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Example my home town. Just bought a new fire truck. Cost was like 300 grand. Our town has about 1500 people. Tallest structure is 2 stories. The old truck was in great shape. Fed money was 200g towards the truck....
Did we need the uber truck of fire trucks? NO. If we would have had to pay half or more would we have bought that truck? NO
I agree with you. 1% does not solve the problem. It requiers a change in mentality.
I agree on most aspects of what you said with the notable exception of the UN. We do, desperately, need to cut back. Governments can not run the kind of deficits we've been running. In the case of every big banking crash since 1970 or so the governments were running huge deficits.
The cut backs we need to do go far beyond earmarks to help states build things they want to build too. We need to begin make major cuts at the program level since earmarks are actually a small percent of the budget - if I recall my figures correctly. Where we hit a snag is what to cut. Slicing SS and medicare, since they're 2 of the biggest culprits seems like the easy answer but the truth is that's probably just going to exacerbate the issue when civil unrest begins due to the fact that there are many poor and starving people out there, young and old alike.
One of our biggest problems now is that we don't really make or export much of anything. We've not made any major gains in our GDP since the 50s/60s. So long as that continues we're going to be in this hole that keeps growing. I'm not sure what the answer is but I know we can't continue on as we have.
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Singing rah rah America won't get foreigners Paulson desperately needs buying the Treasuries for the bailout we can't afford.
Exactly. What an economist friend pointed out to me yesterday was that we can pass this bill tomorrow but it won't necessarily mean anything because countries are increasingly leery about lending to us. Will they lend us the kind of money we need now? Remains to be seen because as of yet we've not heard one way or another.
What a way to finish a presidential tenure: having driven your own economy into the ground due to completely irresponsible stewardship AND publicly scolded by 3rd World leaders.
I imagine their biggest grief is no more handouts from the U.S.
Booting the UN would not be a bad thing nor would rethinking how much we spend on foreign aid. Quite honestly we need to re-think a great many things. Like writing checks when we don't have the gold to cover them.
We need to tighten up the budget and a lot. Ear marks and pork need to be eliminated. There is a valid system in place for getting fed money, there is no need to cheat the system.
Shrinking the gov down would be an excellent start. How many fed programs do we have that have outlived their usefulness? States need to be more seflsufficient.
Spending fed money on walking tracks? Let the community in question find a way to build said track on their own. If it came out of their tax dollars would they feel as free to spend as much.
Example my home town. Just bought a new fire truck. Cost was like 300 grand. Our town has about 1500 people. Tallest structure is 2 stories. The old truck was in great shape. Fed money was 200g towards the truck....
Did we need the uber truck of fire trucks? NO. If we would have had to pay half or more would we have bought that truck? NO
I agree with you. 1% does not solve the problem. It requiers a change in mentality.
Entirely agree. America has been humiliated over & over during Bush's presidency & now he leaves our nation in quite serious trouble. President Bush would like to just go away, it appears & like all his blunders, is totally unprepared to help the US out of his own incompetence. Why weren't we warned about this impending fiscal crisis? How can America possibly maintain our entire army in a foreign country?
Damn, Bush, you have totally ruined our nation!
I really dislike Bush, but that is just a continuation of what got us into this problem....a lack of personal responsibility.
Rack up your credit cards, can't make house payments? Blame someone else.
Additionally, this problem started back over 20 years ago....check average credit card debt. We as a country have been living FAR beyond our means for years and years....finally the problem couldn't be stalled any longer.
Foreign countries like to blame us for all their own ills....50% inflation and unemployment, massive overpopulation? Blame it on the US.
Want to crack down on the opposition party, jail dissidents, seize assets? Blame the US.
Crop failures because you have abused the land or seized the land and given it to your cronies? Certainly caused by the US who caused Global Warming too.
Location: By the sea, by the sea, by the beautiful sea
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Originally Posted by swagger
What a shocker.
We should forcefully take back the land that the UN is located on (it's an "International Zone") and withdraw our membership, as well as all the money we contribute to that corrupt organization. Next, we should withhold all of our foreign aid money - we need it here. Then we should triple the price of all the food we export.
We could be out of this financial mess in no time.
But then Bush wouldn't be able to hold up violations of UN sanctions as one of his excuses for pursuing his personal war of choice.
Wow. A leftist leader from South America being upset with an American President?? Shocker.
You seriously under-estimate the impact American markets have on the rest of the world. When Wall Street fails the reverberations hit Asia\ Europe\ Latin America as well. Capitalism is centered in America.
Our nation's most "capitalist" president is Bush. It was the horrible buddy system of big money & the Oval Office. A president who traded department heads for loyalty [Harriett Myers for supreme court\ Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General\ "Brownie" w/ FEMA] - all under the watchful eye of the Dick Cheney & Karl Rove
For President Bush to leave office on a "high note" he needs to clean-up the messes he has wreaked on America. Otherwise, Bush will be remembered for everything incompetent\ ideological\ corrupt in America.
You seriously under-estimate the impact American markets have on the rest of the world. When Wall Street fails the reverberations hit Asia\ Europe\ Latin America as well. Capitalism is centered in America.
Our nation's most "capitalist" president is Bush. It was the horrible buddy system of big money & the Oval Office. A president who traded department heads for loyalty [Harriett Myers for supreme court\ Alberto Gonzales as Attorney General\ "Brownie" w/ FEMA] - all under the watchful eye of the Dick Cheney & Karl Rove
For President Bush to leave office on a "high note" he needs to clean-up the messes he has wreaked on America. Otherwise, Bush will be remembered for everything incompetent\ ideological\ corrupt in America.
I don't underestimate them at all. I just care more about what's happening here in America and not Brazil or any other country for that matter. I am fully aware how actions here reverberate around the world, but if an action here produces positive results for America and legitimately serves America's best interests and negative ones for another country, too bad.
Bottom line; the President of Brazil's opinion of our President has no effect on me whatsoever. While I know things aren't so great here now and am not a big fan of the bailout, I just don't care if it has a negative effect on Brazil right now.
Little Lula Da Silva.... He's such a self serving, back stabbing little leprechaun. Its fun to listen to these 3rd world leaders get up on stage at the UN and squeak like little mice about how the big bad wolf (U.S.) is such an evil...
It's also funny how some people actually prize what these irrelevant 3rd world despots think about us. That's twice as pathetic!
Little Lula Da Silva.... He's such a self serving, back stabbing little leprechaun. Its fun to listen to these 3rd world leaders get up on stage at the UN and squeak like little mice about how the big bad wolf (U.S.) is such an evil...
It's also funny how some people actually prize what these irrelevant 3rd world despots think about us. That's twice as pathetic!
Quit reacting for a second & get serious. It doesn't matter what country is bad mouthing President Bush [friend or foe, these leaders are only telling the truth. The truth of the sad situation the world is in thanks to our nation's president. Let them rub it in. We have more important business to deal with [like how is America going to solve this crisis before we have a major depression? This fiscal meltdown is far worse than the war at the moment.
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This fiscal meltdown is far worse than the war at the moment.
