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Post by jacquelope on Jun 20, 2011 11:42:17 GMT -6
Simple. All major currencies are fiat currencies and many of them are worse off than ours. Also the dollar is used as a sort of defacto world currency so there is impetus to keep it afloat, as of now there is no real replacement for it. China is a export focused country that will collapse should it's export market die. The Chinese have to prop up the dollar if they want to survive. Sooner or later the currencies will implode one by one. Ours will probably be the last to go. Last to go, eh? Great. It'll take forever for us to get the offshoring monkey off our backs.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 20, 2011 10:30:19 GMT -6
Thank you, Jacque. Texas has a little $12 Billion budget problem, too. Maybe it's from too many giveaways to businesses. GB You know, I'm not opposed to regulatory reform. No system is perfect. But if people are going to say we're being overtaxed and over-regulated, it may very well be true, who knows! - but at least substantiate it. Give examples. Show which regulations are bad, and make a case for why. Is that not too much to ask? The fact that businesses and advocacy groups cannot seem to give examples, suggests that most of the complaining is being done by a bunch of bad actors who just don't like playing well with others. Go to other countries where they have free reign and you find hell has broken loose in their wake. See: the collapsing mines in China and the pollution in India.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 20, 2011 10:28:32 GMT -6
What I want to know is, how is it that the dollar is staying afloat so long?
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 18, 2011 20:42:22 GMT -6
I have a personal experience with regulations.
My business is selling insurance. We're not allowed to demand social security numbers from customers, which makes it impossible for us to run credit checks. People with bad credit are better off in California than anywhere else in the country.
In my experience, regulations only serve to keep US from screwing YOU over.
So when businesses move out of state, basically they're looking for ways to jones the hell out of the consumer. Or pollute the hell out of the water and air with their toxic waste. Or exploit loopholes to discriminate against their employees on account of gender, race, etc.
All I can say is get the hell out and go ruin someone else's state.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 18, 2011 20:38:15 GMT -6
The posterboy for economic idiocy, msmith537, is at it again. boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=13929936&postcount=14He's speaking in general about workers whose jobs go overseas. Thiat means factory workers, programmers, biotech researchers, everyone, all their jobs can be done by anyone off the street. His planet is indeed a strange planet.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 18, 2011 19:02:54 GMT -6
The DEMOCRATS are in favor of this? Seriously? WHY?!
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 17, 2011 17:24:47 GMT -6
then why does America need the Trade Adjustment Assistance program, while China, India, Brazil and South Korea don't?
Anyone who says we're benefitting from this mess should take a big look at whose workers are getting displaced. Hint: it ain't the workers of South Korea or China. They don't need programs to compensate for their losses... because they don't suffer losses from free trade. America, on the other hand, does.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 17, 2011 12:38:11 GMT -6
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 17, 2011 10:32:40 GMT -6
It's not going to happen tomorrow or next year? Lots of businesses go under as soon as their growth stops.
Just wait until those ARMs reset again in the next 2 years...
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 17, 2011 10:31:26 GMT -6
If free trade is not taking jobs out of this country if free trade is creating jobs
Then WHY do we need the TAA?
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 16, 2011 20:24:37 GMT -6
I think you're ok in making such a statement. Heck I've been advocating the shooting, tar and feathering of bankers, globalists and Wall Streeters for quite a while. Hell go on a bunch of sites and they're saying pretty much the same thing. A lot of people are really, really pissed at the way the banking elite is fucking the world over. If it ever boils over, I wouldn't want to be a banker or one their paid apologists. I will travel 3000 miles across country to join in on the fun when it starts. I guess everyone must be waiting for law and order to collapse and the troops and cops to rush home to defend their own families before the torch parties commence.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 16, 2011 13:46:25 GMT -6
If the company has more than 50 employees he sick the Feds on them for violating the FMA. If it's less, get the nastiest trail lawyer and go after the company and civilly sue Ms. Mary. You can bet Ms. Mary will be joining the unemployed as soon as the company owners get notice of a law suit. Can I get sanctioned on here for suggesting they burn that place down when no one's at the office?
