No relevent Republican candidates in 2012 for President.

Started by Callie Del Noire, February 28, 2011, 02:13:46 PM

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OldSchoolGamer

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on March 10, 2011, 11:58:54 AM
No, we're not. IF we get our collective heads out of our ass. Third parties aren't the way to fix problems. Taking BACK our parties from corporate interests is. As well as the special interests. It's a litmus test to become president now. You have to pass this special interests test, and this one, and that one, and those two..

The two parties ARE corporate interests.

In America we have two basic blocs of voters/parties.  On the Left, we have the Democrats (minus the Blue Dogs) who are convinced the government can solve our problems if only it spends more money.  On the Right, we have the GOP and the conservative Democrats, who don't really care what happens to America as long as the wealthy elite are not inconvenienced in any way and can continue to get richer.

There are other, much smaller blocs, of course: the fundies, the Greens, etc., but those two are 95% or better.

Needless to say, neither of these ideologies are going to fix what's wrong with America.

The reason I don't see America lasting much longer (at least in anything resembling its current form) is that the population doesn't have a clue and doesn't WANT one.  As the Right jostles to insert its collective nose deeper into the corporate rectum and the Left wants more government, the whole ship continues to go down, "and the band plays on."

Deep down inside, I don't think America WANTS to be saved.  My recommendation is to get to the lifeboats (I am).

Callie Del Noire

#51
Quote from: OldSchoolGamer on March 12, 2011, 01:04:26 PM

The reason I don't see America lasting much longer (at least in anything resembling its current form) is that the population doesn't have a clue and doesn't WANT one.  As the Right jostles to insert its collective nose deeper into the corporate rectum and the Left wants more government, the whole ship continues to go down, "and the band plays on."

Deep down inside, I don't think America WANTS to be saved.  My recommendation is to get to the lifeboats (I am).


That opinion, pardon my french, is utter BS. That is the defeatist 'my vote doesn't count' BS I've heard since I could walk. I grew up with my first memories including President Richard Nixon resigning on TV. Over the years, I watched over 'potential voters' vs 'actual voters' turn into a joke for a democracy. I spent several years in Europe as a child and an adult and I was EMBARRASSED that every damn country in the EU had more participation in their electoral process than we had since the Kennedy elections.

I used to yell at my airmen for not bothering to vote or even register. I had two of them who were from Dade Country Florida during the Bush/Gore referendum. I pointed out that their voted could have very likely counted given the closeness of the time. It was standing policy in my workcenter if you didn't vote, you couldn't bitch about the president. (Either way)

We need to look at that first line on the constitution again. We, THE PEOPLE. It's time we do something. Long past.

One of the things I LIKED about the election was that more people participated, as a percentage, than anytime since Watergate. I don't disagree with everything the President does, but I respect him. Which is more than I can say for some I voted for.

Giving up on the process when it's still possible to fix the process is stupid, lazy and defeatist. There is still some work to be done, like extracting special interests from the democratic process, but it CAN be done.

The problem is everyone in the US wants someone to pull a magic wand out of their jacket and fix things instantly.

We need to accept that it's OUR duty to go out and get informed. To follow our politicians BEFORE and AFTER we vote on them. OUR Duty to be informed. ACCEPT that compromise is part of the process. ACCEPT that we will lose occasionally.

LEARN and be responsible with our vote, it's not just a right.. its' a duty to be an informed voter. If you don't participate you can't shape actions.

Jude

I like everything you said, but I believe there's a bit more to it than that if we want to fix our country.  People who listen to conservative talk radio think that they're fulfilling their civic duty to be informed.  Shaun Hannity's listeners greet him when they call in with "you're a patriot" and often he responds in kind if he knows them at all.  And it's not like liberals are any better; they jump to conclusions and vilify the other side with sincere passion every bit as much as conservatives do while thinking that their hyper-partisanship is a virtue.  Both sides truly believe that they're serving the country with their actions and I think that their heart is in the right place even if their brain is out to lunch.

They have a good reason (I use italics to reference the fact that this is true only from their perspective) to avoid compromise.  If you believe you have the solution to the problem, then deterring even a little bit from that optimal path will actually hurt the country.  That's the problem with ideologues, they're honestly convinced that their political philosophy is a superior outlook on politics to the other side, which justifies all kinds of extremism and absurdities.

