The Decaying of America.

Quote from southamerica:

.



Today Brazil is positioned for a great future between its very healthy financial position and its independence from oil as a source of energy.


.
More...


Brazils economy is pre dominantly Agrarian, even their much touted alternative energy export potential is agrarian ( sugarcane and Methanol). Brazils future is tied to Chinese imports of Brazilian farm output ( look at the exponential growth of Soy exports to China!). The Chinese economy is tied to the American consumer buying all its CRAP. How long do you think the American consumer can keep on buying Chinese CRAP? not much longer. The Chinese and Brazilian economies are due for a very hard landing once the American economy starts keeling over.

Also Brazil has a lot of SERIOUS societal problems. A few families control most of the productive farm land and much of the economy. No country in history has ever become "great" when a handful of people own much of the land.

There is very little "opportunity factor" in Brazil, if you're born poor and work hard all your life, there is still 99.9999% probability you will die even poorer. Unlike in the USA which has the biggest "opportunity factor" quotient in the world ( maybe Dubai comes close). In the USA if you are born poor, but you work hard ( you don't even need to be smart, just work hard ) there is 99.9999% probability that you will die very wealthy.

For all my rantings against the American government, I am actually very bullish on the American people and their system (unfortunately they have strayed from their roots). The American people may be the dumbest sheep around, but the "system" they created is attractive to the smartest people in all the other nations. I can give you as an example. Why are you living in America? it's because smart people like you can easily leverage your intellect for bigger gains in America than you can in Brazil! Like you, all the other nations smartest people move to America to leverage their intellect. So even if the local population is stupid, the inflow of the worlds highest IQ individuals will allow them to keep on innovating. As long as they keep on innovating and if they can cut back on their endless and useless wars, they will remain a super power. It's because they have a system that attracts the best minds in the world to go to America. Isn't that a fact?

However, I can not say the same for Brazil. The so called economic miracle you speak of in Brazil is like a boiling kettle, it's a matter of time before the whole thing boils over and burns everything around it. Maybe that's why over 70% of wealthy Brazilians park their money in the USA.
 
Quote from dddooo:

To whoever was kind and nice enough to do you a favor and lend you money when you wanted to buy what you could not afford. Go and thank them, make it good.
More...


I wonder why Jesus is whipping these people?


<a href="http://imageshack.us"><img src="http://img86.imageshack.us/img86/4245/jesuswhipsthemoneylenderscs8.jpg" border="0" alt="Image Hosted by ImageShack.us" /></a>


Did you know THIS WAS THE ONLY ONE TIME Jesus used violence IN HIS ENTIRE LIFE?!
 
claywilk Objective evidence is fairly easy to come by. i think the term of the day was stagflation.

However more importantly I lived through him.

I was in high school during carters presidency. the u.s was rotting from the inside.

let me take you back in time.

why was it such a big deal that the U.S. beat the russians in hockey.

Why did it seem that inflation was so bad. Why were we ineffective in bringing home hostages, why were bruce springsteen and guys like billy joel at the height of their careers singing about how tough life was and perhaps about overcoming adversity. why did it seem that factories were closing and unemployment was high.

Why did Jimmy carter give a malaise speech that was taken to define what it means to be a leadership, loser of a president. Why did he at other times tell us to accept that that we were no longer a great country.

Again, imho anyone who does not acknowledge that Reagan did a masterful job of turning around a country quite simply did not live through it.
 
.

Jem: claywilk Objective evidence is fairly easy to come by. i think the term of the day was stagflation.

However more importantly I lived through him.

I was in high school during carters presidency. the US was rotting from the inside.

Why did it seem that inflation was so bad.


**************


July 30, 2006

SouthAmerica: Reply to Jem.

In the mid 1970’s when I was in college I did read a very interesting book which gave a detail analysis of the roots of the economic mess that the US found itself in the 1970’s – the name of the book was “Inflation” by Michael Harrington. He also wrote a number of other books, but the book that made him famous was “The Other American.”

I was an undergraduate economics student at that time and Michael Harrington’s book made a lot of sense to me. The root of the problem of the inflation of the 1970’s was in the massive US defense spending going back to the 1960’s because of the Vietnam war.

Massive defense spending generates inflation in future years.



****


Sorry to disappoint you Jem, but the economic hero was not Ronald Reagan during the late 1970’s and 1980’s – the real economic hero in the United States during that time was Paul Volcker.

Paul Adolph Volcker (born September 5, 1927 in Cape May, New Jersey), is best-known as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve ("Fed") under United States Presidents Jimmy Carter and Ronald Reagan (from August 1979 to August 1987).

Volcker's Fed is widely credited with ending the United States' stagflation crisis of the 1970s by limiting the growth of the money supply, abandoning the previous policy of targeting interest rates. Inflation, which peaked at 13.5% in 1981, was successfully lowered to 3.2% by 1983 and has remained low ever since. Paul Volcker’s stabilization of the price level has apparently been a major success story in American economic history.

