Israel probably has enough nukes for an impressive genocide.

But that was never Israel's agenda.

(This is why the world expects Israel to give land for peace. Everybody knows that it is the Arabs peace must be bought from, not Israel.)

The USA is broke. If any normal person would have wasted money in reckless abandon like the US did, Bernie Madoff's crimes would be called peanuts.

The public debt amounts to over 11 trillion USD and it will grow ... but the GDP is over 14 trillion USD. Ok, the US can't simply say "Let's stop spending for a year and we're debt free", but these numbers show that the US is still credit worthy - meaning that it will happily get deeper into debt to pay for new shiny stuff.

Joking aside, these numbers are catastrophic, because some of those debts have to be paid every year with no way of postponing them, limiting the budget the US has available to continue their wasteful spending. Most of the debts are from government bonds whose payments are due and the only way to get more money is to sell more government bonds.

In case you don't know how government bonds work: A country is basically lending itself money based on it's future GDP. E.g. the US assumes it will have a GDP of 40 trillion in the year 2029 so it can "borrow" against that from the US government of 2029 ... long after the current government is free of any responsibility.

While there's a lot that can be said against this practice I'll refrain from doing so. I merely wanted to point out that paying without money traditionally never was a problem for the USA.

Another way to generate money is to print it. This will lower the worth of the dollar shortly after (and it's theoretically forbidden for the USA to do so according to a pact making the dollar the world's lead currency in exchange for the promise to not print more dollars - but who's to tell someone with nukes fighting a losing war in vietnam what to do?).

But even the permanent devaluation of the US currency can be beneficial and it's a very likely (and dreaded) scenario that the US may enforce it. Government bonds can include protection against inflation (which is why they are regarded as a safe investment) but nothing protects against the devaluation of the currency. If that happens, all current debts are reduced as well as the worth of all government bonds still due.

Of course, this act will eliminate the dollar as lead currency and destroy any credibility for a long time ... and china will be "pissed off" because they bought most of the bonds. But to be honest, it may not matter anyway since the Euro € is very likely to replace the dollar as lead currency anyway.

Raising taxes is a good way to get money, too, but that's something average americans can understand and put on those funny protest signs. "DON'T TAX OUR COCA COLA, OBAMANAZI!".

Anyway, regarding the health care reform, money isn't really the issue. The reform should - and that's something anyone can agree with - make health care more cost efficient and better, no matter which form it takes.

But instead of discussing it earnestly, political games are played, lies are spoken, rational arguments screamed down.

Financed by private insurers.

I honestly don't know what would have happened if Obama didn't bail out these failbanks. I think one of those banks (AIG, I think) was involved in government bond trading and having that fail might have prevented the admin from getting new money.

Anyway, the US economy always was pure anarchy with regular crashes every 10 years or so, some of them epic. And thanks to lobbyism the whole bloody country is nearly unreformable, especially if a weak president is in power with naive ideas like bipartisanship. Bush might be a ruthless fanatic and stupid as a dining table, but he pushed most of his agendas through despite all opposition. Hence the mess you are in.

On a global scale, countries are acting to survive the possible total meltdown of the US economy. Europe will suffer but probably be fine due to a strong domestic trade. China will be hit hardest since they own many dollars and a dependent on US imports.

So, in an ironic twist of fate, the country you are preparing to go on war with is your greatest ally.

Talk about values.

ah, poisoned topics. Ignore my personal inflections. Sorry, I made the same mistake I accused your political debates of doing.

Anyway, about the china thing: China has strong interest in keeping the dollar strong and it relies on americans importing goods from them. That's what I mean with "ally". And I will refuse to discuss the willingness of the USA to fight wars - worthy or not. So I'll just concede that point: The USA is not preparing for a war against China.

Currently China is one of the world's greatest export nation and the USA is the top customer by far: US$337.8 billion in 2008. (source 1, 2). The first european country - Germany - imports about US$115 billion. China might not be your "ally", but you bound together by strong economic bonds (haha) and goals.

China has a total trade balance of US$295 billion (world wide trade, not just us), meaning that the destruction of the US economy will bring china into a high trade deficit (although the subsequent turmoil on the world financial market would be even worse).