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 16, 2011 1:51:42 GMT -6
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 15, 2011 2:31:30 GMT -6
If I have to choose between the Greens and the Corporate Elites, I'll take option #3. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_vehicleAn electric car with solar panels built in and solar on my rooftop. We're still a ways away from a market that's friendly to electric cars that have solar recharging, but the technology is here right now. Give me that so I can say piss off to paying for biofuels, piss off to the Greens, piss off to all of them. I don't want to be held hostage by anyone for energy. I want my freedom.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 15, 2011 1:16:32 GMT -6
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 14, 2011 6:06:24 GMT -6
The Chinese have been net sellers from Nov. until April (the last month or record) and probably also in May. They are buying oil and precious metals. They must relize that America is toast and that the consumer market in America is dying. I think that in the next 2 years they will unpeg the Yuan from the dollar. This will give them more purchasing power. I also read somewhere that they will use the gold they are accumulating to try to make the Yuan a gold backed world reserve currency. What will this do to exchange rates? As you can imagine I am praying quite intensely that a shift will happen that will make American exports the cheapest in the world, or close to it. Our superior workforce, combined with the scenario of our labor being super cheap for Europe and China, will have us producing for the world. It's obvious that our politicians won't help us with tariffs. The only way America can get jobs back now is by flipping the exchange rates.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 13, 2011 20:57:57 GMT -6
Yeah the Chinese will tank like a diabetic cop at a donut shop if they stop buying our debt. They have to play the game whether they like it or not. I hope they stop buying it. Made/programmed/customer supported in the USA, here we come!
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 12, 2011 22:36:04 GMT -6
Is this true? I keep seeing rumors about it in the news.
Surely China knows that if the dollar collapses then it will mean the end of their export economy, right?
Or is it that they cannot avoid that but selling off the dollar helps them not be exposed to owning a bunch of worthless currency/treasuries/etc.? Would this basically be avoiding a double-whammy and accepting the fact that a nasty single-whammy is quite close to inevitable?
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 12, 2011 11:33:10 GMT -6
Not much else I can do, really. I paid off my debts years ago, and all my money is in the credit union. I don't even bother with the stock market anymore.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 10, 2011 1:07:28 GMT -6
www.commondreams.org/view/2011/06/05-1The Rise of the Second-String Psychopaths by David Schwartz Published by CommonDreams.org Sunday, June 5, 2011 The great writer Kurt Vonnegut titled his final book A Man without a Country. He was the man; the country was the United States of America. Vonnegut felt that his country had disappeared right under his – and the Constitution’s – feet, through what he called “the sleaziest, low-comedy Keystone Cops-style coup d’état imaginable.” He was talking about the Bush administration. Were Vonnegut still alive in the post-Bush era, he would not have felt that his country had returned. How had our country disappeared? Vonnegut proposed that among the contributing factors was that it had been invaded – as if by the Martians – by people with a particularly frightening mental illness. People with this illness were termed psychopaths. (The term nowadays is anti-social personality disorder.) These are terms for people who are smart, personable, and engaging, but who have no consciences. They are not guided by a sense of right or wrong. They seem to be unaffected by the feelings of others, including feelings of distress caused by their actions. Straying from a decent way of treating people, or violating ethical codes causes no anxiety, the anxiety which is what causes the rest of us to moderate our more greedy impulses. If most children feel anxiety when they are pilfering the forbidden cookie jar, psychopaths feel just fine. They can devour the cookies, shatter the jar as evidence and stuff it in the trash can. When accused, they can argue with apparent sincerity that the cookie jar has been missing for at least a week. They suffer no remorse, no guilt, no shame. They are free to do anything, no matter