 1900, or 2000 A.D. Why should God watch over the generations to come any less or more? The balance of good and evil, strife and luxury, ethical and faithful query, dilemna, and responsibility, seems to be a constant throughout the ages. When the planet eventually dies I expect more of the same elsewhere on other galaxies or planes.
I'm sure your anticipated prognosis is a world of turmoil followed by deliverance, but my question is 'to what?'. Creation is the intriguing experience God chooses over non-existence or eternal bliss. It requires all those balances I mentioned, or some comparable ones, in order to have any relative meaning. I can tell you from deep personal experience that when one gets closer to God that all relative meaning disintegrates. All that exists in our egos, otherwise it's all splendour, every bit of fortune and calamity. The unfortunate weakness of most modern Christian interpretation is that somehow our egos will go to heaven. The two simply aren't compatible. It's beacuse of our egos that we don't see heaven before us now... but we do see relative meaningful creation, and that too is a good and proper experience to be having, possibly for eternity.
I recently heard of a gem of a model of reincarnation which makes good sense to me, that since we are made of God, and God plays all the parts of man, animal, and plant through time and space (that I am sure of), that eventually we will each experience every single one of these parts which ever existed (inhabiting the egos perhaps in those critters which have them). I'm not sure it happens quite like that, but my guess is that what's happening is similar and comparably marvellous. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 26-Mar-2008 5:42am |
I can't imagine it making much difference to americans, and it might even help mexico, but I'd be leery of it as a Canadian since you guys are less at risk of collapse than us, and shouldn't be asked to go down with our ship, should that happen. I must presume your money works much the same way, if not issued ultimately by the same authority. Probably though your citizens own the bank from which money is issued (Hence again not good for you). I would imagine something like the WMF taking over the role of the Reserve. I should research them. I don't know how they relate currently.
I do think that the ability of the Mid-East, Oceania, So. America, and Africa to stand up for their own self-sustaining self-governance is contingent upon their creating continental currencies and trade alliances independent of the WTO. I think Cesar Chavez of Venezuela is attempting to do just that, and that (along with his oil socialisation), a war with us is starting to brew over the matter. Unlike with Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran, it's harder to excuse such a thing to the public, and if we do so, I think the method will be to start a war between them and their neighbors, then claim to defend their neighbors. There are signs of that happening already, and it has been somewhat how we've always dealt with So. American matters when dictators can't be bought out.
Fortunately our forces are already spread too thin, and I don't think another draft will happen unless the government can out propogandize the public on the internet. I do consider the media already bought out though. The Kucinch presidential campaign was clear evidence of what a setup they are. | | chol | | posted 26-Mar-2008 8:23am |
The US Government already injects plenty of money into the economy. It's just a matter of where. A lot of money gets injected into defense contractors and financial companies. The question is whether more money should be injected at the level where it would matter to ordinary people. | | Jody | | posted 26-Mar-2008 10:00am |
They should do whatever would be most beneficial in the short run and least damaging in the long run for the US economy. | | Enheduanna |
$300 makes a difference in the short-term, and I'm not trying to undervalue what it will mean to many people. But it's not going to last very long or go very far for a poor family with major bills. It might cover a month of groceries for them, but not much more. If people with bills and debt problems are treating it as "spare" money to spend on non-essentials, then I think we have found another source of our problem. | | Kristal_Rose |
What you consider part of the problem is what they are trying to create. They aren't trying to stimulate groceries, they are trying to stabilize the next higher tiers who's jobs depend on the purchase of unessential commodities.
That's the main problem with our economy. It depends on ever increasing production and demand (on credit). If people stopped constantly buying the things they don't need, most everyone would be out of work. Lenin's marxist system was the opposite of ours and sought to prevent our circumstance. Amazingly we've lasted much longer than he thought possible, buying things we don't need, creating disposable goods, and even throwing away useful items. The software, movie, and video game industries are particularly good at disposable goods employment.
Everyone inevitably in debt is also part of our system. All money created is loaned by the reserve with compound interest over the decades, thus for all money issued someone owes that interest while no money could exist to pay it back. If you aren't in debt, you are either are as a stakeholder in the national debt, or through clever capitlism have passed that debt on to the foolish poor suckers. The national debt could never even in theory be paid back unless we profited enough through foreign trade to pass the Reserve issuing interest on to other other nations (making them the poor suckers stuck with the debt). So while it looks grim that that our nations populace is in debt, that's the only way our system even works. All we could ever do in this system is increase the debt and pass it on, while our children again do so on an even higher scale if they are to get paid for their jobs. That's one reason we rely so heavily on defense spending, it's both disposable and a wholesale means of passing our debt on to other nations who will buy the junk. That's why we arm both sides of conflicts, to escalate sales. Heck, we even sold the soviets nuclear weapon parts during the cold war.
