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Guest Post: Has There Ever Been A More Selfish Generation?
Submitted by David Haggith via The Great Recession blog,
It’s a good question to ask on the days after Christmas, when we have all used our credit cards to buy gifts for others. In spite of this seasonal gift buying, I think there has never been a more selfish generation.
What is so selfish about this generation?
What other generation has been so amenable toward letting future generations pay for their lavish lifestyles? Many live in MacMansions purchased with thirty-year loans they won’t live to repay. With minds at peace, they leave those mortgages to their children and grandchildren. Even those in the US who do not live in veneered mansions enjoy a lifestyle made possible only by compounding the greatest mountains of rotting, stinking national debt mankind has ever heaped. This rubbish is their gift to posterity as, again, they have no thought whatsoever of attempting to pay off this debt.
It is not just politicians who are responsible for creating this debt. The average citizen slavishly votes for either Democrats or Republicans, knowing full well both parties have done their share to pile up debt. They either vote for the party that makes them feel generous to the poor or the party that makes them feel strong in defending our country; but the fact is they are not putting their own financial strength into either of those noble goals.
Our generation has decided the next generation can pay the bill for all of our generosity. We create welfare programs that we finance far into the future. We do this so that we can feel like we take care of our poor, but we hand the actual burden of paying for our largess off to our children and grandchildren! We would never undertake these programs if we had to pay for them fully as we go. We also let the next generation pay for our security. We are not bravely defending ourselves by our own strength. We are sapping the strength of our grandchildren to defend ourselves now.
We are generous with other people’s money — people who are not even alive today and who have no say in these decisions that they shall pay for. The majority remain committed to government that finances its love and war far into the future with piles of debt that no one can repay.
Not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats
The US Congress has stated over and over that it is just kicking the can further down the road, but that has never stopped them from doing it, no matter which parity is in charge! (Look at the latest Republican budget!) Both parties complain about kicking our national-debt problem further down the road, but they do it anyway. Democrats and Republicans are equally addicted to debt. US citizens who call themselves by either party monicker are part of a generation that wants to party but doesn’t want to pay for the punch. We are a nation drunk on debt.
If you think the economy is in better hands with one party than the other, you are simply addicted to party ideology. Until you give up on the notion that either party attends to anything other than its own self-interest, this nation will never find a truly creative answer.
Both parties are guardians of the status quo and defenders of the wealthy; and neither party has a genuinely creative idea in its collective head. The only difference between Democrats and Republicans economically is what things motivate them to spend other people’s money.
The Welfare party, known as the the Democratic Party, enables its millions of members to feel generous by ordering their grandchildren to pay for the meals given today to hungry families. None of their generosity is paid for by present taxes. Lord knows how those grandchildren will afford to be charitable to the needs of their own generation when they are still footing the bill for the needs of our generation!
We don’t care, of course. If we actually cared, we’d stop kicking the can down the road; but then we’d have to sell the MacMansion to fund our charity, and we are certainly not that charitable … to pay for welfare with our own mansions! Let the children pay! The next generation will just have to suck it up when the bill comes due. That is what our actions say, even though people may wince or even get angry at hearing it. (Anger is denial’s usual defense.)
Republicans, on the other hand, like to pretend they are fiscally conservative; but they have always proposed budget deficits, too, and have repeatedly shown themselves willing to play brinksmanship games with the national credit rating. At one point (August 2011), they triggered what may have become the worst stock-market crash in US history because of their brinksmanship when they arrogantly failed to realize that credit-rating agencies might blink before the Democrats did. If you don’t think it could have been the worst stock-market crash in history, have you considered the fact that it took the world’s largest and most rapidly launched campaign of quantitative easing to spin the market back around?
While Republicans claim they are against big government, they are really only against big-government regulations on businesses. They were more than willing to create an entire new department of government (Homeland Security) as their answer to intelligence agencies that weren’t communicating with each other prior to 9/11. They were more than willing to spend hundreds of billions of dollars to create a massive computer spying network to record every phone call and email in the nation. They have been more than willing to legislate against the constitutional requirements for search warrants. So, they have in every meaningful way expanded government’s intrusion into your daily life. They just don’t want to create more regulatory and welfare departments, but they are more than willing to expand the size of our military, which is entirely government.
Republicans have created deficits to fund all of that government expansion. Why didn’t they create deficits to stimulate the economy with new jobs by building roads and improving dilapidated sewer systems, improving the efficiency of highways, upgrading infrastructure. At least, those kinds of projects would have given the next generation something for their money. Why? Because that kind of government spending actually does stimulate the economy by creating hundreds of thousands of jobs, and Obama might get the credit. It also is work that needs to be done and that is ordinarily the province of government, so it is work Republicans would normally be supportive of, but not if it’s going to make a Democrat president look good.
