this just in - hard STOP in CA

[charliebrown]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

you make sense but why not california, why Citi and not Ca?
Why freddie and fannie? Is it the foreign creditors who will take away the punch bowl if the banks go down?

As a later post said just f the creditors, we could do this if we collectively were willing to live within our means. Like the credit card holder who defaults and is denied another card. But are spoiled american's (collectively I know there are many exceptions) willing to live a 2nd world existence.? I don't think we are mentally prepared for that yet. America has to be the best the biggest etc.

The hard greens also are not getting it either. Yes we can eliminate our use of fossil fuels to a large extent, but are you willing to live without your mall, your street lights, your 70 degree house in the winter if you're in the north, your 70 degree house in the summer if you're in the south? I dont think the greens have thought the problem through to its logical conclusion.

[SpaceOptimist]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

While I agree with much of what you say, I do believe the huge role government acquired in our society is most of the problem. However I don't know how to transition. It is going to be a rough ride.

For example, I think we should spend less on education. For so long it is considered a right and to be obtained at any price. That is just not reasonable. The public education system has become unusable and to think it would get better by spending more on it seems unwise. It is necessary to reconsider the methods of education. It seems like we as a society expect the public system to handle it all. I think you could do all necessary instruction before noon. School should be a half day affair. Leave the rest of the day for exploration and learning how to think.

Of course I don't know how to make the transition. Clearly unsupervised children will not result in the desired outcome. Current economic conditions make it hard to fund supervision for the other half of the day. Parents are working or can't afford to pay for supervision. (But we currently pay for supervision by the government.) So the path is not clear. I think we need to make major changes as a society to move forward. We need a population that can think for itself and support itself.

[mcgurme]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

The hard greens also are not getting it either. Yes we can eliminate our use of fossil fuels to a large extent, but are you willing to live without your mall, your street lights, your 70 degree house in the winter if you're in the north, your 70 degree house in the summer if you're in the south? I dont think the greens have thought the problem through to its logical conclusion.

This is not the hard greens. This is just practical reality. I live in the Southeast. Often in summertime, I have to wear a sweater indoors. That is ludicrous and unsustainable. I keep my own house in the 80's and use a fan. I use AC mainly for the dehumidification. Why is this so hard? Sure, "people aren't prepared for it". But they're going to get a dose of reality, one way or another, and that sure isn't the "hard greens" fault. If the "hard greens" had their way, there wouldn't be endless suburban sprawl all around the Southeast, and maybe life would be a bit more sustainable in our diminished economic future.

[mcgurme]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

While I agree with much of what you say, I do believe the huge role government acquired in our society is most of the problem. However I don't know how to transition. It is going to be a rough ride.

For example, I think we should spend less on education. For so long it is considered a right and to be obtained at any price. That is just not reasonable. The public education system has become unusable and to think it would get better by spending more on it seems unwise. It is necessary to reconsider the methods of education. It seems like we as a society expect the public system to handle it all. I think you could do all necessary instruction before noon. School should be a half day affair. Leave the rest of the day for exploration and learning how to think.

Of course I don't know how to make the transition. Clearly unsupervised children will not result in the desired outcome. Current economic conditions make it hard to fund supervision for the other half of the day. Parents are working or can't afford to pay for supervision. (But we currently pay for supervision by the government.) So the path is not clear. I think we need to make major changes as a society to move forward. We need a population that can think for itself and support itself.

For many years, in my college days, I was on a kick with anyone who would listen about how all laws except for those endowing fundamental rights, should expire every now and then. That would shake things up a bit and force us to rethink things. It would get rid of bloated bureaucracies.

GM is a perfect metaphor. It became a bloated monster that needed to die, because it had become (in the words of EJ) sclerotic. Almost all large institutions become large and sclerotic, whether they are government or corporate. The only difference is that with companies, it is a bit (not much) easier to get rid of them once they are ready to die.

To me the problem is not government nor even the institutions per se, it is that they are left to persist long after their useful function has passed. And even if they still have a useful function, they will become slow and sclerotic, just like GM. But after we "drown them in the bathtub" we need to replace them. An anarchic void is not the answer - it will be rapidly filled by someone (usually, a dictator). I'm all for replacing non-functional governmental entities with far more functional ones.

But again, I think many people just think that because these institutions don't work well, that we should just get rid of them all and life will be better (the smaller gov't crowd). That is a case of short sighted thinking. For a society as large and complex as ours, organization on a large scale is absolutely necessary for continued functioning. So, we can either: 1) stop functioning altogether; 2) let corporations be the ones to provide the organization (and you can bet it will be done to favor their owners); or 3) let democratic government institutions fill that role.