As far as I know, no one has engineered a good sustainable macro-economic system yet. | | LindaH |
Why can't we set up a system where the price of expensive essentials goes down? (I'm talking about "necessities" that people have to save up and wait for) Imagine how much more commerce would be going on if it was cheaper to fix your car or your roof. | | LJD |
Kristal Rose, The bigger the government, the less freedom. I want less government, more individual responsibility. I fear losing our culture, having unrefined people who haven't the capability to respect our culture, our laws. I fear not for myself, but for our future generations.
Thank you Kristal Rose, and God Bless. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LindaH) posted 27-Mar-2008 4:39am |
Well, we'd have to regulate businesses and costs to do that. I've heard GM makes more money on car parts and service than selling cars. Roofing materials are physical resources, getting scarce, compared to video games which are just mass duplicate man-hours, and, you mentioned the keyword, 'essentials'. Industry can ask more for essentials unless competiton undercuts them, and for some reason people in the housing material industry tend to be employed in the old world decently paid style.
Plus, you live in Alaska. Anything big, heavy or perishble costs more there. Also, if you're even thinking of building materials as an essential, at least you're middle class by most of the nations standard. Again, things are different an Alaska. The median price of a home in Southern California is $485,000.00
To make essentials affordable to everyone requires governmental micro-management of business economics, also known as communist-socialism. People here are all convinced they can rise above their neighbors, and so we foster instead a combo of capitalism and welfare.
When cars or roofs need fixed, I think they get fixed no matter what the cost, although making them cheaper would mean one could then spend more on non-essentials. The thing is though that giving all your money to a mechanic or small hardware store puts it in the hands of people who will buy luxury goods. Those thing you refer to like new toilets, car parts, and plates, are called 'hard goods' in economics formulae and world maps. If nothing else, economists are at least monitoring this sort of thing.
Speaking monitoring, to activate an ancient credit card I just decided to use, for verification they asked me to pick from a list of websites and peoples names I might be familiar with. I knew they tracked such things, but it was freaky to actually encounter direct evidence of it. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LJD) posted 27-Mar-2008 4:58am |
There are two types of bigger, proportionally bigger and geographically bigger. One could have a continental government with few laws at all, or a local tribe with half the citizens writing a million laws.
Again though, it's not big government as much as big control structures. Without a government global corporations would control the details of our living experience beyond your imagination. Preventing that from happening (which will be global) will require an equally strong global democracy of some sort. Of course that too is prone to corruption, but the only other alternative is for cities to shut off their borders from the rest of the world and live entirely off of local labor and resources. What's happening is as inevitable as villages forming millenia ago. The planet doesn't get bigger every time a new person is born. We are forced to cooperate. That was a big chunk of Christ's teaching, that we need to cooperate with eachother. | | LindaH |
> Also, if you're
> even thinking of building materials as an essential,
> at least you're middle class by most of the nations
> standard.
How so? By owning your own house?
> To make essentials affordable to everyone requires
> governmental micro-management of business economics,
> also known as communist-socialism. People here
> are all convinced they can rise above their neighbors,
> and so we foster instead a combo of capitalism
> and welfare.
That makes sense.
>
> When cars or roofs need fixed, I think they get
> fixed no matter what the cost, although making
> them cheaper would mean one could then spend more
> on non-essentials.
That is, if you are not poor.
> If nothing else, economists are at least monitoring
> this sort of thing.
That's good.
>
> Speaking monitoring, to activate an ancient credit
> card I just decided to use, for verification they
> asked me to pick from a list of websites and peoples
> names I might be familiar with. I knew they tracked
> such things, but it was freaky to actually encounter
> direct evidence of it.
Freaky!
| | Enheduanna |
I would think the problems the economy is facing right now show that too much debt isn't a good thing. I understand that our economy does depend on some amount of debt and especially on the fluidity of money, but taking that too far just makes things bad for lots of people, and affects the economic spectrum fairly broadly. | | LJD |
I understand what you're saying, and I agree with you about power. Any time a human government forms, there is a possibility of corruption. I believe people have better control over their destiny when government is small. This country, closing it's borders is ideal, living off our own resources. If you can find it, look up the book "Ill Fares the Land", by Van Gorder. I was reading the book, while in bed one night, I actually became sick to my stomach.. The enemy is destroying our land, our farmers, trying to control everything, wanting to cause shortages, enslaving us, eventually to cause famine in this country. | | cloudhugger | | posted 27-Mar-2008 5:20pm |
Injecting more money makes he dollar weaker. I don't understand which is the pro or con here. Basically undoing what the past administration has done. I hope that group goes up for crimes of treason and theft. I feel they have stolen the future from some to over provide for theirs. Misconduct in office I say, has ruined potential prosperity.