how harmful. Psychopaths can be very tricky to recognize. As psychiatrist Dr. Hervey Cleckly wrote in his classic The Mask of Sanity in 1941, psychopaths are not technically insane. They don’t have a psychosis, like schizophrenia. They are experts in appearing normal. They can act the role of a caring, concerned executive, even though they actually do not seem to experience such feelings. If they hurt somebody, they don’t modify their behavior. The United States corporate and government spheres have become, Vonnegut suggested, a perfect habitat for psychopaths. What has allowed so many psychopaths to rise so high in corporations, and then government, he wrote, “is that they are so decisive. They are going to do something every fuckin’ day and they are not afraid. Unlike normal people, they are never filled with doubts, for the simple reason that they don’t give a fuck what happens next. Simply can’t. Do this! Do that! Mobilize the reserves! Privatize the public schools! Attack Iraq! Cut health care! Tap everybody’s telephone! Cut taxes on the rich! In a country in which much of human culture has been rendered into machines for the manufacture of money, psychopaths are the ideal leaders. They are very focused. They are outcome oriented. They are frequently charming, and usually very bright and able. They can lay off thousands of people, or deny people health care, or have them waterboarded, and it does not disturb their sleep. They can be impressively confident. Psychopaths can be dynamic leaders of enterprises, but are handicapped by their lack of feelings for relationships. They may be accomplished captains of industry, or senators, or surgeons, but their families are frequently abused and miserable. Most psychotherapists have seen the wives or husbands or children of such accomplished people. Since psychopaths are usually very smart, they can be quite competent at impersonating regular human beings in positions of power. Since they don’t care how their actions affect people, they can rise to great height in enterprises dealing with power and money. They can manufacture bombs or run hospitals. Whatever the undertaking, it is all the same to them. It’s just business. The economic system that remains after the destruction of American local cultures has created an excellent employment picture for psychopaths. But the opportunities open to them are now so vast that there is apparently now an actual labor shortage. At least that is the only explanation I can find for the rise of a cadre of psychopathic leaders who resemble the usual type in all ways but one: they’re simply not that smart. One has only to look at right-wing not-so-Christian fundamentalists to see the peculiar emergence of a second-string of psychopaths. The US has been endowed with abundant resources, and there have always been a more than sufficient supply of psychopaths of the first intellectual grade to supply corporate suites and their subsidiary, the Congress. Why is there now a downgrade to the dumb ones, like the lowering of standards for military recruits to deal with a shortage of cannon fodder? It is no secret that the Koch brothers and others of the super-rich seem to have undertaken a final push to consolidate control through the conversion of a marginally democratic to an essentially fascist state; extreme right-wing, authoritarian, and demagogic. This kind of government is ideal for control of a populace by the moneyed elite. To carry this out requires the employment of many ‘kept’ politicians to excite and misdirect scared and angry – and ignorant – voters. Lest the citizenry realize who stole their money and storm their castles with torches, the rapacious elite need politicians who will carry out the work of re-directing anger at teachers, or labor unions, or the poor. I can only conclude that the people who now own the country couldn’t find any first-rate psychopaths to carry out their work. Or maybe the smart ones were all occupied. So they had to go to second-stringers, people who could actually believe what they were told to say. We are a country who has become second-best, even in the quality of our psychopaths. David B. Schwartz, Ph.D practices psychotherapy in Ithaca, NY. His books include Who Cares? Rediscovering Community and the forthcomingThe Sidewalk Psychotherapist.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 9, 2011 12:58:00 GMT -6
I can't do hard farm work either. I made it a point to be friends with a family that does, though. I won't - can't - do this alone. In a crisis you have to have some people you can rely on.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 9, 2011 5:01:04 GMT -6
Oh man! Where's part 2?
