America Is Eff'd!

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Arachnid
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Arachnid »

Cornuck wrote:
Arachnid wrote:
Cornuck wrote:Save the Illuminati jokes for the other thread - this thread is about the collapse of an empire.
You're one of them aren't you! :twisted: (an UnAmerikan that is :P )
Canadian all the way through, but living amongst the enemy :look: . In the 14 years I've been here, it's amazing the change that has happened, but most people just don't care - they've given up. Everyone knows that the game is rigged, but what can they do? Obama's 'hope and change' has disillusioned a huge amount of people who believed his BS. The Tea Party was overtaken by fools like Palin.

At least here in Chester, I'll be able to see the tanks coming from miles away.
The right to bare arms just doesn't apply to Lady Gagoo...isn't there a big militia near you? or is that the other NE (New England)?

Is the 2nd revolution coming (after the fall of the wall? :o )

Weird how socialist-democrat states like Canada, Brasil, China, Sweden, Germany are thriving... :mex:
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Per
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Per »

Arachnid wrote:
The right to bare arms just doesn't apply to Lady Gagoo...isn't there a big militia near you? or is that the other NE (New England)?

Is the 2nd revolution coming (after the fall of the wall? :o )

Weird how socialist-democrat states like Canada, Brasil, China, Sweden, Germany are thriving... :mex:
Not really. We're the ones who do the Keynes thingy according to the book... even if Sweden happens to have a conservative PM leading a centre-right coalition government at the moment.

You feed a recession, starve a cold... :wink:

Really, the trick is to build a surplus during the good years, so you can afford to spend your way out of the inevitable recessions that occur.

The problem is that some countries, like Greece and the USA, entered the recession already having deficits. Thus they end up choosing between plague and cholera. Try to spend your way out of the recession, and your deficit grows out of hand and brings you down; try to curb the deficit and you worsen and prolong the recession... Damned if you do, damned if you don't.

As mentioned already, Clinton had built a nice surplus, that could have helped the US out of the recession as smoothly as Sweden, Canada and German have sailed, but unfortunately Dubya spent it all and created a record deficit even before the recession begun. He lowered the taxes for the richest group and started two wars. Now, the wars are kind of hard to just walk away from right now, because that would leave those places even worse off, and would make the US look not only weak, but also unreliable as a partner.

The taxes could be fixed, but the tea party has a firm grip of the balls of the republican party and says no. Thus the only way the deficit can be adressed right now is with cuts, and cuts means less spending, which means lower consumption, which leads to lower sales, more layoffs and a drop in production. It's exactly what you do not want to do during a recession.

You see, poor people spend every cent they get, so it goes right back into the economy. Thus cutting social programmes during a recession is not smart. Raising taxes also slows the wheels a bit, but not to the extent that cutting entitlement programmes does, and thus raising taxes would be the lesser of evils in this situation. And the scary shit is that every one who knows the first thing about economics knows this. But do they do what needs to be done? No. They are too afraid to piss off the tea baggers, so raising taxes is out of the question. Much better to try to put out the fire by adding gasoline.....
:roll:
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ODB
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by ODB »

US politics for dummy's:

Republican = no brains
Democrat = no balls

The end!
BTW, NOT A FLAME ... JUST AN OBSERVATION ... :P
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Topper
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Topper »

Its a damn fine buying opportunity.
Over the Internet, you can pretend to be anyone or anything.

I'm amazed that so many people choose to be complete twats.
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Eddy Punch Clock »

Topper wrote:Its a damn fine buying opportunity.
No kidding. I just went down to Oak Harbour this weekend and bought a lot of junk food at less than half price compared to Canada.

2.5pounds of cheese for $15, three pack of large size Pringles $2.50, big Gatorade bottles $.50 (had to buy 10 though), Jack Links beef Jerky $1, 5 litre box of Franzia red wine$15, one dozen jumbo eggs $1.49..... and that was at a 7-11. :wow:

God bless America.
2011..... the one that got away.
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Hoss
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Hoss »

Eddy Punch Clock wrote:
Topper wrote:Its a damn fine buying opportunity.
No kidding. I just went down to Oak Harbour this weekend
I'm sorry. . . nothing but a bunch of off duty sailors in Ed Hardy tees and some Dutchmen down there.


But to digress from EPC's trip... the amount of schadenfreude from our Northern neighbors is always disturbing to me. Living among the enemy? Sounds like the guy that ran the board I used to go to.

But yes, the game is rigged down here. Some actually do care about it but the powers that be are entrenched as hell...
and with the violence the Police can get away with these days (literally with murder in the NW lately) who can do anything about it? Protest and get shot?

