So when you make a budget, you allocated money you are going to spend. Debt is accumulated when you spend money you do not have. A deficit is the amount of money your overspending on your budget. We have had a very large deficit for the past ever, and thats why we have 18 trillion in debt. If cuts are made to the spending however and we go under budget, then theres extra money to start paying off the debt. Its not impossible to pay off the debt, it just takes time. Raise Taxes, Cut back on government.
Yes you escaped war taxes from the British to pay for American war taxes, well done you're in the same boat again. Accepted Indigenous people in time? Reserves are getting smaller since the formation of your country, you have 15+ mascots of Indigenous people in a stereotypical fashion, reservations are generally third world ghettos with little to no assistance to become more than anything greater than an activist. Took you guys about 50 years or so after writing "all men are created equal" to figure out someone with a high melatonin count are human beings as well? My ancestors took slaves, but they were treaded as people of a lower class but as people above all.
Looks like this thread isn't about debt and American collapse anymore lol America has a rough history, but humans are hateful in nature. They were hateful in the past and we're hateful now. Different ways, different targets, same hate. When you hate on the American haters, you're no better. The only time hate is acceptable is when your burning in hell bitches P.S Indian missions getting smaller because of Integration into other communities. And the tribe I grew up next to is very well off because of the casino monopoly and goes out of their way to help the poorer tribes... and sell marijuana illegally but we don't talk about that What I can talk about is how if an Native American kid graduates from high school in my hometown they get over $100,000 to spend on whatever they want. "18 Money". Let me tell you theres more fancy cars in the mission than college graduates. But maybe thats a thread/discussion for another day
Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat?? I don't agree with the last bit, compassion hasn't gotten the human race where it is today, it's through killing from Neanderthal to other Homo Sapiens and animals we have stayed at the top for some 50,000+ years or so. I never claimed I was better than anyone, I implied my ancestors were killers with a sense of mercy. Sounds like slight of hand distraction from getting an education, sad since I've had some of my schooling paid for by taxes (crazy right? Our money going to help us!) helped me out in deciding what I wanted to do after high school.
Could you also argue that Humans as a species are killing ourselves with the strength and violence that brought us to the top? And that the compassion of Humans is the only thing that is stopping us from consuming ourselves in war? Edit: And your words sound like your suddenly defending the abhorrent acts you were previously attacking America for
Homo Sapiens are Humans, so yes I could argue that point. As for the "compassion" illusion, name one point in time when no human was fighting another, I've yet to find any time period with true peace. Edit:I attack America because it's the most squeaky in claiming to be a paragon of proper global moral standing and the greatest ideals since the birth of large groups of citizens sharing power. I make no such claim for myself or my nation, I simply acknowledge the fact no form of human belief and moral code is truely peaceful or righteous.
An interesting topic and one not likely to be easily agreed upon. I don't think the US is going to crumble any time soon. I also think that the question is asked in a partial way. I guess it would be more interesting to me to ask how well the average American will do over the next 40 years not just economically but in many other spheres: social, political, health, happiness, they all matter. The Scandinavian countries have most of us beat by a mile in terms of how happy people are living there. Japan's economy has not grown very fast (or at all) in the past 20 years and yet people enjoy very high standards of living there. Back to my argument though. One way of thinking about how well a country is doing for its citizens is to look at income distribution and/or the Gini Coefficient (the latter is used to measure income distribution). so.... In the US this is the distribution by quintiles (fancy word economists use to say they measure what amount of income is split in each 20% of the population) so as you can see the bottom 20% of the population has very little compared to the top 20%. If we reduced the income share of the top 20% from 51.2% to 50% (not much right?) and transferred it to the bottom 20% we would grow their income share by over 33% - pretty amazing. That said the US is doing pretty badly in the OECD group in terms of its income distribution: only Mexico, Turkey and Chile are less equal. Form your own opinion from the data. About the US economy in more general terms: it still is huge, loss of basic low-tech manufacturing or not. It will take some time for any other country to even come close. It is a different (but not terrible) story when we look at the GDP/Debt ratio. The US is climbing for sure But here I would notice that much of that increase is due to the economic crisis and it is reflected throughout the world. There is no escaping as someone said that this is a globalized world where international trade is here to stay. And oddly enough a lot of countries run a balance of trade (BoT) deficit. that means that the spend more money importing than they gain exporting. In fact the OECD country that has done the best in the last decade has been tiny Ireland - which had a 3.6B euros surplus in its BoT last year but this is a very specific economy where exports of pharmaceuticals account for 28% of the total value. You often hear that the US has been obliterated by China in this trade competition. While there is some truth to the fact that China has done very well in its export-focused development strategy.... the problem may have been a shift in the nature of the economy where the structure of the economy changed towards a service orientation (which is generally easier to sell domestically than abroad). So, historically the US started running BoT in the 1980s, increased them as its economy moved more steadily towards services and took a nose-dive after the first Gulf War. So, it may be much a different picture than the one OP painted, more granular: where some American dreams get shinier and better and richer and some other turn from dreams into nightmares. Another point about the oil point. The US has been producing as much oil as Saudi Arabia for a fairly long time (it was an attempt to increase supply and lower prices). However it has what can be considered modest oil reserves. The US is actually right behind Nigeria with a little over 33B barrels. the other issue with oil is that one should really look at it in terms of its connection to the rest of economic and political issues. Anyways In God we trust, all others bring data.