So, you see, the only difference between the two parties fiscally is the things that make them willing to pile up mountains of debt. Republicans are the War Party, always ready and willing, since the days of Ronald Reagan, to pile up debt to finance a strong military. The size of their proposed debts are never any smaller than are those proposed by Democrats; the only difference is what they want to spend the money on.
How pathetic and weak is it to defend your country with your children’s livelihood? If you’re going to do any of these Republican or Democrat programs, fine; but shoulder the full expense yourself! Work longer hours just so you can demand your government charge you more in taxes in order to fund the welfare or military that you believe are essential.
If you’re a Republican, demand that your government tax you for every cent or that it reduce the military. If you’re a Democrat, demand that your government tax you for every cent or that it reduce its help to the handicapped and toward single mothers and toward aiding the drug-addicted and that it stop creating school programs for the underprivileged. Demand it!
Just stop pretending that you are generous and thoughtful toward the poor or strong and wise in defending your country … if you are going to shove the cost of your largess or strength off to your grandchildren. Own your generosity. Pay for your strength.
Democrats and Republicans, the BFF’s of banksters
Both Democrats and Republicans leaped to the call to bail out bloated bankers when they got a bad case of the Wall Street Willies. Both created the lie that their bankster friends were “too big to fail,” even as they idly watched the banks made bigger by order of the Federal Reserve. The over-Fed solution to bankruptcy was repeatedly for one bank to consume another. Neither party has pressed hard to send busted bankers and broken brokers to jail, yet some have plenty of time on their hands to press on with lengthy campaigns to send the other party’s politicians to jail. They have time to jockey for political power but no time to make sure potbellied bankers go to debtors prison.
If “too big to fail” was not a lie, why would both parties sit back all these years and allow the Fed to make those tipsy, top-heavy banks even bigger while it seemed to surreptitiously let a few banks fail? One has to wonder what secret vendettas were involved in letting Washing Mutual burn up and then selling its ashes, owned under receivership by the FDIC, to JP Morgan Chase while it chose to merge JP with Bear Sterns, rather than letting Bear Sterns burn up, too.
What clandestine planning was involved in merging Bank of America with Merrill Lynch and Countrywide, creating a vastly bigger monstrosity? Why press Wells Fargo to acquire Wachovia when that match made in hell turned Wells Fargo into the largest bank in the nation? These are not the kinds of solutions put forward by people who genuinely believe institutions are already too big to fail. Wasn’t that just an excuse to get taxpayers to underwrite the full risk of those solutions?
Your members of congress sat idly by as the largest mergers in the history of the world were encouraged and even force-fed by the Federal Reserve as the “necessary” solution to saving the little people from being bonked by banks. At the end of this program, the largest and most powerful banks in the Federal Reserve system are vastly larger.
Democrats and Republicans equally participated in taking the status quo and amping it up on steroids. They have turned every major bank into a colossus. They took a national debt the size of Texas and turned it into a national debt the size of a continent. It seems the only solution to anything our greedy leaders understand is that bigger is better, even when they claim bigness is the problem.
The Great Recession proved to be, as so often is the case (under the crony politics of both parties), a convenient opportunity for the fat-and-wealthy to become more rotund at fire-sale prices. While the largest banks on earth gobbled each other up in a government-encouraged feeding frenzy, the risks of such carnivorous ventures were underwritten by taxpayers.
If we are not greedy and addicted to size as a generation, why did we willingly acquiesce to a size-matters solution? It is simply how we think. That’s why. Bigger is better in our collective mind, so the answer seems to make sense to the majority. Size is proof of success, and we want the successful people running things. We could have let large banks fail, and then we could have taken all that money that has been created out of thin air anyway and given it to small banks to create accounts for those who were FDIC insured; but putting all the new money into smaller banks didn’t fit our way of seeing success.
“Oh, that would create terrible inflation!” you might say. Really? If the big banks were allowed to collapse, their money would simply disintegrate into the thin air from which it was originally created as the banks went up in smoke. In creating new fiat money, you are only making that lost, old fiat money back up. You are not expanding the total money supply; you are just relocating it … like double-entry bookkeeping.
We created trillions in new money anyway through zero-interest expansion of our money supply and quantitative wheezing. That didn’t create any of the customary inflation we were concerned about because it all went to banks to invest in stocks and bonds and barely entered regular circulation. As a result, it inflated the stock and bond markets to the point of approaching collapse, which we will pay for dearly in the form of economic disruption.
What is the inflationary difference between creating vast amounts of money in the reserve accounts of major banks as the Fed did via QE and creating that same amount of money, instead, in numerous smaller and healthier banks in the names of the people and institutions whose deposits would have been flushed away by the failure of colossal institutions? The difference is that the money would immediately flow into Main Street’s economy, instead of Wall Street, which might have actually created a little of the inflation the Fed has said it wants.