Oh who cares anyway... | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to LindaH) posted 27-Mar-2008 11:04pm |
On the California coast only white collar professionals own homes. If you own a home here you aren't poor, because if nothing else you could be renting the property. A poor person simply couldn't own a home here as in Alaska, or on the sort of jobs which exist in Alaska. | | Kristal_Rose |
Suppose all debt was erased, it wouldn't change where we stand. We'd still have a choice between no one spending so others could work, or going into more debt to keep each other working, the debt being equivalent to the amount CEO's or anyone could afford to siphon out of the system and save, or any interest the banks ask for. To put it another way, for every dollar a person profits (capitalizes upon rather than equitable barter), someone else is in debt a dollar. The only way to sustain capitalism is that money is issued and theoretical debt pinned to us and our heirs to any extent anyone in the system profits.
All this debt however also represents the degree to which we've produced anything new for ourselves (our GDP).
I know it's bizarre sounding and counter-intuitive, but our national debt somewhat represents any extent to which we've been productive and prospered. | | Irene007 |
I think you mean Hugo Chavez? They tried to oust him but it didn't work so now a propaganda war, probably followed with a real war is in the making.... "The Powers That Be" don't like the way he thinks.
As for Canada, you know the saying? When the US gets a cold, Canada coughs... The way I see it, a common monetary system will be said to be so beneficial to all but really it will be to only a few. We're just pions in a really big chess game... | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 28-Mar-2008 2:39am |
Yeah, Hugo. No they don't like him. He represents the current power magnates keeping their hands off So. American profiteering. They wouldn't be too happy if his ideas spread as a means of taking care of our own here either. | | Enheduanna |
Who said anything about erasing all debt? | | Irene007 |
...and that's why a propaganda war will ensue. *sigh* | | Kristal_Rose |
I'm just saying as an exercise to demonstrate that even starting from a clean slate, a nation in increasing debt is the only way our system works. I suggested this mental exercise though because you seemed to imply that our problem now is too much debt.
If anything, the primary regulator of our economy, ensuring that the debt is camparable to our productivity, and that we aren't getting ahead of our productivity, is the banks themselves. They can reel things back in by shifting our spending to higher interest before the money becomes too meaningless. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 29-Mar-2008 7:37am |
But of course. I also heard something about building skirmishes with Columbia. We've always got riff-riff in that zone trying to balance banana dictators below the american news radar. I'm just worried they'll frame Venezuela the same way they're framing Iran. Propoganda has come a long way since the 60's. It takes some very intriguing forms these days, forms few are aware of and couldn't spot unless they were trained in what to look for. | | Irene007 |
Honestly, one of the reasons I don't watch TV or listen to radio anymore is because I fear that it's mostly propaganda... That's why it's so subtle; it's ever present - nobody notices. | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 30-Mar-2008 11:40pm |
It's not just the suble slant, presumptions, rubric, proportioning and disinformation, they also have ruthless strategies in leading logic to make you think you came to your own conclusion, and representing the opposite view, but in a manner which subterfuges itself.
But yes, the ever-present is a big factor too. I learned a good deal about their techniques in those two weeks after 9-11 in which there was supposedly no TV advertising. It was like a big brainwashing experience in their choice of background iconography and such. | | Irene007 |
I find it rather scary frankly... | | Kristal_Rose | | (reply to Irene007) posted 3-Apr-2008 2:34am |
I did too. I have no way of judging it's actual effect though, and aside from half the nation being gleeful consumers with no concern that the war will cost them each $30k, never mind the needless divide-and-conquer civilwar deaths, believing we have a genuine democracy to protect, and the ensuing depression while the wealthy jockey for the last positions of relative power, I see nothing drastically wrong with our american life which may be brainwashed into us.
It recently occurred to me that that immigrant wall we are building is itself just another publicity tactic to foster an allegiant fearful sense of pride and patriotism while the administration actually works on creating it's opposite, globalism.
In the good news though, congress is finally asking oil companies the same thing I'd been wondering for some time. Since Iraq is just one of our many oil sources, and we theoretically have even more direct cost-cutting access to even that portion, why have our gas prices doubled since the war started, and why do they spend so little of the profits on alterantive energy research?
I'm reminded of when the states sued the tobacco companies, then reinvested that money in the tobacco industry.
Part of this stuff sounds sincere and worthy of respect, but then it ends up sounding totally corrupt anyhow. Following the Kucinich presedential campaign was very educational, as Congressman Kucinich set out with a heroic agenda then gave us a blow by blow account of the corruption which defeated him. | | Irene007 |
| | Zang | | posted 3-Apr-2008 10:10pm |
Why would I care? | | Enigma | | posted 9-Apr-2008 11:13pm |
No that doesn't work. |
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