After serving as president of the Federal Reserve Bank (1975–79), he was appointed head of the Federal Reserve System in 1979 by Pres. Jimmy Carter and served from August 1979 to August 1987. To end a period of very high inflation, he slowed the growth of the money supply and allowed interest rates to rise, causing a recession (1982–83) but dramatically reducing inflation. (Jimmy Carter’s presidency from Jan 77 to Jan 81- Ronald Reagan from Jan 81 to Jan 89.)

When Ronald Reagan became president in January 1981 Paul Volcker had been Chairman of the Federal Reserve for 1 ½ year and his successful policies were already under way.


.
 
.

September 26, 2006

SouthAmerica: How do you know you are no longer a superpower?

When the U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has to go to a country such as Montenegro with a current military force that is being reduced from around 4,000 to 2,500 people – and Donald Rumsfeld has to ask such a country for help for the US army to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Next on Rumsfeld’s list of potential help to the US army is the Suisse Guard at the Vatican City.

If I was Donald Rumsfeld I would be embarrassed of showing to the world that the US armed forces has declined that far under his management.

What Rumsfeld should do instead is go to some African countries and ask them for help since many of these African armies fight their wars using kids as young as 10 years old. Maybe Rumsfeld can find a few thousand 10 year old kids in Africa for him to send them to fight a war on the US’s behalf in Iraq and in Afghanistan.

When the United States needs to ask for military help to a country such as Montenegro, then you know the US army is in real deep trouble – and it is no longer a superpower.

A real superpower would not subject its prestige and clout around the world to such a public HUMILIATION.

Donald Rumsfeld should be fired for his lack of judgment, or maybe this is another sign that he is going senile.



*************



The Times Online – UK
September 26, 2006
“Any troops going? Rumsfeld asks world's newest army”
By Sam Knight


Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, flew into Montenegro today to ask for help in the war against terrorism from the world's newest army.

A Pentagon spokesman said Mr Rumsfeld would discuss what contribution the Montenegrin military, which became independent from Serbia three months ago, would be prepared to make to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"That’s on the table," said Eric Ruff, speaking to reporters on board Mr Rumsfeld's aircraft to Podgorica, the capital of the small, Adriatic state of around 650,000 people.

"There will be discussion about what kind of involvement they see in the global war, and certainly any kind of support for specifically the Central Command [Middle East] region would be greatly appreciated."

Montenegro was recognised as Europe's newest state in June. For decades its armed forces had been merged with those of Serbia and the rest of the Yugoslavian military.

Source: http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2375433,00.html



***************



“Rumsfeld enlists Montenegro in war on terrorism”
By Kristin Roberts
Reuters - Tue Sep 26, 2006


PODGORICA, Montenegro (Reuters) - U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld on Tuesday enlisted the support of Europe's newest state in the war on terrorism and promised to help train Montenegro's modest army of 2,500 to NATO standards.

The highest-ranking U.S. visitor since Montenegro broke with Serbia in June to declare independence met Prime Minister Milo Djukanovic to discuss how the former Yugoslav republic might help America's military operations, perhaps with peacekeeping or special operations forces.

Rumsfeld's discussions with Montenegro on security cooperation come as the United States enters its fifth year of combat operations in Afghanistan and encounters unrelenting violence in Iraq that has frustrated Pentagon plans to start bringing some U.S. troops home.

Djukanovic made no commitment to provide troops to current U.S. operations, according to U.S. officials.

But he told reporters Montenegro was prepared to "accept all responsibilities of a nation to join Europe".

Montenegro, a mountainous state on the shores of the Adriatic Sea, is half the size of Belgium and has a population of just 650,000. It has just scrapped conscription and plans to reduce its current military force from around 4,000 to 2,500….


.
 
SA...

You keep on humilating yourself with your USA hatred rants.

IF the USA wanted to, we could nuke your beloved Brazil to death.

And no one would miss your country at all.

No one. Not even you. Because you would be dead.

Because you live there. It must suck huh? Seeing all the poverty and crime, ect?...

Does it make you feel bad that you live in a country that has
had no significant contribution to the world?

How in the world did you learn to type English? I bet you are
hard to understand if you were able to talk it... LOL...
 
I think SA lives in the states. Which should tell you something.

2. volker was a good appointment after the markets were convinced that carter and the dems were inept.


When carter took office the prime was at 6.25%. During Carters first few years inflation started to increase at one percent a month.

The fed before volker took the helm had already jacked up the prime to 11.5%.


volker himself gave a lot of credit to Reagan. Saying that the markets started to take reforms seriously when Regan made sure the govt stood up the the controllers union. And fired them all when they were demanding more from the govt. Volker said it had a profound influence on labor and reset peoples expectation about wage increases and inflation.