That would still serve the interest of our wealthy patricians, as all money bubbles up. You cannot buy pajamas on Main Street at Christmas with the money in your newly recreated bank account without that money transferring to Macy’s or Walmart and eventually to bank accounts of their stockholders. So, the money always trickles up, but the Federal Reserve is owned by big banks, and they greedily wanted the money directly. Thus, the new money all bypassed Main St. and went straight to Wall St. where the wealthy bid up stock, which benefited only themselves.
If “too big to fail” was a problem, why don’t we solve it now … before the next collapse?
Why don’t we break apart big banks now, while they are healthy and can be divided into healthy segments? If they were too big to fail so that George Bush had a legitimate cause to put tax payers at risk in massive bailouts (perpetuated by Barrack Obama), then why has neither party lifted a finger to break them up as “Ma Bell” was broken up? Once they started to fail, they were apparently the greatest financial danger known to mankind because George Bush said he had to give up his capitalist principles in order to save capitalists from their own greed. So, why aren’t we solving the problem, instead of waiting for it to happen again?
Apparently the Republicans and Democrats who stepped on to that program only like capitalism so long as it is creating wealth; they don’t like its “self-regulating” mechanisms for correcting greed when we fail to regulate people away from greedy actions in the first place. At that point, suddenly all the capitalists became collectivists and socialized the cost of their financial experiments. If you want a true Commie plot, there’s one: socialize the cost of bank failures!
There is nothing to stop the government from breaking up big banks into healthy, smaller institutions now that we have “recovered.” The Federal Reserve says we have recovered, so why are we not taking the next step of making sure there is nothing hanging over our heads that is “too big to fail?” If these oligarchs are so big that they threaten the civilian populace by their morbid obesity, then they can be broken up by the government on the same basis that Ma Bell was broken up. Is the government leaving room to use the “too big to fail” excuse all over again?
Perhaps more importantly, where is the outrage that this never happened? Is it possible that US society doesn’t want to express outage because we are not brave enough or self-sacrificing enough to endure the pain of economic reform from the problems we created?
The fact is, we’ve done NOTHING to rectify those dangers. We’ve had seven years and have done nothing at all! Republicans and Democrats alike twiddle their thumbs and pretend they do not see that the banks that were too big to fail are now twice as large as they were back then. One has to conclude they were lying when they told us these institutions were too big to fail because they have presided over a process that guaranteed those institutions would become much bigger.
Because we squandered our opportunity to correct our own problems, our problems shall be our legacy
When recovery efforts began after the crashes of the Great Recession, I said we were just pushing the snow straight ahead. Snowplows are built to push the snow off to the side when they are set right. If you set the blade to push the snow straight ahead, you cannot move forward for long because you will build up such a mountain of snow in front of the plow that the plow loses traction and can no longer push the load forward.
I’m afraid we are at that point. Congress, unwilling and unable to make brave decisions, was too willing to believe the Fed could engineer recovery on its own. Congress abdicated its authority and responsibility. The Fed sometimes warned congress it could not solve the problem on its own and that fiscal policy must be put in place to create a more sound economy, but those warnings were faint … I suspect because the Fed’s head was inflated by the idea that people thought the Federal Reserve could save the world. The Federal Reserve, in its pride, came to believe that itself.
What the Fed gave us was anesthesia. Had we diligently used the past seven years we had under anesthesia to restructure our economy away from debt, it could have saved us a painful transition. Instead, we let the anesthesia numb us to the mending that needed to be done and then left the injuries untreated.
Now the anesthesia has run out, but we still have all the corrections to make. Because we have piled up mountains of debt, we have no reserve strength left. We have squandered our opportunity for change in order to maintain the status quo by financing everything with even more debt so that we’d never have to feel the pain of correction.
We continued with adjustable-rate mortgage traps. We continued our sloppy terms of credit. We continued to allow deregulated banks to speculate in the stock market. We don’t allow people with 401k’s to operate outside of the services of fund managers by letting them buy and hold actual bonds under tax advantages of a 401k plan. We instituted interest rates that discourage savings as if they were the plague. We tried to re-inflate the housing market with those same zero interest base rates, instead of letting housing prices deflate back to a level where people can afford a home without ridiculous terms of credit. We repeated the sloppiness of auto financing that extends years beyond the collateral value of the automobile with no downpayment required.
It’s wretched how dumb we are in our greed to have everything right now in the cheapest way possible and how willing we are to force the debts of that consumption upon our grandchildren and to pretend that won’t hurt them. We live in economic denial. However, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you’re a different kind of person because you’re willing to hear and think about such things and probably agree that this is no way to run a society. No way to build an economy for future strength. No way to treat those who must follow in our footsteps.
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What is so selfish about this generation?