So, in many ways, you are right about the problems with our current educational system, which has become sclerotic in its own way. A good educational system is absolutely necessary for a functional democracy; yet our present school system is not accomplishing that, for many reasons. Part of it is poor teacher pay (while administrators get paid plenty). Part of it is a "daycare" mentality among parents. Part of it is the misguided notion that young kids only learn by sitting around in front of books all day, when that is only one kind of essential learning.

I too do not know the solutions. But I will posit that the starting point is to drop all the ideological banter about how government is somehow the cause of all this. It is not the cause, it is a symptom. Once we get beyond that, we can talk about how to fix the disease rather than the symptoms.

[santafe2]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

As for standards of living - I've been on record for a long time saying that the US' standard of living going to converge with Poland's - i.e. 2nd world.

But it doesn't mean that per capita income won't be $60K or $100K at that time.

The root cause will be additional tax and energy costs?

[c1ue]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

The root cause will be additional tax and energy costs?

There won't be any single cause.

As with most things, it will be a combination:

1) Devalued dollar - increasing commodity prices - leading to higher food and energy costs. As these are only 16% (below graph) 15% (BLS)

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/...breakdown.html

pie_usaspend.gif

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.reques...e/2007/age.txt

A fall in the dollar by 50% would likely at least double these relative shares. Might be more because there are ancillary effects from loss of jobs associated with fewer restaurants, car dealers, etc etc. Might be less if wages go up - but wages generally don't do well in recessionary/depressionary times.

2) Taxes

Again from the magic graph: Fed + State taxes average around 32%

As overall incomes are falling, taxes will go up to compensate. Unclear what this will be as there are choices involved, but it is safe to say that 20% increases in net tax levels up to 66% increases in net tax levels is going to happen. Note I say net, not rates. Actual rate increases need to be significantly higher to offset overall revenue hence tax revenue falls - this would mean anywhere from 37% net fed+state to 50% fed+state per capita expenditures. Ouch.

3) Income levels

Aggregate national income levels are going to fall. How much also is still not clear - but you can't go from 5% or 6% unemployment to 11% to 15% unemployment and not have serious wage falls.

In the Great Depression, per capita income went from $698 in 1929 to a low of $372 in 1933, not recovering beyond 1929 levels until 1941.

Thus a halving of real income is very possible. Poland also is suffering, but theirs is more of a lower to zero growth rate and they have inflation already.

The present scorecard:

Present US per capita income (As of 2008)

$46,040

Present Poland per capita income (As of 2007)

$9,850

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/D...rces/GNIPC.pdf

Now figure 40% fall in incomes a la Great Depression plus 50% fall in the dollar.

Numbers are a lot closer no?

[SpaceOptimist]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

To me the problem is not government nor even the institutions per se, it is that they are left to persist long after their useful function has passed. And even if they still have a useful function, they will become slow and sclerotic, just like GM. But after we "drown them in the bathtub" we need to replace them. An anarchic void is not the answer - it will be rapidly filled by someone (usually, a dictator). I'm all for replacing non-functional governmental entities with far more functional ones.

But again, I think many people just think that because these institutions don't work well, that we should just get rid of them all and life will be better (the smaller gov't crowd). That is a case of short sighted thinking. For a society as large and complex as ours, organization on a large scale is absolutely necessary for continued functioning. So, we can either: 1) stop functioning altogether; 2) let corporations be the ones to provide the organization (and you can bet it will be done to favor their owners); or 3) let democratic government institutions fill that role.

Well said. I agree there is a role for government but we don't seem to do a good job at changing institutions that aren't functioning anymore. I suggest that fiscal restraint could be the catalyst that forces change. However I don't know how you convince people that the sky isn't actually falling when you cut their program.

For example suggesting cuts to education will make you very unpopular out here. (I didn't last long when I ran that by my wife :-) However it really seems impossible to balance our budget without making some changes in education. However I am concerned that cutting education will result in people within the system trying to prove that you can't educate without lots of money. (I'm mostly thinking of people at the top of the system. I believe teachers work really hard.)

[Starving Steve]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

Never for one minute forget that it was the neo-cons (the repukes) who put 2.7 million people in the American gulag---- a prison empire that stretched across the land and onto Cuba too. Never forget that the drug war was really a war on ordinary people; it was an excuse for the gulag to asault the freedom and independence of the American people. Never forget the nightly executions, the military trials, the forced confessions, the secret courts, the secret charges, and the torture techniques.

