For anyone to pin this on President Obama is just wrong, and betrays their political leanings. Forget pinning this mess on one political party, or one man, the seeds of this impending fiscal disaster lay at all of our doorsteps.
You all want to be "one nation"?
Then we should all 'own' this, it's us.
I have no idea what 'think tank' Bradley Schiller crawled out of, but I read the same statistic's he should be privy to, and this is bad. Worse than you can even imagine.
First, the difference between the depression of the 30's and now, is that one, we are a 'consumption' driven economy with a negative savings rate, and much of the currency that oils this GLOBAL economy is 'electronic', meaning that in the time it takes me to type this sentence I can transfer one billion dollars from the Northern Trust Bank in Chicago to UBS in Switzerland, and then to a branch of ING in Toyko, which means that "bank runs" aren't the familiar pictures of poor sods lined outside a 30's bank, bank runs can happen in the blink of an eye, in an trading room, all across the world.
secondly, the other difference between the 30's and now, is that our wired world, meaning the global economy, is just that, global, interconected and dependent. Therefore, when multinational companies decided that US labor was too expensive, we lost our manufacturing base...to whom? The PEOPLE's Republic of China, a communist nation. Take a stroll down any walmarts lane, pick up an item, and see where it was manufactured? the PRC.
We do have three bases of production left, meaning we maintain a trade surplus with the rest of the world, agriculture, which is good, but pity the poor farmer who is only able to sell the raw material, ie. yellow number two corn, or hard red winter wheat, because he cant ADD VALUE to this product, and as time has shown, if you cant add value to an ag product, you get the lowest price, he cant take this wheat, grind it into flour, and bake billions of loaves of bread, no. That farmer can only TAKE what ADM or Cargill, or Conti, or whatever multinational grain trader is going to give him at the country elevator. We also maintain a trade surplus in entertainment content, and I'm not even going to go into that, because thats what the world SEES of America, and its not a pretty picture, considering the sewage that flows from those pipelines, and third, we are the largest arms dealers to the world. We build the best weapons systems, and every nation wants them, because they're the best, and isnt that swell? and as you know, weapons systems only have one purpose, KILL PEOPLE....or, should I say, "kill the enemy", and we sing, "God's grace shine on thee"?..
I could refute every single one of Schiller's stat's, but I dont want to bore you. let me just give you two things to think about, the "toxic assets" (CDO's, CDW's) that overhang the economy and have yet to be dealt with, total about 64 TRILLION dollars. Nobodies dealt with them, because nobody knows what they're worth, and if a trader cant valuate an asset, he wont be biding on it. Those CDO's are everybodys bundled up mortgages and credit card obligations....that's our mess, and nobody can assign value. 64 trillion dollars, and the second thing to think about is money supply, which we have ramped up between 200 and 300% every month, we're trying to print our way out of this mess, and it wont work, its going to kill the dollar, simple as that. No, this isnt 81-82, nor is it the 30's depression, this is something altogether new, strange and different, we're in uncharted waters.
go look at Pastor Wilkerson's "thus saith", is that fear mongering?
in Jesus' love, neil
