Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
When it hits the fan the nation like always will do what it has to do.That of course will mean alot of losers not prepared for such measures as will happen.
Our leadership should have done what needed to be done years ago.
The losers you mention are going to include older folks living on pensions (pensions will vaporize because an 8% rate of return is not going to happen and without that, the obligations just cannot be met).
Other "losers" include seniors who depend on Social Security checks, Medicare, and heating assistance.
Our government has failed to make the hard choices, so now they will be made for us. When it stops, it's going to be bad in an epic fashion.
That, by the way, puts us at a very real risk of seeing a dictator come to power and start us down a very dark road indeed.
The way out will involve conservatives and liberals like moving way outside their respective comfort zones. I am not optimisttic this will happen, because America and most other Western countries have become weak and undisciplined. But here's what I'd say we need to do:
--KICK OUR OIL ADDICTION FOR GOOD
For all the screaming about China, almost 50% of our trade deficit is in OIL.
This requires a 3 pronged approach: 1. Conserve and get more efficient (less suburban sprawl land use planning, more fuel efficient cars and homes, raise the gas tax slowly but steadily, by say .05 per gallon per year indefinitely). 2. Drill for more oil and natural gas. 3. Push alternatives aggressively. Natural gas looks like it could be one of our best alternatives that makes economic sense. But we need to research ways to make solar, wind, etc, more economically viable.
--PROMOTE REAL CHOICE AND COMPETITION IN HEALTH CARE
Our health care system is a complete failure. It's horribly overpriced and provides mediocre care (at best). Health insurance should only be for things that cost more than $2500 or more. Everything else should be paid for with health savings accounts. The government or employers could even subsidize these accounts and let employees keep the balance that goes unspent for retirement. Alternatively, if balances build up in their accounts, people could raise their deductibles to more than $2500 to get cheaper insurance rates.
See the book "Who Killed Health Care?" by Reginal Herzlinger for more.
I also think we need to get rid of corn subsidies as part of health care reform. Also, it should not be possible to use food stamps to buy soda & junk food. School lunch programs also need to be reformed. We will never fix health care until we fix the problem with low quality food (if you even want to call it food).
---SIMPLIFY THE TAX CODE
The complexity of the tax code is beyond ridciulous (for corporations and individuals alike). Get rid of most deductions (except maybe retirement & health care savings), including graduatlly phasing out the deduction for mortgage interest over time. Lower the rates but keep them to where they bring in a little more revenue than before. I also think EVERYONE but the very poorest citizens should pay taxes. It's gotten ridiculous that ~ 47% of Americans pay no income taxes. The bottom 47% will always want more government spending because they're paying little or nothing to fund such spending....but the bulk of additional tax revenues will invevitalby fall on the highest earners.
--DEAL WITH SOCIAL SECURITY & MEDICARE
Part of Medicare's problems could be dealt with by the health care reform listed above. But the age might need to be raised. In many respects, people wouldn't care about Medicare as much if our health care system delivered care at prices people could afford. The age at which people collect Social Security will also have to be raised. One thing that also never gets talked about is that somewhere around 1/3 of Social Security spending goes to Social Security Disability. IMO, I think SSDI has a fair amount of fraud and is used as a kind of substitute welfare. I knew an able bodied guy who got SSDI. Besides wasting the taxpayers' money, it ruined his life, because it took away his incentive to work.
--END THE WARS
I was originally agnostic on the wars, but now I say enough is enough. Howefver, I am not one of those people who thinks ending the wars will fix the problems with the government's deficit. That's delusional.
--HAVE MORE KIDS / ALLOW MORE IMMIGRATION (from educated immigrants)
There's no better way to fix the economic problems than to import intelligent, educated, hard working folks. I wouldn't even be against immigration from poor countries like Mexico IF they and their anchor babies weren't allowed to colllect any social welfare type benefits (not gonna happen...but just sayin').
It would be nice if more middle & upper class Americans themselves would have more kids. This would dilulte the number of poor kids and slow the increase in the growing underclass. Of course, I don't believe the government should tell people how many kids they should have, so this would just have to be left to individuals.
It would also help our economy a lot if we could reduce the number of out of wedlock births. People who have kids out of wedlock kill themselves financially, and their kids generally don't do as well in life as kids born to parents who get married & stay married. Once again, this can't be fixed by government policty, but I really do wish we at a country would take an honest look at the 40% of kids who are born to unmarried women. If we tolerate this as normal, we will become a 3rd World country for sure. Same kind of thing for divorce. For those who get divorced without kids, I say "no problem". But for those who have kids, we have to figure out how to get along together. It would help if our culture didn't idealize romantic love so much, as this is never enough to sustain any long term relationship. (I learned that one the hard way myself).
The thing I see in CD forums and elsewhere is that most people just pick one of the above issues and seem to think "If we'd just fix (fill in the blank) issue, then everything would be magically solved". Usually, the issue presented is the one that requires the least amount of sacrifice from the poster. What really needs to happen is all of the above issues need to be addressed, and very quickly. This can't happen without real sacrifice from everyone.
Since Americans only want the other guy to pay more taxes and/or take a benfit cut; and since the federal government is uber slow in just about everything it does, I am not optimistic any of these changes will be made, let alone all of them. I suspsect America is like the Titanic. We hit the iceberg in 2008 and we're probably going to sink. All of the activity going on now is merely rearranging the deck chairs on a sinking ship.