May I ask the neo-cons: Did Joseph Stalin ever imprison 2.7 million people, even in the darkest days of the Soviet Union?:rolleyes:

Did Stalin launch drug war on his people? What torture techniques did he develope?

[ThePythonicCow]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

Did Joseph Stalin ever imprison 2.7 million people, even in the darkest days of the Soviet Union?

I am unsure which part of your post is in sarcasm. But if you perform a Google search for "Did Joseph Stalin ever imprison 2.7 million people", you will find that 2.7 million is an estimate of how many people died in (not resided in, died in) Stalin's Gulag prisons. All told perhaps ten times that many died by force in Stalin's regime, including five or ten million starved to death in the Ukranian famine of 1932-1933.

[santafe2]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

May I ask the neo-cons: Did Joseph Stalin ever imprison 2.7 million people, even in the darkest days of the Soviet Union?:rolleyes:

You're never Starving for hyperbole but please get your facts straight. Forget imprisonment, Stalin killed a minimum of 3MM people, and maybe as many as 10MM.

And, I thought you hated pot heads, we're just trying to help you out and keep them locked up down south. We thought you'd be happy about this...

[santafe2]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

I am unsure which part of your post is in sarcasm. But if you perform a Google search for "Did Joseph Stalin ever imprison 2.7 million people", you will find that 2.7 million is an estimate of how many people died in (not resided in, died in) Stalin's Gulag prisons. All told perhaps ten times that many died at by force of Stalin's regime, including five or ten million starved to death in the Ukranian famine of 1932-1933.

When critiquing Staving you have to be fast around here...I've got to learn to type more quickly..

[santafe2]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

A fall in the dollar by 50% would likely at least double these relative shares. Might be more because there are ancillary effects from loss of jobs associated with fewer restaurants, car dealers, etc etc. Might be less if wages go up - but wages generally don't do well in recessionary/depressionary times.

Excellent post c1ue, thanks. I have a hard time understanding how the US$ falls more than another 20% from here as long as it's competing with the Euro, Yen, et al, for least best currency. We better take over Canada so we've got some natural resources to sell...:rolleyes:

[metalman]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

There won't be any single cause.

As with most things, it will be a combination:

1) Devalued dollar - increasing commodity prices - leading to higher food and energy costs. As these are only 16% (below graph) 15% (BLS)

http://www.mymoneyblog.com/archives/...breakdown.html

[ATTACH]1714[/ATTACH]

ftp://ftp.bls.gov/pub/special.reques...e/2007/age.txt

A fall in the dollar by 50% would likely at least double these relative shares. Might be more because there are ancillary effects from loss of jobs associated with fewer restaurants, car dealers, etc etc. Might be less if wages go up - but wages generally don't do well in recessionary/depressionary times.

2) Taxes

Again from the magic graph: Fed + State taxes average around 32%

As overall incomes are falling, taxes will go up to compensate. Unclear what this will be as there are choices involved, but it is safe to say that 20% increases in net tax levels up to 66% increases in net tax levels is going to happen. Note I say net, not rates. Actual rate increases need to be significantly higher to offset overall revenue hence tax revenue falls - this would mean anywhere from 37% net fed+state to 50% fed+state per capita expenditures. Ouch.

3) Income levels

Aggregate national income levels are going to fall. How much also is still not clear - but you can't go from 5% or 6% unemployment to 11% to 15% unemployment and not have serious wage falls.

In the Great Depression, per capita income went from $698 in 1929 to a low of $372 in 1933, not recovering beyond 1929 levels until 1941.

Thus a halving of real income is very possible. Poland also is suffering, but theirs is more of a lower to zero growth rate and they have inflation already.

The present scorecard:

Present US per capita income (As of 2008)

$46,040

Present Poland per capita income (As of 2007)

$9,850

http://siteresources.worldbank.org/D...rces/GNIPC.pdf

Now figure 40% fall in incomes a la Great Depression plus 50% fall in the dollar.

Numbers are a lot closer no?

prices up, wages down. fun! sqeeze time...

[flintlock]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

Cool for Cats? Man that's an oldie. I still have that album laying around somewhere.

[flintlock]

Re: this just in - hard STOP in CA

You're never Starving for hyperbole but please get your facts straight. Forget imprisonment, Stalin killed a minimum of 3MM people, and maybe as many as 10MM.

And, I thought you hated pot heads, we're just trying to help you out and keep them locked up down south. We thought you'd be happy about this...

Thanks for saving me the effort.