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 8, 2011 20:44:18 GMT -6
I did read about Argentina...average citizens got triple screwed. I hope that does not happen here...what happened in Argentina did not happen everywhere so it may not happen here. I do expect and predict a worldwide financial collapse with a Dollar crisis leading the way into a complex result...so all American government functions, pensions, guarantees of saving, etc may fail...as in Argentina. I have a modest hoard of physical precious metals which is the best I could do plus no debt...hopefully these will be enough to transition through the bad times. My bet is not on precious metals but rather on food and resources. I've got solar on my roof and property. I am growing apple and orange trees and a garden. Getting a chicken coup, too. And ammo... lots of ammo and spare repair parts. I've also got a farmer as a close friend and I'm friends with an engineer who maintains diesel engines and specializes in biodiesel rigs. I'm ready to live sustainably and also defend my property if the worst happens. Most importantly I don't do it alone. I reckon I will be able to trade chickens and apples for gold when the shit hits the fan.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 8, 2011 20:36:10 GMT -6
Food riots? That's a joke. By the time the system implodes that much, Jeffolies pension along with most federal and state salaries will be gone. Look the elites know that welfare is the only thing that is keeping our cities from being burned down and becoming giant versions of Somalia replete with warlords. And the elites will keep it going until they decide to pack up and leave. Then they will sell off all state and national assets to their cronies for pennies on the dollar. Go study Argentina. My question to that is.... Where will they run? America is the world's largest powder keg. Our military is not following the rich overseas. Our aircraft carriers will not pack up and leave. We're not Mexico or Argentina: the troops damned as hell are not packing up and leaving, they'll be busy defending their families. Our 21st century military hardware is, at its core, manned by our soldiers and Generals, not even Mercs yet (or maybe not ever). They won't hand that over to those who flee America. American bases abroad won't hand themselves over; they'll pack up and leave for home to their families, and take every screw, bullet, missile and wrench they can carry, if for no other reason than to defend their homes when they get back. Edited to add: and when Americans decide to use this hoarded firepower to hunt down the rich who screwed America, nobody will be safe. No one does terrorism better than a fragmented United States. Al Qaeda, Russian Mafia, move over. Plus we also have nukes. Tons of nukes. The rich CERTAINLY cannot escape that if this country collapses. A collapse coupled with the rich fleeing leaves the world's deadliest arsenal of WMDs in the hands of... well just about anyone close enough to take it over. The rich ain't getting their hands on that as they flee, either. Nobody wants America to collapse. If there ever was a mythical Mother Earth out there, I doubt she would want that.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 8, 2011 16:22:16 GMT -6
Forget the employees. how about the CEOs instead. The clock punchers just want to feed their kids. Deal with the leadership they're the ones who lead this economic massacre.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 8, 2011 5:11:22 GMT -6
Okay I had to get back up because something congealed about what you said fredorbob.
What I am about to say is easily fraught with misinterpretation and very easy to take the wrong way, but still, here goes.
The secessionists and Green-Fascists and anarchists have their place. When the Greens are at the throat of corporations that pollute our water supply and are strong enough to hinder them, they have their use. When the anarchists like Anonymous are taking swipes at Bank of America and the Koch Brothers, they certainly are of use to America. When corporations base their sense of pride and power on how many Americans they hire and how clean they keep our environment and how much they give back to the nation that made them strong, they too have their use. When we have corporations taking our jobs and going overseas we need the welfare state so that our country's children don't starve or die waiting for liver transplants the way Nataline Sarskiyan did. Ultimately, if somehow the Neo Cons and the Koch beasts and ALEC and the Corporate State take over America and lock it down, we may be forced to become secessionists to flee the madness that such a world brings. Or worse, we may need to become outright rebels.
But here's the other side of the sword. When the Greens turn Fascist and want to spike trees, they need to be put back down in their place. When Anarchist hackers go around picking on honest citizens and terrorizing people for the "lulz", they need to be put down. When trial lawyers and Government laws destroy basic law and order to make life easy for criminals like empowering burglars to sue you for getting chewed on by a dog for invading your home, they have gotten out of hand and they need to be put back down in their place. When these anti-white factions, wherever they are (and I've seen no such thing) go around lynching whites and getting away with it, they're racist and need to get handled the same way we handle the Skinheads - by putting them down. When welfare gets to the point that people would rather have the dole than take advantage of a huge job boom - then welfare needs to get cut back, severely.