Hey you faggot SJW cunt!! I've paid more in taxes than the average 15 families combined because I worked like a cunt, averaged 60+ hour weeks, ran a string of rentals and a second job, FUCK YOU.
Had I all the money STOLEN from me while 50 families of niggers lived off my sweat, I'd be retired at 40 on a beach by now. I seriously cannot wait for shit to blow the fuck up so I can fix cunts like you on my bayonet and 'splain shit while you expire.
Anger is an energy.
I figure I have paid over 1.1 million in federal and state taxes since 1990. Forget SS and Medicare. Shit, I'll never retire.
The secret to a happier, healthier life: Just retire
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/the-secret-to-a-happier-healthier-life-...
Unfortunately, we are in a system where human lives are to benefit the powerful top few. They will have plenty of excuses to never let you retire.
What's up with this "we" shit?
If this story is talking about the baby boom generation then no there probably hasn't been a more selfish generation. They enjoyed the spoils of WW2, experienced VERY low asset prices much of their lives, as shown here, at least compared to what the current generations are facing. And they still have the balls to call for removing the income limit on SS, just in time for them to stop paying and start collecting. You don't get much more selfish than a generation that changes a rule that has favored them their whole lives just when it would help their children just so they can enjoy their illusion at the expense of their kids.
History will judge who are the selfish ones.
I haven't commented in a few months but you hit the nail on the head. While there are exceptions to the rule, it is the baby boomer generation that voted the last 50 years of bums into office and were not vigilant in protecting what little liberties we had left.
Who will you have to blame when we are gone?
I knew this girl who was Pluto Libra who said We gave them AIDS!
Really? Are ya serious.
Anything like Puerto Ricans?
The author seems to think that we live in a democracy and that our votes count. How naive:
"Major Study Finds the U.S. Is an Oligarchy":
http://www.businessinsider.com/major-study-finds-that-the-us-is-an-oliga...
This spiral began soon after WWII. The Greatest Generation did their fair share of buying into the lies, too! It is unrealistic to separate generations for purposes of blame. After all, if it was the boomers fault, who fucking raised them? Romanticizing the American past ( when most people don't have a clue what really went on) and blaming the present ( when a few more have a clue, but not many) is common and idiotic.
you nailed it. Every time I hear my grandparents complain about SS not going up, I cringe. I love my grandparents, but it is infuriating. It really is the most selfish generation in history. They complain about SS not going up, either oblivious to the fact that it just comes out of my paycheck and goes to them, as there is not "lockbox" that it goes into, or they know that and don't care. The worst part is, they would probably be just fine if they never got SS, they are well off enough to survive without it, yet they still complain.
As for this article, there is a lot the author gets wrong, but a good bit he gets right too, and his basic premise is correct.
well, on the other hand you shouldnt have used up all that potential work and left some for the others, no need to blame them for it, no use killing yourself by working yourself to death and spending all your time on earth working for the bullshit economy.
LOL, yes, all the niggers' fault. Christ.
Black Jews.
<--- "Toby. Toby! I got me a regular Ben-Hur down here. Doing 95... minimum!"
<--- "Now you listen to me, trooper boy! We got a swamp full of Black Russians drivin' boats to beat the band down here."
FYI, Famous Black Jews...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/09/05/black-jewish-celebrities_n_3872...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jewish_African-Americans
Most tend to be entertainers (Arts, Sports)
Sculleryboy Kirk. Last time I heard the acronym "FYI" was from my girlfriend's faggot hairdresser.
https://www.google.com/search?q=beta+isreal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8#q=beta+israel
I could also recommend some books, but you seem rather obtuse.... Did you miss the intended irony?
Apparently 'Fuck you, idiot' needed saying again.
The niggers have allowed themselves to become leeches. At least in the African bush, they worked hard dodging'n'chuckin' spears @ each other. That also tended to cull the herd. And a big 'thank you' to the welfare statists who enabled them with free housing vouchers, free healthcare, free food, and free phones. All they have to 'due' erry day is fuck and make an even larger burden for the hardworking taxpayers who foot the bill for the fruit of their loins. Hey-Zeus we have a fucked up .gov!
L.B. "I'll have those niggers voting democrat for 200 years" J. had nothing to do with it.
Do you even realize that there are as many white people on welfare as black people, or do you just completely ignore that fact?
Do you realize that the military costs the US ten times a year what welfare does?
Do you realize that the amount of money that the fed spent on QE could pay 20 million americans $50K per year?
But, yes, the niggers stole your money.
Wrong, the data says its proportionally many times more spics and blacks, spics even more than blacks.
Proportionally is not quantity. There are just as many white people on welfare as minorities. Ever been to West Virginia? The panhandle of florida? Ever been through a trailer park in pennsylvania? Tons of lazy white fat fucks on welfare.
Thats exactly the point, to compare fairly you must do it proportional per race.