Ashvar, Excellent post! I recently read somewhere that the financial services sector accounts for one fifth of GDP. That's a HUGE amount of money that just goes toward keeping money as the lifeblood of the world economy. It's actually where the vast majority of our money goes that could have gone toward paying down our debt. As far as responding to the OP - as long as we can continue to wage economic warfare on countries with natural resources we need, America isn't going anywhere. When you REALLY should start worrying is when other countries stop trading goods and services in dollars. The day that happens, we'll be in bad shape. But don't expect it to happen in our lifetime. We have the world's strongest military in the world - one that we spend another fifth of our budget on every year which is used to keep the financial sector alive and keep our boot on the necks of other nations trying to stand up. Illegal, endless war is the price of our dominance.
I have to agree that Ashvar's post is well done, however this statement is vague, technologically speaking yes you have the strongest toys around however a lot of spray n pray front line fodder thus a well trained militia could whittle down your armed forces if they over took your recruitment numbers (think WWII Pacific Theater) I will admit your special forces are very well trained but too few in number to be perceived as unbeatable in every situation, which brings me to my point that no nation can be the most powerful in the sense that title has changed hands so many times. Edit:Militia seems more appropriate than team.
Lol. If you think that trading with other countries is our life blood then you are clearly mistaken. The tariffs that we pay to trade with these countries are so high that we are on the losing end. For example, China floods USA with crap goods while turning away our goods. We buy oil from countries that's want us dead all the while we sit on oil reserves that would close those countries down. It's big enough that Russia is drilling sideways to tap into. Drill it or lose it. What do you think brought down the price of oil? Private sector. They started drilling on their own property and opec dropped prices in order to salvage their market. Smartest thing to ever happen.
Say what? Where the hell did i imply it was? Someone made a comment about US morals and yada yada yada.... Your first response to the previous person's opinion was to go back to a time period of world wide chaos to choose an example from. A rather shity example at that.
What are you talking about Africa's lands were raided to help build America. Africa's people helped build America forcibly. And the way we treat each other down here we don't have another 2000 years.
1. British tyranny?! Lol. The most free and most Independent devolved colony in the empire? Maybe your teachers should start teaching actual history. 2. The USA is NOT collapsing. It's feeling the effects of 60 years of oligarchy an the recent global economic crisis. 3. The USA defence budget won't get cut. Not until the Russians have finished this little period of unstable aggression. They can't last it, their economy will collapse. This doesn't stop them being dangerous however, they have a strong military and ruthlessness that the west can't / won't match.
Because your history reflects your choices into what you as a nation view as moral and that your ideals are best for the world, history in a broad spectrum besides your own perceived history shows you're no better on a moral standing than anyone else in this world, meaning you have no moral high ground better than anyone else in the world, morals and ideals are man made constructs to try and use to elevate one's self above another, or to "help" as to further their influence as the right path. If you deny that giving animosity to such disturbing crimes in exchange for information is a low point in American moral standards, then yes you are implying such. That it effects your current moral standing is shaky at best, many hateful groups still exist and operate within American soil, how can this nation claim a moral standing higher than the rest of the world when it is down in the mud with the rest of them? That is the point I'm getting across.
America just does what it wants to whoever it wants...it breaks so many rules and then shouts and stamps when somebody else does...AND it creates its own problems