re: Am I wrong for thinking we're boned as a country financially?

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The problem is that finance is international. The weird thing is that despite our practically suicidal policies over the past couple decades, most of the rest of the world has been even worse. It’s like we’re running a footrace with our shoes tied together, but our opponents sawed their feet off with a chainsaw. We’re behaving like morons, and yet everyone seems to be somehow, out moroning us.

Our problems, despite our best efforts, pale in comparison to China, Germany, the UK, Russia, Turkey, Iran, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, etc. Even Japan and South Korea are boned long term.

Just about the only nations doing an even remotely competent job right now are France and India, and France is one bad soccer match away from beheading everyone in their government responsible for their success.

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What the frick are you talking about?

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We have the strongest military and our Navy is 10x the rest of the world combined.



The problem is our military is the enforcing arm of a monetary system that is wholly reliant upon coercive violence to maintain it’s global hegemony. Again, everything goes back to the fundamentally corrupted nature of our nation’s print-on-demand monetary system.

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Definitely a huge problem but it's a fixable problem. Other countries have unfixable problems such as terminal demographics and a lack of natural resources that make them completely dependent on Globalism. The US only has only about 15% of our economy reliant on trade and most of that is with Mexico and Canada.

The main thing is there is no one in a position to take our place.

If you say China then you really have no clue what you are talking about. China depends on imports for energy and food and for their economy itself to function. They are in a battle with Russia for the worst Demographics in the world and most of the things they make are low tech items that can be made elsewhere pretty easily. Even the things they have like "Rare Earths" are not really exclusive to China, it's just few other countries bother to mine for them because it isn't very profitable and it's dirty as hell. China's monetary policy also makes the Fed look like Ron Paul, they don't even use basic economic standards it is all about printing cash short term to create jobs and they are insanely corrupt. They only have a handful of ships even capable of going more than 500 miles from their coast without refueling and they are pinned in by geography, Japan's Navy is stronger than China's much less the US. We also cut their nuts off in the Semiconductor industry so they can no longer get high quality chips and they have no way to make them because we have also cut them off from the Tools Manufacturers.

The US has serious problems but we are by far the tallest midget.

Well, if you want some optimism just look at the rest of the world. The majority of world leaders lean left and their economies are going to hell.

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crazy4lsu

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So is there a point where even you would say uh oh, we're in a bit of trouble? If we hit 200% debt to GDP? 500% Because the way Congress works we'll be there in our lifetime.

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So is there a point where even you would say uh oh, we're in a bit of trouble? If we hit 200% debt to GDP? 500% Because the way Congress works we'll be there in our lifetime.

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You think that we will reach 200% debt to GDP? I'm doubtful.

Farmland doesn't matter when we allow the Chinese to buy it up and our government to burn it and poison it

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You think that we will reach 200% debt to GDP? I'm doubtful.

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What stops deficit spending then? Do you think even Congress will hit a point where they say "okay, this is getting a bit out of hand-- let's dial it back a bit?"

That's my concern, the way politics is shifting the federal government is just throwing money at everything and not agreeing to reduce, and I truly don't know what would abate them.

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What stops deficit spending then?

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Nothing, because deficit spending is a legitimate way of financing the operations of governments. They are also a convenient tool to use in terms of negotiations, which is another reason why deficit spending won’t ever be curbed. In of itself, it isn’t bad.

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Do you think even Congress will hit a point where they say "okay, this is getting a bit out of hand-- let's dial it back a bit?"

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Congress is far more responsive to the Federal Reserve than it is to regular citizens. If curbing spending is part of a broader monetary policy which has some specific end-goal in mind, then Congress will likely enact it.

The more pressing danger from my point of view is what’s called debt deflation. This was the case in Japan in the late 80s and 90s. Japanification or the Lost Decades, describes the debt deflation spiral that occurred there after a loose monetary policy led to asset inflation, which caused a crash (that was likely inevitable) when interest rates were raised. This, combined with an extremely low birth rate and an aging population, saw consumer demand decrease and caused long periods of very low growth. That’s a far worse scenario than inflation, as this specific bout of inflation seems directly related to supply-side issues, but the decade of QE we saw after 2008 makes me uneasy, especially given the low birth rate of Americans and a likewise aging population.

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That's my concern, the way politics is shifting the federal government is just throwing money at everything and not agreeing to reduce, and I truly don't know what would abate them.

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Well, I think the FedGov has far more room with respect to monetary policy than every other country in the world. But to those who are obsessed with the debt can’t seem to see the relationship between US de facto control of shipping lanes and commerce generally, US foreign policy goals which are oriented around retaining the global hegemony and the average wealth of Americans, in which the fact that dollars are so highly regarded underpins a large portion of American GDP. I’m not really willing to see my family’s wealth diminished for the aims of balancing a budget for no other reason than people have a silly view of how sovereign debt works.

Largely, much of the broader policy goals of the FedGov is already determined by policies we’ve pursued in the past. Extricating ourselves from certain arrangements while retaining and increasing the relative wealth of the country is a difficult, if not impossible task, and I’m not surprised that even the most fiscally responsible politician eventually gives in, because from a macro view, the broad goals are already set.

That said, reducing the size and scope of the Federal Government should be dependent on what exactly we are reducing. Do we really need a Department of Homeland Security when many of those functions could also be handled by the Department of the Interior? There are probably a ton of more examples of silly redundancies in government, and a stronger federalism could see more efficient spending too. But I don’t think imposing the Washington Consensus on ourselves is a good model, as siphoning off public services is nonsensical for a highly developed country. I think now more than ever we need better spending on public infrastructure, because the long-term effect of neglecting that infrastructure can result in decreased ability to see out foreign policy goals, which could lead to a real decrease in wealth.

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The US has serious problems but we are by far the tallest midget.

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Whatever liberty and economic freedom we still enjoy exists in spite of the efforts of the reigning bipartisan junta in Washington D.C.

Despite what the board’s “smart set” tells us above, any kingdom or empire that has attempted to coin or print it’s way into prosperity has been relegated to the ash heap of history.

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There are real things going on that will have a greater impact than what is being talked about by the MSM.

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Just 10 years ago, those who mentioned the possibility that the USD’s status as the world’s reserve currency would face challenges in the coming years were ridiculed as kooky conspiracy theorists. Who is laughing now?

The Pentagon has the ability to blow the world to smithereens 1000x over, that and that alone now serves as the greenback’s position as the world’s reserve currency. This is a very dangerous time in history because human suffering and misery mean nothing to the depraved entities that control all the true levers of power in Washington D.C.