That's not the point. If you want to compare the amount of money that each race has stolen from you it's 50 / 50, whites and minorities. Half white, half minorities. Half of your money went to each.
replacing those with whites would shave a good deal off.
You are a stupid son-of-a-bitch if you think the way you are arguing. It's the free-shitters/tax-slave ratio that matters. Just like with Social Security and the ratio between individuals receiving benefits versus individuals paying those benefits.
Niggers test lower on IQ, lower on impulse control, and higher on crime than ANY other ethnicity. The studies have been published, the data is compiled.
They are a burden on America.
spics are a worse burden, see below
Fucking morons, both of youse. "Spics" maintained this country for 10K+ years, and blacks did much of the heavy lifting for what we call the "modern" era.
And they still grow/prepare/serve your fucking food and clean up after your dumb frat ass after you've had 10 too many and puke up your guts... over the holidays, or on any random weekend ftm.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u1J6EEhkyM
The Truth About Immigration and Welfare
So, you admit that 13% of the population sucks down nearly as much welfare as the other 87%, but are trying to say that whites and blacks consume welfare equally.
Mmmmmm-yeah, keep trying.
Meanwhile, since welfare and taxes are clearly discriminatory against whites -disparate outcome- both are violations of civil rights laws.
"Proportionally is not quantity."
Quantity is not statistically relevant. Proportion however tells us a an amazing story.
Liberals suck at math, planning, and abstract thinking.
Whites are about 64 percent of the population and make up 32 percent of TANF cases (welfare); blacks are 13 percent of the population and make up 32 percent of TANF (about 70 percent of black kids are born out of wedlock); hispanics are 16.3 percent of the population but make up 30 percent of TANF.
In terms of numbers, whites are the largest users of welfare but as a percentage, blacks use it the most.
Welfare wasn't for anyone's good other than to destroy the family. It was so the money would have to be borrowed, with taxpayers paying even more in interest to the bankers.
i was going to respong to that guy, but you and the guys above have said it all. You also just explained why the european model of "democratic socialism" cannot work here.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4u1J6EEhkyM
The Truth About Immigration and Welfare^^^ This is the type of moron who blindly worships some 4th-hand account of an early 20th century faux-race warrior in service to a generic, cinematic ideal of Euro-fascism. And he is exceedingly proud of his "loyalty", oh yes. I'd wager his education comes from 70s fantasy novels and 80s mail-order propaganda; one really can't get any more regressive. Next step is a helmet with horns, because he saw it via some Hollywood interpretation of Wagnerianism and thought it must be authentic...because ... Right?
They should just go ahead and rename it "Tooltube", because what is allowed to remain does have its audience, make no mistake, and it IS the lowest common denominator of humanity. If you are watching, and still intrigued, you're that denominator.
I guess the numbers hurt since you seem to be avoiding the subject.
It's not a borg in his avatar or my return would have been easy, though some fashionista garbage goes a long way too.
Which numbers, bitch? LOL
Simple percentages that help discover facts which then allow us to discuss pretty simple numbers and mechanisms instead of spewing politically correct talking points. You should refute some of those facts and numbers, before coming out with the "bitch" comments. Facts and analysis over ideology!
No, this is a sad invasion by some bored pre-teens in Moms basement trying to get a rise out of somebody--anybody-- "please notice us, anybody, we need it so that we can feel real. I'm slipping, help" As they might say.
You really have a twisted way of interpreting the data.
"Do you realize that the military costs the US ten times a year what welfare does?" - Bullcrap. Defense spending and welfare spending have been almost equal for many years.
http://dailycaller.com/2012/10/18/report-welfare-governments-single-larg...
The military is welfare for many. Think about it. Then recalculate your welfare percentage.
I agree 100%. It is corporate welfare and should be ended. I see no reason why we cannot keep america safe with a budget around what clinton spent in his last year in office. Sure, that industry employs a lot fo people, and many of them are high paying jobs, but they are essentially government jobs in a private sector that wouldn't exist in its present form without wasteful gov spending. Those who are actually good at their jobs can do something else.
Agreed if you use the budget they "show" us.
Off books,,, MIC and SIC are at least 20 time welfare. I do not include SS as it is an insurance and people actually pay something towards it. Don't think it's insurance, look up FICA. Welfare is "given" on the basis of income level, race, age and/or gender.
Percentage of the US population that are white: 77.4%
Percentage of the US population that are black: 13.2%
That's almost 6 times more whites than black. Yet the number of welfare recipients within the two groups is almost the same:
Percent of welfare recipients who are white 38.8 %
Percent of welfare recipients who are black 39.8 %
So on a per capita basis, the number of blacks receiving welfare is six times higher than the number of whites receiving welfare.