I can't get over you people!
Make the poorest people in the country with little kids pay taxes?
They don't have jobs, or if they do, the jobs pay 7.hr, and they have babies,
and you want them to pay taxes? They are at poverty level if they don't pay
taxes now- you do realize that right?
One out of every 4 children in the USA goes to bed hungry now- today- and
you want people to have more kids?
Don't tax the rich Corporations who make most of their money here in the USA.
Don't tax the rich who make over a million dollars a year- NO NO!
Tax the dwindling middle class and extremely poor.
Who do you think is paying now?
Really? WHo is paying?
Bank of America isn't. Exxon isn't.
The rich aren't.
We are now taxed at the lowest tax rate in 20 years.
Where are the jobs? Where are the job creators?
They are overseas. They are investing their money in Brazil.
Corporations are only loyal to the stockholder. Not our country.
Our politicans are bought and paid for. All of them. They do not represent
the people who pay them.
The more the middle class erodes away, the less taxes will be paid towards the debt.
Then what? Who will pay it then?
Because the middle class are the only smucks who pay them.
Want jobs for free? Totally free?
Tarrif all Chinese goods. I'm serious.
Watch how many factories are built overnight.
It's a simple solution to our Chineese problem. Of course the politicans
are all bought by the USA corps. who are getting richer by the day.
That's why the people are marching, people.
They are fed up with Washington. All politicans and Wall Street.
They want jobs, they want politicans who pledge to represent the people,
not a Corp. who pays them off.
The longer the politicans and corporations in this country ignore the situation,
the nastier things are going to get.
Shame, but when people get hungry, there is unrest.
What are we up to for food stamp numbers now? 45 million? 49 million?
Those are all people who can't even FEED themselves in the USA.
Sure will be interesting when the food 'stamp' cards run dry.
I don't mean to sound cold, but, many of the people receiving food-stamps are idiots with messed up priorities. There's a part of me that wouldn't have any sympathy if the food-stamps "dried up".
My family lived in government housing initially after moving to America. My dad didn't speak a lick of English and couldn't just get a job straight away, so we lived off of food stamps for the first year or two while my dad went to school to learn English and get a degree in his trade and I'm very thankful for them.
However I know a few people personally that are currently receiving food-stamps (and one even lives in government housing) but really shouldn't be. One of them is just lazy and hates working. He's not disabled physically or mentally and he's even built a high-end gaming PC and just bought a new $500 Android smart-phone. Yet he receives food-stamps... why? Because he's got a wife and now a baby. His income would be more than sufficient to support his family if he'd stop buying stupid crap.
And the other just bought a $3500 Korg keyboard/workstation. On credit no less, and now can't even make the the most minimum of monthly payments because he doesn't have enough money for clothes/diapers for his kids and for eating out. I have much to say about that but I'll stop right here
Because of my association with these people I've had the opportunity to meet many others on some form of government assistance in the way of either food stamps or housing or both and in my experience, while some truly do need it, a lot could really do without it if they handled money better, tried working harder/smarter, and stopped having more kids than they can afford to keep.
Sorry there's not really any point to this rant.. the subject frustrates me a lot and I just needed to get that off my chest.
If we stop giving foodstamps, those people will start working on the jobs which Americans do not want to do and where illegals are working like construction, agricultures, food processing etc. That will be great move and combine it with stiff penalties for employers harbouring illegals.
If we stop giving foodstamps, those people will start working on the jobs which Americans do not want to do and where illegals are working like construction, agricultures, food processing etc. That will be great move and combine it with stiff penalties for employers harbouring illegals.
That may only be true for those that understand honor and service.
We are failing in those attributes to a large degree.
Stop the USDA food aid program, and you'll see riots in the cities. Crime and murder escalate.
And the trucking industry pass on the cost of security and hauling.
This is all in our near future.
The EU just cut back 75% on their food aid programs, so the US will get to see the response to this decision in a few months.
To the poster who suggests we allow more immigrants in, only from wealthier nations... Guess what? Those people don't want to come to America. It's not the promised land anymore because we squandered our wealth. They realize they are much better of where they are.
If we stop giving foodstamps, those people will start working on the jobs which Americans do not want to do and where illegals are working like construction, agricultures, food processing etc. That will be great move and combine it with stiff penalties for employers harbouring illegals.
We also have counties in the US with poverty rates between 40-70% that are so remote they don't have functioning economies. We can't just tell those people to all leave at once.
no more immigrants period when you have an oversupply of labor. what about that is so hard to understand? americans are being told by their "overlords" that they are either stupid or lazy, and we need immigration to save us. PLEASE!
i see nothing wrong with connecting government aid with government service in this country for LEGAL CITIZENS only. for those who are not here legally, too bad, so sad, but you are breaking the law and there are consequences to lawbreaking. (or at least there used to be).
people ALL are going to have to work for what they get, not just the people who are still fortunate enough to be gainfully employed.
this government is seriously messed up increasing the welfare rolls drastically without corresponding responsibility. it is almost a death wish for the economy.
there is nothing wrong with a helping hand when people are down-but it comes with RESPONSIBILITY in the form of working for it. i see people on here stating that they are on food stamps and disabled, yet they can post on this forum-don't tell me that there isn't a job that they could do for their benefits, even if it means volunteering somewhere that could use a helping hand.
Last edited by floridasandy; 10-16-2011 at 08:25 AM..
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