This is especially true when our political parties are coalitions of disparate elements that don't necessarily have any thematic consistency.  Republicans claim that they want small government and believe in the rights of the individual while supporting all kinds of legislation that dramatically increases spending like the war on drugs and policies the life of the individual like DOMA.  Democrats make a similar claims about wanting to preserve civil rights, but they only seem interested preserving certain explicit freedoms while they have no problem passing bills that require people to behave in a certain way (such as the health care bill), and of course they have numerous other hypocrisies.  Libertarians, by contrast, have a political system envisioned that is internally consistent because every tenet of their belief is informed by the basic principle of limited government.

The only way you can really accurately characterize Republicans and Democrats is liberal and conservative, in that Republicans trend towards preserving traditional governmental policies and liberals are generally in favor of progressing our laws and institutions in a new direction.  Both are necessarily components of any stable society.  How it's supposed to work is that unless most issues that the liberals bring up conservatives block, with the exception of the ideas which truly are valuable and good and those ideas eventually survive the cut and become the new preserved tradition.  Conservatives are supposed to keep liberals from throwing the baby out with the bathwater, but everything is out of whack now.  Now conservatives are trying to roll back the clock, they've become de-progressives basically.

Why did this happen?  Because around the time Reagan came into office the policies which made it past the conservative/liberal tug of war were seemingly failing.  It looked, at the time, like our process of conservation and progression was out of whack and we'd become too centered on progressing recklessly.  To the American public Reagan "fixed' the problem by winding back the clock, which fundamentally change the dynamics in this country.  Now nothing is functioning as it should and we're stuck in a state of political limbo where it's constantly three steps forward and 2.888(repeating) back.

The latest recession was a really great chance to prove to the American people that things, as they've been post-Reagan, are not working.  An impartial observer would've seen that the ways in which we've gone backwards are what caused our problems.  Conservatives like to blame Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, but even the bill which was largely Republican sponsored which recently passed through congress that is aimed at slowly phasing out those institutions admits that what went wrong with them was actually that the reckless, unmitigated, and de-regulated behavior of the private sector spilled into these government endorsed enterprises.  They're all a symptom of the same problem.

A little bit of degression every now and then is healthy, because some progressive initiatives that are actually bad will get past the process by accident from time to time.  Our political system is not perfect and has never been, but for the longest time it worked pretty well.  Until recently America has been on what is practically a constant course upward to global prominence.  Even the Civil War which served as a dark point on the timeline of our nation's history was fought in the name of bettering our nation, and as a result things did in fact get better.

The problem is, the only way in which we're going to get anywhere is a majority (or at least a plurality) of the American people come to realize that liberal and conservative perspectives are not conflicting truths.  They are not philosophies wherein one must be right and one must be wrong.  They are toolsets to deal problems that must be applied evenly by reasonable people if we're going to have a successful government.  We can't have one party that holds at its core a self-perpetuating belief of governmental failure and an obsession with returning to the 1950s while the other half of our political system acts with typical incompetence to prove their point.

The only thing that's going to solve this problem is a more enlightened public with less confidence and adherence to their own opinions.  We need to be more critical of claims made by both sides of the aisle.  Everyone needs to learn to do research and think things through with as little bias as possible before coming to a conclusion.  Each and every member of the voting public needs to do more than read the Constitution (it being a part of your study is good though), because that's just a statement of how things are.

Look at statistics and studies on political topics.  Stop latching onto ideas because they happen to fall in line with the philosophy you're currently behind and instead question each idea on its own merits.  Question yourself constantly, try and think of how other people will attack whatever it is you're professing before they get a chance to, and wonder if in fact they are right.  Follow the evidence and see where it leads, don't look for evidence that fits the conclusion you're hoping to draw.  Simply look at the data in general and make sure it's from a reputable source.

It isn't that we don't think for ourselves, it's that we don't think about things that could potentially disprove the truths that we hold dear.  We need to stop identifying first and foremost as Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, or Liberals, and start thinking of ourselves as a voting member of the public who has a responsibility to use their higher faculties to analyze the situation that our country is in before walking to the polls to cast a party-line vote.

Even more importantly, we need to consume media with a critical eye so that it won't matter whether we're being lied to or not:  if we stop watching the TV channels that try and spoon-feed us what we want to believe, they'll go out of business and be replaced by the news sources that we begin to patronize for their fair reporting.  Being unbiased isn't refusing to take a perspective either, it's simply taking a perspective that's based on the evidence.