Your comment: "Do you even realize that there are as many white people on welfare as black people, or do you just completely ignore that fact?" - it's ok to ignore that fact because without doing this on a per capita basis, what you're saying is not just meaningless but misleading. Huffington Post ran with that story because they didn't do the per capita thing.
Ida gone with useless fucks. Its way more inclusive.
This SJW would like to yahnk you for your service and tell you that you are also considered as part of our efforts, not the problem, we, see you as another victim, of the many injustices.
This SJW would like to yahnk you for your service and tell you that you are also considered as part of our efforts, not the problem, we, see you as another victim, of the many injustices.
counterpoint, I bust my ass just as much but get to keep less because Im paying interest on your debt. And Ill be paying it for my whole life. You got to enjoy the high for a while at least.
Edit: also, the millennials with jobs hate the SJW types just as much as you. You should pull your social safety nets and let them drown themselves. Just pull SS and medicare/aid at the same time.
Doesn't matter how much you pay, it is less than what you would be paying if the government had not been borrowing.
I always giggle when you girls with the small dick complex get to crying and whining and huffing and puffing like you could fight your way out of my pants.
The difference between us men and you girls is that we at least attempted to stop all this shit...what did you do, gurly...besides bitch and whine?
Relax Francis, sure you may have worked your ass off, so what I'm sure most of us here did and still do, but your whining like someone owes you something now..
Does this author honestly believe the 20 Trillion dollar debt will be paid? Wow.
Hahahhahahaha, to even begin to pay it, you would have to stop spending beyond your means, not increase debt, you also have to consider the unpaid liabilities, which are already unpayable.
If paid in full there would be no currency left. Debt currency is created by ..... debt. When interest is added the debt cannot ever be paid. That is why they just roll it over,
Can't they just take out a loan and pay it off?
The choices are debt slavery, revolutionary overhaul, war and/or any combination of the three. Not a bright outlook.
And away we go.....
Don't fear for the grandchildren inheriting unpayable debt - they will have no choice but to hyperinflate the currency and pay today's debt off using nearly worthless future dollars. The grandparents - who used that debt to accumulate their savings and entitlements, will see those things become worthless. You will need a skilled job, gold, silver, or own resources that will be in demand in a troubled world.
Well, Mr Haggith, propose a solution about how to follow your excellent suggestions. As long as they are confiscating half my stuff I'm looking to leave the trap because while you mean well, your solution is the same as others, let it collapse. I suggest we apply the asset forfeiture laws to confiscate the crooks' stuff. I would give the banksters a lofty position after they are penniless, ROOFER, or maybe high rise Ironworker.
It's all a scam... The money interests borrow at or near zero interest,,, (fresh click money) then buy government paper. They're not risking "their" money,,, they're not that stupid. The government then takes the recently purchased money and spends it on all their programs and wars. The money interests cut is the 2% - 3% interest government pays them from the next batch of fresh click money.They don't even need tax money an longer. They just keep it going to let you know who's your daddy.
A scam that has been ongoing since money was invented by bankers of that time. Older generations just took them out and hung them. Latest generations just try to get in on the looting. Everyday marks educated by the institutions the thieves operate have no clue. They think it's normal capitalism at work. Can;t beat it with a stick!
The debt will be paid. Do debts go unpaid? Someone takes the hit.
Now, the 20 trillion plus represents stored labor, GDP, resources.
It could also represent death and destruction for millions.
If we can wriggle out of not squaring the debt, and just starting over with a new system, well, that will be an interesting affair.
As for the article. Can't paint all with the same brush.
There are those who make the world work.
There are those who are parasites. I lump government in there.
The parasites are overwhelming the hosts.
Stop The Insanity! Like that dyke used to yell in the old weight loss infomercials. Kudos to BandGap for invoking the spirit of Mr. Lydon/PiL above. Sadly, better days are NOT coming.
How we got here ... Kept out of sight.
http://patrick.net/?p=1223928
You mean "The most selfish since Soddom and Gomorrah"?
If you put stock in ancient lore.
Republicans [...] have repeatedly shown themselves willing to play brinksmanship games with the national credit rating.
Uhh... never go full retard?
Boomers?? You mean the generation that paid the social security of 'the greatest generation' (that did not come closer to earning what they received) and will also be the first generation NOT to receive what they did pay for...that 'most selfish generation?
If so then fuck off....Boomers were not thinking of the graeat benefits to come in 30 years any more than any generation thinks about its retirement. Most of the feebies were driven by politicians who catered to the already retired. Many of us tried to get social security placed into our own hands.
The problem is that so many are trying to save that the vehicles for doing so are now so overvalued that they are dangerous. Bonds...piss off...no where but down (like they were going no where but up after 1981). Stocks...piss off twice...when corporate buy backs stop they'll tank. They sure are not where they are now due to profits.
