Maybe Walmart can save us

Traildad,

Did it occur to you that Hank Paulson (a private industry guy) spearheaded the bank bailout, which biggest act of socialism in the last decade.

Can anyone say unsustainable consumerism model?


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Can anyone say unsustainable consumerism model?


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Can anyone say "Let's just fish" ?
If I want stuff like this I'll pick up Newsweek or the Business Journal.

No need to delete it. Just keep it civil in here, fellas.

Thanks, I too hope it will be civil. I'm sure many government programs have lofty goals and good intentions. Things just aren't working out. I don't know if everyone really comprehends the national debt. If every star in the Milky Way was a dollar of debt we would owe 56 Milky Way galaxy's worth. That is just the national debt. Then there is all the money we have promised to pay. Money to pay back what was borrowed from the social security fund. Money to cover the costs of Medicare and Medicaid. Money for so many underfunded pensions. Money that so many people rightfully count on to live out their retirement years. We have around 128 trillion dollars of unfunded liabilities. That's another 426 Milky Way galaxies worth of dollars. If you count all the dollars in the world including all the funny money the Fed "prints" there is only 10.5 trillion in existence. How can we ever imagine we can come up with $145 trillion dollars to cover the debt and unfunded liabilities when we can't even pay this years expenses without borrowing $680 billion dollars. If we have to borrow $680 billion to get through this year, what has to be cut in order to stop borrowing and actually pay some of the money we owe. The politicians act like the world is ending if they talk about cutting 1/10 of a percent of the budget. We would have to cut this years budget by 20% just to stop borrowing money. We would then have to cut the budget by another 42% to pay what we owe over 100 years. So if the politicians have a plan that would require us to cut our current budget by 60% to pay what we owe over a hundred year period, how is that going to help the poor? What happens if interest rates jump and we have to pay a lot more in interest on our debt? Helping the poor is very noble. How good will it be if we end up so broke that we can't even afford to give them soup much less food and cash and cell phones and health care. Breaking the bank is much more harmful in the long run.

Now I know these numbers are estimates and different people give different estimates. No matter how you estimate the numbers, I don't see how anyone can think we are on a path that can be sustained. How do we fix it? That's a whole other topic. I would start by taking the money out of elections so we would have a chance of getting good honest uncorrupted people running for office. Not anti democrat or republican, not anti rich or poor. Just pro common sense get the job done. I love all you guys whether you agree or not! 

Or we could stop paying the federal reserve bank and nationalize our monetary system.

I got plenty of ammo, I'm good...

I've only been in this country for about 20 years and all I could say is that I can't complain. This country has been good to me and my family. The country where I came from is much worse in terms of government, healthcare and job opportunities so living here is absolutely wonderful. I really can't thank this country enough!

I've only been in this country for about 20 years and all I could say is that I can't complain. This country has been good to me and my family. The country where I came from is much worse in terms of government, healthcare and job opportunities so living here is absolutely wonderful. I really can't thank this country enough!

 ^Post of the day. 

I've only been in this country for about 20 years and all I could say is that I can't complain. This country has been good to me and my family. The country where I came from is much worse in terms of government, healthcare and job opportunities so living here is absolutely wonderful. I really can't thank this country enough!

 ^Post of the day. 

+1   JEFROX puts in it perspective.

Great perspective from another point of view.

Thanks Jeff, I think some natural born and untraveled folks just dont realize what we've got. 

Maybe we know what we got and that's why some people are up in arms.

Our govt is bloated and will only continue to get bigger and bigger. The more people employed by the govt means the more people that will vote to keep growing the govt. People will not vote to shrink their paycheck.

I've only been in this country for about 20 years and all I could say is that I can't complain. This country has been good to me and my family. The country where I came from is much worse in terms of government, healthcare and job opportunities so living here is absolutely wonderful. I really can't thank this country enough!

Awesome.
First world problems we have are better than others. Thanks for the perspective.


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Traildad,

Did it occur to you that Hank Paulson (a private industry guy) spearheaded the bank bailout, which biggest act of socialism in the last decade.

I just looked him up on Wikipedia. I think we have to be careful to not paint a group (private industry) with the actions of one man. I don't have a whole lot of faith in the investment banker types as a group. They generally don't create anything. The uber rich generally look to consolidate wealth and power. Sounds like the government, doesn't it? Because of the cost of getting elected, the uber rich own the politicians. If I don't like what the government is doing, how could I support the uber rich? They are pulling the puppet strings. Keep the regular people divided while they collect the spoils. One thing to keep in mind is the government can make you support them financially at the point of a gun. Walmart can not do that except by buying politicians.

Did you know that congress people get a bill for party dues when they take office. They then have to raise like $100,000 on top of their own campaign costs. If they don't pay the party dues they won't get committee assignments and they can't get any bills brought up on the floor. They have to beg rich people for the money. Then when they want to make reforms those same rich people have power over what gets done.

I posted up the walmart story because I found it intresting and a bit provocative. Not because I think the government is ALL bad and not because I think Walmart or any corporation is ALL good. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. Where are we headed as a country, or as a world for that matter? With the ease of making IEDs and the common belief in terror as a means to an end, the next 50-100 years look bleak. I get the feeling that this whole debt crisis will end with a national/world bankruptcy. It will be put to a vote and how many people will vote yes in our country? Vote yes and we dont have to pay trillions of dollars. We get a free lunch! Then the other shoe drops because we will have to pass the bill to find out what is in it as Nancy Pelosi said. We will find out that we have lost our national sovereignty, our right to keep and bear arms, our right to govern ourselves, etc. etc.

Maybe we know what we got and that's why some people are up in arms.

Our govt is bloated and will only continue to get bigger and bigger. The more people employed by the govt means the more people that will vote to keep growing the govt. People will not vote to shrink their paycheck.

Very well said. I have heard that other immigrants have said that they see how we are on a path to become what it is they left to get away from. Better than any other country by far? Yes!!! Paid for with borrowed money and controlled with a heavy hand in our dealings worldwide. Better than any other country, but only a shadow of our former greatness.

interesting read.