Fuck fair and balanced; the truth isn't balanced.  That the war on drugs is a colossal failure isn't up for debate anymore than the fact that Barack Obama is a Christian citizen who was born in Hawaii.  Facts aren't partisan.  So if we want to live in a flourishing society, we need to start adopting opinions which are based on facts, not partisanship or protecting any other preconceived notion.

Callie Del Noire

You know what Jude, I think you are half right. But the thing is if we don't educate ourselves and set about changing the system, AND acknowledging the right to the opposition to have their opinion. We've never been a polite society when politics are involved, and anyone that thinks that is wrong. (Goldwater's campaign is a good example of how well the opposition can throw mud).

The thing is.. if each person doesn't try to come up with something to look for on their own, nothing ever happens.

Witness the election of President Obama. Prior to the actual election (say.. about like where we are in the timeline to the 2012 election), he was a nobody. A first time US Senator against a powerful more publically known opponent (Hilary Clinton, John Edwards, John McCain).

People listened and watched the news, not too much admittedly but more than any election since Watergate. Small steps, even if the results don't please you, can START something. The lack of action for the 2012 election now tells me that inertia is setting back in and I will be very curious to see how many first time voters return to the polls this time.

I can almost see at least a close margin if someone halfway rational gets the Republican nod. Sadly the current crop doesn't have many choices. Senator McCain strikes me as more rational than the list at the top but I doubt he'll try again. And let's be honest, we need the younger more vital segment of the part to step up and take charge.

That is something we need on BOTH sides.

More importantly we need people to start looking and thinking about things. Education is part of that. Reform is another part. Me, personally, I'd do away with the term limits to office WITH a single provision. You can only hold office for two terms then have to sit out a term. I think that breaking the 'in office' advantage would do a lot to making things more vital and dynamic in government.

There is no single step or process to fix the problems we've got in the system but getting VOTERS to step up and vote and participate is the start.

Jude

I agree with pretty much everything you said, but I question why people were so involved in 2008.  I think it was because of how much people disliked Bush and the fact that Obama is black more than anything.  It was an exciting and dynamic event because in a lot of ways it became a big first for our country as well as a repudiation of an extremely unpopular president.

I'm not sure how to reproduce that electricity for 2012.  I just don't think it'll happen.

I can honestly say I felt really awesome when Obama got elected in 2008; it really did seem like an inflection point of change in our country in a lot of ways.  Then... nothing really changed.

Oniya

I'm encouraged by something I saw today.  The little Oni was invited to a friend's birthday party, and as I floated around the other adults (only one of which I knew to any real extent), I heard people talking about these things.  Now, mind you, I live in an insular little podunk town with cow pastures within five miles of the center of town in any direction.  If there's any place that's resistant to change, it's a town like this, where buildings that have been razed to the ground for five years are still landmarks.

People are talking.  I think (from a snippet of something that I wandered past) that people are ready to start acting.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Jude

I hope you're right.  I don't care if we live in a more conservative or liberal society when it comes to pure fiscal issues at this point.  I just want to see us progress, remain prosperous, and include some of the more marginalized members of society into the fold of mainstream life (through things such as gay marriage being respected).

If nothing else it's encouraging to read posts on this forum even when we're in the middle of heated debates, because I think damn near everyone here agrees with some version of what I said in the above paragraph.

OldSchoolGamer

The problem with this notion that everything politically in the United States is going to work out is that we're facing problems that action needed to start happening 25 years ago to solve.  At this juncture, it's like having the bridge crew of the Titanic finally decide an iceberg watch would be prudent after all...an hour after the collision.  It's too late.

We needed to do something about the deficit and government spending back in the 1980s.  We needed to begin full-scale R&D into alternative energy sources, with none of this childish belief in Santa Claus and the "free market" magically pulling something out of its ass just in the nick of time.  We needed to do something about the loss of our industrial base back in the 1990s.  We needed to have not invaded Iraq ten years ago.