"You mean the generation that paid the social security of 'the greatest generation"
Not only that but filled up the SS coffers so full they were over funded for many years. Of course, now that gov has stolen the monies and spent it on welfare and wars, eliminated the revenue stream by shipping production overseas, and allow those illegally in the country to collect SS who would anyone NOT expect the system to be in trouble.
Show me any American citizen and voter who ever voted for anything that the government of the United States of America has done in our names. Don't bother trying because it can't be done. Besides that, American elections are rigged to ensure control. So don't be surprised when Hillary Clinton, Multimillionaire through Bribery, is elected President of the most corrupt nation on Planet Earth in 2016. Millions of dead voters have already cast their ballots for the Mistress of Greed and every Islamic dictators best "friend" (as long as the bribes continue flowing into the family fortune).
"If voting worked it would be illegal."
NYC Will Fine You $250,000 For ‘Misgendering’ A Transsexual
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2015/12/27/nyc-will-fine-you-250000-for-mi...
I could give a fuck how people self identify - god bless, have at it freaks.
But this fascist crazy pc police statebullshit out of the Windy Apple is getting to be goddamned ridiculous.
Courtly intrigue. Caviar quarrelling. Who cares?
Oh noes, whoever will coif my many wigs??!
The guillotines/plagues will have them all, and quickly too.
Have to wonder who is the sickest... The ones who are actually doing it,,, or the ones who allow it and promote it.
This is akin to ridiculing the various fruits and fairies who oiled the heaving workings of a fiat Versailles.
A blip in history, a waste of time, and nothing more. They're mostly brain-damaged anyway. Their bloodlines are toast.
Our bloodlines are toast. And rightly so.
Has there ever been a more selfish generation of bankers?
Silly author.
Yes.
The folks who created the situation that brought on the great depression.
Bubbles abounded and burst, lots of crooks selling shit they did not own, lots of folks devastated trying to get something for nothing, get in or be priced out for ever, this time it is different. Destroying commodities in order to keep prices up, instead of feeding real people in real need.
I have had taxes, SS, Medicare, extracted against my will. They were supposed to put it in a lock box. They spent it on other shit and put IOUs in there. We vote against wars (one of the reasons Obama got in there, remember asshole?) and we vote against bailouts, and they do it ANYWAY. Then you want to blame me? Blame me for not shooting them, I get that.
Otherwise, fuck you.
Yes! And what is this collective, "we?" I did not:
1. VOTE for any of these assholes.
2. VOTING IS RIDICULOUS when we consider the choice is between an asshole or a butthole.
3. We have no influence in our politics.
4. We are not in control of any of the real message that should reach the real people: the media is bought off, too.
5. There is nothing we can do.
6. Repeat number 5.
I too am tired of these silly articles. Everything government has done has been against my will. I will not accept blame for what has become of the United States no matter how many times someone tries to do so. As I read someone say before, I was in the back seat of the car being driven. I did not drive it off the cliff.
Water under the bridge. Get a paid off house and car.
You are never free, property taxes and tag fees plz. And don't be late, or you'll be charged hefty interest on top of the usual increases.
TILT!
GAME OVER
The generations are all the same, it's the perception that's different.
The wording this generation points to whom. Baby boomer hippies, who were always right since starting enjoying of pot in the sixties and educated their offspring, so that the curse of a free meal is now already extended into a third generation. Anti establishment hippies fighting the establishment were soon the establishment themselves and rewarded themselves with unfounded benefits and their children and grand children were good learners from this behaviour. Believed I in the Bible (which I don´t) there must be even a fourth generation brewing to full fill the prediction of the original sin extending into subsequent 3- 4 th generations."Thee shall harvest what thou hast sown" corresponds later established experimental evidence from the Newtonian mechanics, "for every action there is a reaction". This table is served now.
huh? wtf
These authors who keep coming out with their collective guilt can blow me. Let's just all share the collective blame and shame. Right along side numbnuts
who never works or even tries? Memo to author: go get your magic mirror and look at it long and hard. What do you see? Victim...Particpant...Man?
I see my part in all of this and it doesn't belong in your over-simplified childish utopian rant. 'Yours'...not 'Ours'...Pal.
Hate to disagree but, all of 19th century England is a hard act to top.
I wonder just precisely what the author David Haggith has done to solve the problem?
Writing worthless articles like this one doesn't require any courage at all. If he had any guts he would have taken up a sword instead of a pen.
I'm 50 years old and all the government has ever given me for all the money they've stolen is fines. It isn't 'us' who have stolen from our grandkids. It's the ruling political class who has stolen everything from everyone except themselves. If heads start rolling I won't be too sympathetic. No worries, Trump will save us all and rebate our lifetime of involuntary tithes in Bitcoin. That is how that'll go down, right?