In short, be careful what you wish for, because it will affect you, and don't forget that some of us aren't troglodytes and most of us aren't machiavellian puppeteers trying to pull the strings of the world to our advantage.
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Arachnid
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Arachnid »

Hoss wrote:
Eddy Punch Clock wrote:
Topper wrote:Its a damn fine buying opportunity.
No kidding. I just went down to Oak Harbour this weekend
I'm sorry. . . nothing but a bunch of off duty sailors in Ed Hardy tees and some Dutchmen down there.


But to digress from EPC's trip... the amount of schadenfreude from our Northern neighbors is always disturbing to me. Living among the enemy? Sounds like the guy that ran the board I used to go to.

But yes, the game is rigged down here. Some actually do care about it but the powers that be are entrenched as hell...
and with the violence the Police can get away with these days (literally with murder in the NW lately) who can do anything about it? Protest and get shot?

In short, be careful what you wish for, because it will affect you, and don't forget that some of us aren't troglodytes and most of us aren't machiavellian puppeteers trying to pull the strings of the world to our advantage.
Amen Brotha but we are afraid...of change :(
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Strangelove »

Hoss wrote: the amount of schadenfreude from our Northern neighbors is always disturbing to me.
Don’t forget about the skadeglädje from your friends across the pond! :D

Don’t take it seriously buddy. We Canadians like to tease our American bro, but when push comes to shove we’re right there with you big guy! Unlike saaaay... Sweden who, when the going gets tough prefer to bend like Svend! Let's not forget, it wasn’t all that long ago they were taking it up the hoop from Uncle Adolph... AND LOVING IT! :mex:
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

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Strangelove wrote:
Hoss wrote: the amount of schadenfreude from our Northern neighbors is always disturbing to me.
Don’t forget about the skadeglädje from your friends across the pond! :D

Don’t take it seriously buddy. We Canadians like to tease our American bro, but when push comes to shove we’re right there with you big guy! Unlike saaaay... Sweden who, when the going gets tough prefer to bend like Svend! Let's not forget, it wasn’t all that long ago they were taking it up the hoop from Uncle Adolph... AND LOVING IT! :mex:
Read up on history! :roll:

We took the exact same stance as the USA in WWII - neutral until attacked.
Fortunately for us, we were never attacked. 8-)

The Finland situation - them being invaded by allied troops (aka the Soviet Union) - made it hard for us to openly join that side, as it probably would have required us assisting the commies in crushing our neighbours. But we listened in on German radio traffic throughout the war and passed the information on to the exiled Norwegian government in London, knowing fully well that they shared whatever they got with their hosts. We also trained hundreds of Norwegian "policemen" :wink: as a favour to the government in exile.

Turns out we later sort of did the same to the russkies... Throughout the cold war it seems the Soviet radio traffic we listened in on was passed on to someone who passed it on so it ended up with the NATO head quarters.... :oops:

But maybe that's what you call bending? Being a covert NATO ally in sheep's clothing?

And besides, Svend is a Danish name! :evil:

Returning on topic, I do not feel any Schadenfreude over the current economic mess in the States. If their economy goes haywire, so does the global one. I just feel frustrated that the US congress doesn't seem to realise how dire he situation is and try to make petty political points rather than solve the problem. The tea-baggers refuse to accept any raised taxes, even though the tax pressure in the USA is the lowest in any western country and iirc at its lowest point since WWII. At the same time the left wing of the democratic party claims a number of entitlement programmes cannot be touched. Even though they have better economic reasoning to support their stance, the problem with the current deficit cannot be solved unless you do both - you need to raise taxes AND make some drastic spending cuts.
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Arachnid
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Arachnid »

Per wrote:
Strangelove wrote:
Hoss wrote: the amount of schadenfreude from our Northern neighbors is always disturbing to me.
Don’t forget about the skadeglädje from your friends across the pond! :D

Don’t take it seriously buddy. We Canadians like to tease our American bro, but when push comes to shove we’re right there with you big guy! Unlike saaaay... Sweden who, when the going gets tough prefer to bend like Svend! Let's not forget, it wasn’t all that long ago they were taking it up the hoop from Uncle Adolph... AND LOVING IT! :mex:
Returning on topic, I do not feel any Schadenfreude over the current economic mess in the States. If their economy goes haywire, so does the global one. I just feel frustrated that the US congress doesn't seem to realise how dire he situation is and try to make petty political points rather than solve the problem. The tea-baggers refuse to accept any raised taxes, even though the tax pressure in the USA is the lowest in any western country and iirc at its lowest point since WWII. At the same time the left wing of the democratic party claims a number of entitlement programmes cannot be touched. Even though they have better economic reasoning to support their stance, the problem with the current deficit cannot be solved unless you do both - you need to raise taxes AND make some drastic spending cuts.
Unfortunately the crisis in Europe is far more serious than in the U.S.
Greece, Spain, Iceland, Ireland and Portugal have real immediate debt problems, the American one is a longer political crisis, manufactured if you will, for the public to decide in 2012... Do the Europeans get to decide what country falls or rises?

