Quote:
Originally Posted by chelsea24
SteveZ you surprise me with this post. You're so gloom and doom about anything even remotely left, and now you're all about "hope"?
IMHO, this happened on Bush's watch. And please don't give me "but this started long before Bush" when we are spending millions if not billions a month in Iraq.
Greenspan is saying "this is the crisis of a century". And although that guy should shut the  up, he might be right.
I listened to many economists last night, and they were saying that all of this could take 10 years! It's time to get real folks. Empires have fallen and American can go Bankrupt! That's the simple truth. 
Clearly we need CHANGE! |
There's no gloom to me - only reality. The reality is, I've seen a lot worse than this, so "this" is no big deal.
Whether it's billions in Iraq or elsewhere in the Mideast under a couple Republican administrations; or billions in Vietnam, Korea, Japan, the Phillippines, Taiwan and most of Europe under a few Democratic administrations; it's happened before and it will happen again. The recovery path is always the same as it has been in past years (we just don't remember it because we were either not born yet or too distracted elsewhere!) and will occur again.
America is ALWAYS deep in hock - whether it is by government debt or combined personal debt of the citizenry. The ability to be in debt is what allows most people the opportunity for home ownership, cars for the masses, college for just about everyone, all the stuff we "just can't live without," and support of a goodly chunk of the rest of the world via the US' "shares" of the International Monetary Fund. Sometimes the debt-ratio-per-citizen fluctuates, but it always has been there to some measurable degree.
The US is still the major consumer market in the world, and many economies are based on US ties, one way or another. If the bubble bursts a little, causing some Audi owners to swap for a Camry or a Ford Fiesta, that's hardly the end of life as we know it. Being in personal debt or not realizing that the terms
investment and
gamble are synomymous doesn't change the fact that the former is living on the future, and the latter is betting on someone else's abilities. Either way, there is risk, and there is no such thing as no-risk risk.
We have as close to absolute freedom absent anarchy as a country could have.
Hopeless to me is not having any quantum of freedom to effect my own well-being, which is why I'm not too keen with "government" having control over much of what I can do. The most hopeless people I have ever met were totally or close-to-totally "taken care of" by some government somewhere. Lord, please save me from everyone who wants to "help" me for their sake or what they perceive is in my best interest!
Yep, we have it made! As long as we stick to the Constitution - the best collection of ideas on earth - we will continue to have it made. Everything else is just a small pot-hole on the turnpike of life, including periodic elections.