For comparison: The USA already has a trade deficit of US$29 billion (source). In layman's terms this means that you sell a cheeseburger for less than the price of the cheese.

There are those nice graphs floating around that were formerly used to demonstrate how deeply Bush fucked up the US economy. Now it has Obama estimates included to illustrate how much worse he supposedly is.

The anti-Obama versions usually stop at 2009 but even so it's not very promising. The common reading is that Dubya turned a massive trade surplus into a titanic trade deficit, climaxing in the current crisis. He dug a hole too deep for Obama to climb out anytime soon. Of course, depending on your political point of view you can spin it anyway you want, even though it seems indisputable that the US economy floored despite all those shiny neo-liberal free market measures introduced during the bush era.

(btw. I'm not sure exactly how much of the budget deficit is related to the trade deficit. be aware that the above graphs might not complete represent what I'm actually talking about)

JoeUser forum software has problems with nested quotes. Among many other shortcomings. I sometimes get the same problems you described and have to fix it manualy, too.

Something to complain about in the forum-issues subforum - but good luck with that.

This is probably another poisoned topic but let's mention "outsourcing" amongst others. You could google something about the bush economy and see if some of the arguments against neoliberalism make sense now.

NAFTA, finance market deregulation (directly causing the housing market collapse), war against terror, tax cuts for the rich, budget cuts in maintenance (see new orleans levys), ...

But can I assume by your last answer that you are not interested in looking into these topics but rather want to bash on me for not liking Bush?

The labor laws in Québec are, how to put it "gently", more obvious & less restrictive on BOTH the employers and any potential workforces. UFCW gave me & plenty of others excellent work conditions & a reasonably good salary in a Renovation center as salesman between 87/92 (long time ago, i know, the dynamics have changed since and yet, recession helping i STILL had a family of four to sustain)... that didn't stop the ownership from selling & demolishing the "old" stores and starting big-box style alternatives to compete with Home-Depot (sounds familiar?), Rona and the likes. We delt with contractors as often as with the one-time walk-ins for

The staff turnover rate in such commerceS has a serious impact on quality of services since customers have lower chances to meet the same staff year after year. Experience matters when you need clear advice on such important purchases -- you don't want to renovate your precious houses the wrong ways, for that you need reliable solutions at optimal costs, etc.

Wally Marty did exactly as when Hyundai failed in Bromont, they built the huge places. And once personel had *legally* signed for syndication - they simply closed the stores. And that's not counting the part-timer scams by scheduling people on restricted "hours" at minimal salaries to maintain Payroll expenses at INCREDIBLY lowest possible costs. Respect your co-workers, give them a real smile worth reasonable & earned money or CLOSE them all, one by one never to return in Québec -- or Canada, btw.

But they won't do that, do they -- too profitable for investors rather than the daily punch_clockers of a group of employees which must face the very same economic conditions as anyone else outside these walls. For every dollars they don't see on their payckecks, consumers get and buy a quick flood of items. Invaluable savings for their family budgets? Sure?

I am still wondering whether the (however many) real grassroots supporters of the healthcare reform are shouting "We care and want to give our own money to help other people!" or "We care and want other people to give their money to help us!".

In other words, how many of the caring supporters of Obama's plans are in it for the chance to give money to other people (and why didn't they already organise such a system a long time ago) and how many are in it for the free lunch?

The housing market collapse was brought about by Democrat policies of providing mortgages to people who couldn't afford them through Freddie Mac/Fannie Mae.

Should we call off the war against terror? You know, just let them have a free hand? What the heck, it costs too much, anyway, right?

A lot of rich people are rich because they are productive, and provide employment for the rest of the populace. Socialists don't produce wealth, they steal it; they run out of other peoples money sooner or later.

New Orleans was a Democrat disaster; the governor (a Democrat) didn't allow the federal government in in time, the mayor (a Democrat), didn't bus people out when he could have, and the funds allocated for levee repair weren't used for the repairs.

Duh -- since when socialism doesn't employ people to generate wealth also.

So does slavery. But slavery itself is not productive without using other people's labour without their consent.