Nope.

Will the Republicans or Democrats be the economic saviours?

Nope.

Everyone can play the blame game and say who the chicken or egg was but what it comes down to is sustainability. Can we maintain economic growth, avert climate and social change without jeopardizing the future of our children?

Nope.

Change is in the air and it's coming, no matter what side (of the Atlantic) you are on or what country you live in and think is immune to crisis...

Yep.
I love every move Jim Benning makes 8-)
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by ukcanuck »

You know what, keep track of what is happening here in jolly ol blighty, the youth are revolting (more than usual) and with social networking, IM, twitter, facebook, and the like they are getting organised. Its going to get worse and watch if it crosses borders. It started in london and has spread to other major centres. three nights of rioting and the government called in every cop they had , all leave was cancelled and even newly retired cops were brought back. That coupled with pulling cops from other jurisdictions brought the total to about 16000 pissed off brothers in blue talking water cannons and plastic bullets.
It worked in that London was relatively quiet, the city was in lockdown, shops closed early and rent a cops were everywhere. This left Manchester, Birmingham and Liverpool with less uniforms and the riots sprang up there last night instead.
but the big IF and what every western government should be concerned about is that if it spreads to other countries who also have a threatened middle class and a huge poor underclass with no hope for a better future...the loss of freedoms we saw after 9/11 is going to be small potatoes. If the bankers and corporations and fat cats dont share the wealth we are headed for a police state thats going to make the nazi's look like amateurs.
I mean Hockey riots are one thing, a complete break down of social order on an international scale...
I think its not justAmerica that is Eff'd
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by ODB »

Change is coming to America....

How were we to know Obama meant he'd be changing his shorts (due too shitting in them) after every meeting with a Republican? Jesus H you know what... could the guy take it any further up the hoop? Does he have the balls to stand up for anything? You just know Michelle pegs him nightly!

Shaft, he is not!

OMG, google Obama concedes!

2.3 million results... the biggest pussy in presidental history! Image
BTW, NOT A FLAME ... JUST AN OBSERVATION ... :P
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Strangelove »

Per wrote: Read up on history! :roll:

We took the exact same stance as the USA in WWII - neutral until attacked.

Fortunately for us, we were never attacked. 8-)
So you "got lucky" and Germany didn't attack you! :lol:

C'mon Per for a few years during the war (while they were winning) you guys were basically allies with the Nazis!
Scandinavia since 1500... by Byron J. Nordstrom

"Sweden's government attempted to maintain at least a semblance of neutrality while it bent to the demands of the prevailing side in the struggle.... from April 1940 to summer 1943, neutrality was a sham. In fact, Swden was virtually an allie of Nazi Germany."
Stop trying to deny it Sweden, you were Germany's bitch during WWII and you know it!

Per wrote: And besides, Svend is a Danish name! :evil:
Ummm... "Bend like Svend" is a local saying somehow regarding Svend Robinson.
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by Strangelove »

ODB wrote:Change is coming to America....

How were we to know Obama meant he'd be changing his shorts (due too shitting in them) after every meeting with a Republican? Jesus H you know what... could the guy take it any further up the hoop? Does he have the balls to stand up for anything? You just know Michelle pegs him nightly!

Shaft, he is not!

OMG, google Obama concedes!

2.3 million results... the biggest pussy in presidental history! Image
Well said ole bean.

He ain't no Shaft!

Actually he reminds one more of the fellow Eddy Murphy addresses in this clip:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1Enam3uk ... re=related

Did we ever get a peek at his birth certificate??

Cuz I'm thinkin dis muthahfuckah's from Sweden yo! 8-)
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Re: America Is Eff'd!

Post by UWSaint »

Per wrote:
(On Sweden)

We're the ones who do the Keynes thingy according to the book... even if Sweden happens to have a conservative PM leading a centre-right coalition government at the moment.

(On the US)

The problem is that some countries, like Greece and the USA, entered the recession already having deficits. Thus they end up choosing between plague and cholera.
Yes, Per, I am sure the numbers will back up your analysis....
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