But even now, nothing is really being done about any of this.  The Republicans want to cut what little R&D remains and, I guess, just have us sit with our collective thumbs in our asses until the last supertanker of Saudi crude pulls into New Orleans.  We've built a fortified embassy compound the size of The Vatican in Baghdad, so that resource sink isn't going away anytime soon.  Gitmo is still open for business.  The Democrats insist Social Security not be touched.  The Republicans whined like emo kids at the rich having to take a 1/2-inch haircut that would still have left them with a marginal tax rate half that of the mid 20th century, along with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.  We had the spectacle of Boehner threatening to hold his breath until he died if he couldn't get his way, like a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum in the supermarket checkout line.  All that, over a small piece of the deficit.  What are they going to do when the numbers are crunched and it turned out tax rates on the jet set have to go up 5%?  Commit group seppuku on the steps of the Capitol?

We're a day late and a dollar short, getting later and getting shorter, and no one cares.

Callie Del Noire

People care. Just not enough to make it news worthy if you're cynical.

On the R&D point, we should have never killed the corporate tax credit for R&D, we'd still have some of the best R&D divisions around if we did. (thank you democrats). Agreed that we need to stop coddling the rich and they need to accept that some of their tax cuts need to go away. (suck it up republicans). There is bloat in the budget that needs to be cut. (both parties, I'm looking at you).

But in the end, its not the republicans or democrats at fault. It's ALL of us for not facing up to the hard bad news. Not everything we want is going to happen. Not everything we passed should stay law. It's not the unions or rich folks faults. It's EVERYONE.

We've gotten fat and lazy from our success and growth. We are arguably the most comfortable country to live in. That means we're used to a standard of comfort that isn't easily found elsewhere. The US as a country hasn't knuckled down and pulled their belt tight since the second world war. We need to accept there is no magic fix.

And agreed, we went into Iraq too early, without consideration of impact on the country and the region.  We failed to secure the borders against the initial surge of insurgents that cost THOUSANDS of civilian lives and we turned what should have been a reconstruction into a no-bid feeding frenzy. The leeching of manpower kept us from being effective in Afghanistan, which to me is a more dangerous region. A point a LOT of people don't consider about the Taliban. They were growing in Pakistan, which I might want to point out is a NUCLEAR power. Afghanistan and Pakistan are tied together in weird ways. If we had focused on Afghanistan we could have possibly found Bin Laden (willing to bet he's not in the region anymore, with our luck he's on a beach in Bali or such.)

Democrats need to realize that not every special interest has ideas/needs that need to be coddled and put forth as the primary elements of a party platform. For years, the divisiveness of the national committee selection process has made it hard to come up with their best.

Republicans, we need to stop letting the corporate sellouts and religious extreme rule the agenda and platform determination. We go on about 'small government' which is not what we want anymore. We want 'right sized'. We need to accept that means we have to pay taxes, and that cutting corners and giving the rich ways out won't always be doable. They have to pay. You can't keep milking out the middle class and eliminate  programs that are encourage social and personal responsibility because the bible thumpers among us are upset by them.

BOTH parties need to get together and stop acting like protecting American Business interests is a BAD Thing. The EU, Japan, China and India ALL engage in some form of protectionism. We need to stop foreign interests demanding by back door deals, payola and such with OUR elected officials setting our commercial policies. NAFTA needs reform and not just for what it did to the US, but for Canada and Mexico. Its not healthy in it's current form. Anyone that thinks it is only looking at their bottom line today and not what the wider picture. We need to reform our Corporate Tax policies to bring them back, and given that the EU and other countries are LOWER on than our national level, that should tell us something. That being said, yes.. Corporate tax needs reform but their influence on the political process needs to be reformed to. Special interests need to have better supervision.

Everyone needs to understand that a change enacted today will most likely not show results till sometime in the NEXT president's tenure in office (assuming that President Obama is reelected)

Vekseid

Quote from: OldSchoolGamer on March 13, 2011, 03:22:20 AM
The problem with this notion that everything politically in the United States is going to work out is that we're facing problems that action needed to start happening 25 years ago to solve.  At this juncture, it's like having the bridge crew of the Titanic finally decide an iceberg watch would be prudent after all...an hour after the collision.  It's too late.

Just because it's too late to prevent damage does not mean it's too late period.

Quote
We needed to do something about the deficit and government spending back in the 1980s.

No we didn't. America's debt is only a problem insofar as people with no economic understanding think of it as a trap rather than an expansion of available liquidity, because, these days, bankruptcy is so much harder to file, usury is legal, predatory lending and fraudulent foreclosures aren't being prosecuted.