Reagan was the man who had to cut back on the democratically credited view of govt that if you have a problem the govt would exhuberantly come to your rescue. he said Regans restored confidence in America's America which had been lost or at least greatly eroded during the 70s.

Reagan also reduced the top tax rates from around 70 percent. his tax reform in 1986 lead to massive gains productivity, tax revenue and wealth, it helped create the info age of the 90s. Unfortunately Clinton dismantled much of the 1986 tax reform acts core.
 
.
Version77: Does it make you feel bad that you live in a country that has had no significant contribution to the world?


**********


September 27, 2006

SouthAmerica: Reply to version 77

I don’t agree with you. The United States had some contributions to the world.

The United States had some major advances in technology from the atomic bomb, to computer technology, to pharmaceuticals products.

As culture goes its highest achievements has been mostly related to Walt Disney and everything else related to the Disney world. Everybody around the world knows the Disney characters.

When the world looks at American cultural contribution – American culture is defined mostly by its highest intellectual achievements including Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Goofy, Grumpy, Dopey, or the American movie industry in general.

By the way, I live in New Jersey, about a half hour drive from Manhattan.


**********


Version 77: How in the world did you learn to type English? I bet you are
hard to understand if you were able to talk it...



***********


SouthAmerica: English is the standard international business language and over 1 billion people from around the world can speak and write in English.

At least around the New York/New Jersey Metropolitan area, where I live, everybody can understand when I speak in English.

.
 
.
September 27, 2006

SouthAmerica: Reply to Jem

To answer your posting, I am going to quote from one of my articles published on February 17, 2005 on Brazzil magazine. “The First Great Depression of the New Millennium” By Ricardo C. Amaral

http://www.brazzilmag.com/content/view/1424/49/

But the truth is: it is very easy to cut taxes and claim big victories today, when at the same time you start building up a major debt on your credit card for your kids to pay.

If you want another example at a local level of this great Republican strategy of cutting taxes and passing the debt to future generations just look at what Christine Whitman the New Jersey governor did during her 8 years in office in New Jersey about the same time when Bill Clinton was the US president.

When Chris Whitman was elected governor of New Jersey in 1993 the state of New Jersey had $ 2.5 billion dollars in outstanding debt. She also adopted the Republican way of managing finances and gave tax cuts during her term, but when Chris Whitman left office in 2001 – she left the state of New Jersey with $ 18 billion dollars in outstanding debt.

She used the Republican strategy of pocket as much money as you can today, and let the suckers hold the bag and pay the bills tomorrow. (the suckers in this case = future New Jersey generations who will have to live with this ton of debt from the past.)


****


Quoting from my article:

The Ronald Reagan years established a new mindset for the Republican Party: the level of “Debt Doesn’t Matter,” and they thought the US government could get away with a reckless policy of large deficit spending with no end in sight.

During the years of the Bush administration - from 2001 to 2008 – the United States finances were completely out of control, and the United States had been borrowing around 89 percent of the savings of the entire world - year after year.

For anyone to understand what the US government was really doing in terms of its finances during the Bush administration, you had to study what happened in similar cases to corporations such as: Enron, WorldCom, and Global Crossing – massive administrative mismanagement, and deception.

The Money Pit.

To put the American fiasco in perspective, we have to put the spotlight on the United States government’s cumulative national debt. The cumulative US national debts were only $ 930 billion dollars as of December 31, 1980 - right before Ronald Reagan became president of the United States. Since then, the US national debt has increased to an estimated $ 13 trillion dollars as of September 30, 2008 – that figure does not include all the other US government unfunded outstanding liabilities conservatively estimated at US$ 70 trillion dollars.

Here is the detail of the additions to the US national debt by president:

Ronald Reagan (8 years in office) added to US debt $ 1.7 trillion dollars.
George Bush Senior (4 years in office) added to US debt $ 1.5 trillion dollars.
Bill Clinton (8 years in office) added to US debt $ 1.6 trillion dollars.
George Bush Junior (first term, 4 years in office) added to US debt $ 1.8 trillion dollars.
George Bush Junior (second term, 4 years in office) added to US debt $ 5 trillion dollars.

Since December 31, 1980 the Republican presidents added $ 10 trillion dollars to the cumulative US national debt, and the Democratic president added $ 1.6 trillion dollars.
The Republican administrations added 87 percent of the new US national debt, and the Democratic administration added only 13 percent of the new debt.

All Republican presidents starting with Ronald Reagan have had a complete disregard for sound long-term economic policy, and how their current policies would affect future generations. All these Republican presidents had one thing in common: they did run a very large credit card bill during their administrations, and they were leaving all these debt to future American generations to pay. Since December 31, 1980 the United States had only one fiscally responsible president - former president Bill Clinton - a democrat…


.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top