We need a balance of power in America and the Far Right has taken things way out of whack. Maybe if the left wing extremists resurge and get their leftist claws around the Far Right's throats, then both sides might be so completely bogged down that we the working class can join forces and take them all down.
In the end what I want is an America by, for and of the working class. Not an America ruled by the corporate elite, bogged down by the lazy layabouts, not just a land of homosexuals, not a land that treats homosexuals as second class citizens, not just the land of the whites, or the blacks, or the Mexicans or whoever, not just a land ruled by the patriarchy or handed to the feminazis, none of that. I want a land ruled by the. working. class.
Man I hope this don't get me banned, but I just had to say it.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 8, 2011 1:51:06 GMT -6
Replacing the "corporatist USSC majority" with anti-white ethno-national secessionist racist homosexual, private property thieving Green-Fascist, anarchy-promoting USSC majority isn't much of an an improvement. No offense, but you're part of the problem. You exchange one low life extreme for another. Wait, who's the anti-white ethno-nationalist racist... huh? Got any names for this group, or USSC decisions that you're referring to? And what are homosexuals doing to harm America? Where are these ethno-national secessionists in the USSC? And what do you mean by green-fascism? I'm not seeing anything beyond the effort to keep our air breathable and our water drinkable. I don't us want to become like Linfeng, China. I'm not denying that there are extremists of every stripe. The Earth First! bunch should be prosecuted as terrorists but we're talking about the USSC here... what support do these nutjobs have in the USSC? The corporate elite keeps us divided by preaching fear of the homosexuals, the illegals, the non-whites, and so on. So in the end we wind up owned by Chinese anti-Western bastards and corporate fascists. And private property? Good luck with that when it's all foreclosed on.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 7, 2011 16:22:30 GMT -6
Jacquelope Throw out 8 million illegals and H1-B workers and start putting every employer who hires a illegal into prison Throw the employer in prison so we can pay for their 3 hots and a cot? I prefer the gallows, for treason. But that violates the cruel & unusual punishment provision, I suppose. True. But which is the bigger problem? Them, who may cost us around what, $10 billion a year, or the welfare we give to corporations, which cost us $1.5 trillion in a single year in addition to the hidden costs of shipping our jobs overseas? The math suggests to me we could have 25 generations of welfare queens and not cost us what we paid to bail out 1 big bank. Or maybe 5 generations would equal just the rebates we gave Bank of America. The welfare queens are a problem but they're like a gnat compared to the hornet swarm of corporate welfare. They need to reform Section 8 to require something just a little to the left of Homeowner Association rules. Scheduled periodic inspections and an iron clad requirement that the premise be kept tidy. Make it a part of the contract. I myself own more than one free-and-clear and had thought about making one a Section 8. If those reforms happen I absolutely will go for it. Not all Section 8ers are degenerates, but there are clear laws that need to be enacted to weed out the bad actors.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 7, 2011 6:15:44 GMT -6
Eh, how big is that welfare problem? We've got tons of hungry and jobless people out there who can't even get welfare and I can't imagine any Section 8 program without a very long waiting list. These people come to see me and others who work occasionally at the soup kitchens. A lot more now than ever before. We're talking whole families now, too.
I don't even want to talk about how high unemployment is for 18 year olds. It's a massacre out there. Employers are doing everything but shooting them in the streets.
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Post by jacquelope on Jun 6, 2011 15:34:06 GMT -6
Notice the sentence at the end.... "But little mentioned by almost anyone making or trading consumer goods in Asia these days is the possibility of moving these relatively labor-intensive manufacturing industries back to the United States or Europe.
Mr. Rockowitz was dismissive of the idea in his remarks on Tuesday at the Foreign Correspondents’ Club.
“The Western world does not have the work force to do this kind of business,” he said. “For ‘made in Italy,’ the workers are old now and there are no new workers coming in.” "What a load of shit! We have plenty of workers willing and able to do the work, it's just that they can't do it for (what was the Haitian minimum wage Obama just demanded and received..oh that's right) 31 cents an hour!! I don't see these jobs coming back here until the dollar takes a dump.
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