Our -economic- problems are related to personal debt loads. They have nothing to do with the government's debt load.

Quote
We needed to begin full-scale R&D into alternative energy sources, with none of this childish belief in Santa Claus and the "free market" magically pulling something out of its ass just in the nick of time.  We needed to do something about the loss of our industrial base back in the 1990s.  We needed to have not invaded Iraq ten years ago.

All of those things would, of course, have been great. None of them are required for our future survival.

Quote
But even now, nothing is really being done about any of this.  The Republicans want to cut what little R&D remains and, I guess, just have us sit with our collective thumbs in our asses until the last supertanker of Saudi crude pulls into New Orleans.  We've built a fortified embassy compound the size of The Vatican in Baghdad, so that resource sink isn't going away anytime soon.  Gitmo is still open for business.  The Democrats insist Social Security not be touched.  The Republicans whined like emo kids at the rich having to take a 1/2-inch haircut that would still have left them with a marginal tax rate half that of the mid 20th century, along with more holes than a block of Swiss cheese.  We had the spectacle of Boehner threatening to hold his breath until he died if he couldn't get his way, like a spoiled brat throwing a tantrum in the supermarket checkout line.  All that, over a small piece of the deficit.  What are they going to do when the numbers are crunched and it turned out tax rates on the jet set have to go up 5%?  Commit group seppuku on the steps of the Capitol?

The worst thing that can happen with the dollar is it gets replaced. And then what? All the rich fucks who have scammed the nation out of trillions are stuck holding a bunch of paper that they can't even wipe their asses with, while the rest of the country moves on. As it should be.

Quote
We're a day late and a dollar short, getting later and getting shorter, and no one cares.

You might get more people listening to you if you didn't run around screaming that the sky is falling when it isn't, especially regarding confidence based phenomenon such as fiat currency debts. People hold that debt, and that wealth can either be taxed, or lose its value if their current obstinance forces a crisis of confidence. It does not magically vanish.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Vekseid on March 13, 2011, 12:51:20 PM

No we didn't. America's debt is only a problem insofar as people with no economic understanding think of it as a trap rather than an expansion of available liquidity, because, these days, bankruptcy is so much harder to file, usury is legal, predatory lending and fraudulent foreclosures aren't being prosecuted.

Our -economic- problems are related to personal debt loads. They have nothing to do with the government's debt load.

Thank you Veks, I know I missed something in my prior post. A good strong look on how 'greedy' the lending industry has gotten. As a vet I've seen predatory lenders completely DESTROY a serviceman's life and wellbeing.

Jude

No one's ever been able to explain to me why the debt situation is such a big problem when America's credit rating is still triple A or whatever.  When the economy starts growing again it'll be easy to balance the budget.  If we attack the problems we're experiencing head on such as healthcare costs, we'll have no problems whatsoever balancing things and becoming even more prosperous if the innovation is there.  Caution in spending is good, if we keep running up the debt ridiculously there will be a problem, but right now we're at a safe point.  We need more inflation, not less, if we're going to encourage investment.

As far as a few other things I'd add:

- There are still large stretches of land in the Midwest and most other states that are completely uninhabited.  We need more cities and more population growth, and that's simply not going to come from our current citizens.  Lets pave the way forward for relaxing immigration restrictions and repeat the stimulus that was the baby boom.  More citizens means more jobs, more tax, and higher numbers to counter the population of China.  And we have the room for it easily.  We need two sets of rules for citizens and immigrants who move here so that they can't take advantage of our systems in a way that drains them; let them come here with a bit more risk and less of a social net and labor protections with the advantage of being welcomed instead of having to sneak in and suffer what is ultimately the same fate.  They can help us if we let them.

- Another works progress administration would really help us big time.  You could tie this into the above as well.  Get out there and start cultivating new cities and expansions of the utilization of our own territory.

- As others have said, we need to invest in advanced technology, especially for energy independence.  We've been doing this, but the difference is that it has really only happened without coordination on nationwide ambition.  We, as a people, need to get fired up about energy independence like we were about the space race.

TheGlyphstone

We'll need to get over our nuclearphobia first before we can really achieve significant energy independence. Tidal generators and wind farms just don't have enough output to sustain us, and we don't really have the right landscapes for any good thermal/geothermal plants. In a way, this can also be traced back to sensationalist media, who played up Three Mile Island as another Chernobyl disaster - not that nuclear energy is without its drawbacks, but it's nowhere near as horrific as the public consciousness has been trained to believe.

Callie Del Noire

Of course, given the politics of 'where' such things as windfarms are 'sightly' comes into play too. I recall, while living in Maine, a LOT of other wise liberal types were against the building of an off shore windfarm because it was 'unsightly' from where their family vacation spots were.

A lot of improvements have come up over the years. Look at the improvement in solar cells and lithium cells over the years. R&D can still improve things.

We need to invest in proper development in a LOT of energy technologies. Here's an interesting little nugget. Does anyone know when the last NEW oil refinery in the US was built? The last one was built in Garyville, Louisiana in 1976! Can you imagine how many innovations in safety, efficiency and economy. There are a lot of innovations that might not be incorporated structures. Not to mention the facilities themselves are getting older.

The Atomic power industry is another victim of this. People want clean power, but various groups are against it for any of a variety of reasons.

Again it comes back to reinvestment in tech, and encouraging 'R&D'.

Oniya

I'm weird.  I actually like the aesthetics of the various wind turbines.  I've got a slight preference to the vertical ones, but the big propellers are kind of cool too.

Unfortunately, I doubt my neighbors feel the same way.
"Language was invented for one reason, boys - to woo women.~*~*~Don't think it's all been done before
And in that endeavor, laziness will not do." ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think we're never gonna win this war
Robin Williams-Dead Poets Society ~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~Don't think your world's gonna fall apart
I do have a cause, though.  It's obscenity.  I'm for it.  - Tom Lehrer~*~All you need is your beautiful heart
O/O's Updated 5/11/21 - A/A's - Current Status! - Writing a novel - all draws for Fool of Fire up!
Requests updated March 17

Jude

Solar energy and fusion are the future (this is pretty much guaranteed by the laws of physics), but nuclear power is a great stopgap measure.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Jude on March 13, 2011, 07:43:45 PM
Solar energy and fusion are the future (this is pretty much guaranteed by the laws of physics), but nuclear power is a great stopgap measure.

Both those technologies require more investment and development though. Which requires short term incentives for the short sighted outlook of American business. If it's not effecting their bottom line THIS quarter, or at the very most two quarters hence, they don't want to look into it.

Jude

I agree with you completely Callie.  Reminds me of a Wired article I read during a gas price hike 2 years ago that basically said the only way we're getting off fossil fuels in any short period of time is if we let gas prices skyrocket.

Vekseid

Quote from: Jude on March 13, 2011, 02:25:10 PM
No one's ever been able to explain to me why the debt situation is such a big problem when America's credit rating is still triple A or whatever.  When the economy starts growing again it'll be easy to balance the budget.  If we attack the problems we're experiencing head on such as healthcare costs, we'll have no problems whatsoever balancing things and becoming even more prosperous if the innovation is there.  Caution in spending is good, if we keep running up the debt ridiculously there will be a problem, but right now we're at a safe point.  We need more inflation, not less, if we're going to encourage investment.

The national debt is a problem in the sense that it limits how much further we can go if we are required to. And the rating really doesn't matter - people are still perfectly happy to lend to Japan, for example.

Quote
As far as a few other things I'd add:

- There are still large stretches of land in the Midwest and most other states that are completely uninhabited.  We need more cities and more population growth, and that's simply not going to come from our current citizens.  Lets pave the way forward for relaxing immigration restrictions and repeat the stimulus that was the baby boom.  More citizens means more jobs, more tax, and higher numbers to counter the population of China.  And we have the room for it easily.  We need two sets of rules for citizens and immigrants who move here so that they can't take advantage of our systems in a way that drains them; let them come here with a bit more risk and less of a social net and labor protections with the advantage of being welcomed instead of having to sneak in and suffer what is ultimately the same fate.  They can help us if we let them.

Part of our population stagnation is directly because of the recession. The same thing occurred during the Great Depression - people feel they can't afford to have children. Aside from that though, a stable population growth is what our immigration policies actually work to manage fairly well.

We don't need more cities as such, though. We have this horrific tendency to pave over valuable farmland and stick cities on top of it, where we should be cultivating the farmland and using less arable land for our living spaces.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Jude on March 13, 2011, 09:05:11 PM
I agree with you completely Callie.  Reminds me of a Wired article I read during a gas price hike 2 years ago that basically said the only way we're getting off fossil fuels in any short period of time is if we let gas prices skyrocket.

We won't. The business model is flawed. The problem with that gas hike was a good portion of the US product wasn't going to the US but Europe. You think our gas is high, you haven't had to buy it in Europe. I had guys I worked with in Rota who would bring their extended family's cars on base to refuel. I think it was like 2.00-something a gallon at the time whereas in town it was 2-something euro a LITER.

The only way we're going to break the gas thing is if something comes right out of left field and smacks us on our collective forehead to knock us completely out.

It might be a reworking of the bacteria that can produce petroleum, or a new battery design or engine design but it will have to be something radical. It could be something political that wipes away OPEC and leaves something completely hostile and antagonistic in it's place.

Something will have to radically change to make American business to look into other alternatives seriously.

Bayushi

Quote from: Callie Del Noire on March 14, 2011, 10:23:01 AMWe won't. The business model is flawed. The problem with that gas hike was a good portion of the US product wasn't going to the US but Europe. You think our gas is high, you haven't had to buy it in Europe. I had guys I worked with in Rota who would bring their extended family's cars on base to refuel. I think it was like 2.00-something a gallon at the time whereas in town it was 2-something euro a LITER.

Much of this is due to the Dollar having been the world's reserve currency since World War 2. When prices for oil are set in dollars, the exchange rate favors the dollar most of the time.

That may be changing, with China and a few other nations pushing for a new world reserve currency.

Callie Del Noire

Quote from: Akiko on March 16, 2011, 05:52:01 PM
Much of this is due to the Dollar having been the world's reserve currency since World War 2. When prices for oil are set in dollars, the exchange rate favors the dollar most of the time.

That may be changing, with China and a few other nations pushing for a new world reserve currency.

I don't know.. at the time the Euro was at an exchange rate of like.. $2.50 to 1 Euro.


Asuras

Quote from: Akiko
Much of this is due to the Dollar having been the world's reserve currency since World War 2. When prices for oil are set in dollars, the exchange rate favors the dollar most of the time.

That may be changing, with China and a few other nations pushing for a new world reserve currency.

Assumption: The US dollar is a reserve currency desired by foreign countries.

1. Foreign countries demand dollars.
2. The value of the dollar rises due to increased demand.
3. US exports cost more because the dollar that they expect to be paid with costs more too.
4. US exports are uncompetitive because the US dollar is worth more since it's a reserve currency.
5. US companies fire/layoff workers.
6. US unemployment.

Vekseid

Quote from: Akiko on March 16, 2011, 05:52:01 PM
Much of this is due to the Dollar having been the world's reserve currency since World War 2. When prices for oil are set in dollars, the exchange rate favors the dollar most of the time.

That may be changing, with China and a few other nations pushing for a new world reserve currency.

The entire reason gas is so expensive in Europe is because it's so heavily taxed. In the $6/gallon range in some countries.

And as Asuras noted, it's not necessarily a benefit.

gaggedLouise

#74
Quote from: Asuras on March 18, 2011, 01:27:29 AM
Assumption: The US dollar is a reserve currency desired by foreign countries.

1. Foreign countries demand dollars.
2. The value of the dollar rises due to increased demand.
3. US exports cost more because the dollar that they expect to be paid with costs more too.
4. US exports are uncompetitive because the US dollar is worth more since it's a reserve currency.
5. US companies fire/layoff workers.
6. US unemployment.

Conclusion: having a highly valued currency isn't necessarily a power suit for a nation, or a group of nations (such as the euro zone). Currencies are not like heavyweight lifters trying to push the exchange rate ever higher for their countries.

I would agree with the implication that in a time of economic crisis, it's either the currency or the rate of employment that takes a beating if there isn't deliberate action to keep up employment or to maneuver with the interest rates. The difference between now and let's say the thirties or the sixties is that these days, the actual demand for manpower is quite outstripped by the gains of productivity over time through machines. Even when the economy gears up again, there is no general need for a large inflow of manpower with limited training or studies but a lot of will to join in. So the big companies don't really need fifty million ordinary Joes at work, but they do need a consumer base somewhere.

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