I have a class A CDL and I respect these long haul guys. I really wonder how many folks here can run an air shift manual transmission hauling 22 tons. I am not that good at it but I can do it. It just is not easy. I never thought there was a machine that would intimidate me but the 18 wheelers are intimidating to run. These are the guys/gals who bring you your food, your fuel and and everything else you need. Until you have driven an 18 wheeler and understand how hard it is to do, I recommend shutting your yapper about a "selfish generation". That is from a Harley guy. The truth is the truth.
Had a Class A for 40 years until the American Gestapo had them taken since I haven't used them for awhile. Didn't have to difficult time shifting. I have seen one change though. We always tried to be professional and courteous, these new 'simulator trained' two month wonders,,, not so much. Happy trails...
" I really wonder how many folks here can run an air shift manual transmission hauling 22 tons."
Oh come on now! A 13 speed Road Ranger behind a NA 318 Detroit in a GMC CO is a blast. Just keeping up where you are at (which range) teaches you to pay attention while driving! Just try to avoid mountains or any grade greater than 3% for longer than two miles.
My step father was an over-the-road trucker for years, two of my brothers currently are too. Thankfully I don't have to live that life (at least not yet).
What's really frightening is the number of people in our country today that cannot drive ANY form of manual transmission! It's gotten so bad that when you try to buy a new 3/4 or 1 ton truck you have to special order one with a MANual transmission instead of one with a girly-matic minivan tranny!
No there has never before been such a self involved, delusional, self important, cowardly generaton as the baby boomers. We started out shouting PEACE and LOVE and are finishing up with desiring only lust and power. Or at least our leadership has and we sheep have followed along hoping for the scraps that they throw off of the bus. Our children's generation of confused, hopeless, narcisist, pc morons are our reward.
"Our children's generation of confused, hopeless, narcisist, pc morons are our reward."
Speak for yourself. Your failure as a parent doesn't reflect on my offspring.
I taught mine to have a work ethic, to aspire to be debt-free, and live withing your means.
No there has never before been such a self involved, delusional, self important, cowardly generaton as the baby boomers. We started out shouting PEACE and LOVE and are finishing up with desiring only lust and power. Or at least our leadership has and we sheep have followed along hoping for the scraps that they throw off of the bus. Our children's generation of confused, hopeless, narcisist, pc morons are our reward.
When the US$ crashes, which is due any time now, all debts will get wiped out as will all financial assets including currency. Since the generations to come are not really going to be holding the current US$, they will not be paying the cost of the collapse. The cost of the collapse will be borne entirely by those alive at the time of the collapse. The most to lose will be those who have retired by that time and dependent on incomes from financial assets.
Whether the US has a future or not will not depend on how selfish the baby boomers were/are, but on what the productive age people are. It may not be a bad idea for those still working and being productive, whatever their age, to cut off all retired people from having a say in the decision making after the collapse.
Do you really think that bankers/in pocket politicians will forget who owes them money = it will all be repriced and you will owe the devil your soul, one asset at a time.
I don't know they can avoid it. When the US$ crashes in exchange rate and is no longer accepted internationally for payments, all the US$ held outside will be used to pay for US exports, while US will have to confiscate privately held gold to pay for its imports and/or make gold denominated loans to pay for imports. Causing a hyperinflation in the US$ domestically wipes out the value of the US$ held by foreigners and US exports will fetch it foreign exchange needed to pay for imports. Hyperinflation in the currency would mean people will be able to pay off all debts, including fixed rate housing mortgages of decades duration, in a short time of weeks and months. Of course, as hyperinflation hits, banks will cease making any new loans, so assets will remain with their current owners and new asset purchases become impossible. The existing loans cannot be re-denominated in anything other than the US$, since the US$ is the legal tender. But if there is some fine print in the loans that allows the banks to change fixed rate loans to variable rate loans under exceptional circumstances, they can use that to cite the hyperinflation and increase the interest rates making it extremely difficult to pay off the mortgages even with hyperinflation in the currency. There is nothing else they can do.
As noted by Katherine Austin Fitts on Solari.com, our controllers (bankers and minions) sent our money and industry to China. What did the people (black, white, brown) have to do with that? Add the cherry (constant war) to the top, and we have the present mess.
We could end the Fed, but the Fed and our controllers and minions won't allow it. They would lose the unmatched advantages of their very unfair money printing system and would allow the common "selfish" citizen to be more prosperous and enable us to have a viable banking system rather than the fractional reserve mess we have now.
The bottom line is that the systems we have built were designed to function in an economy of exponential growth. We are now at the end of growth and we all are suffering the consequences. Welfare whether it be private or corporate rewards the unproductive. As long as a government check is accepted as money the show will go on.
Nailed it.
No matter what current economic theory, it stems from the 18th-19th Centuries of the Industrial Revolution, when everyone - except Maltthus - implicitly believed in an "infinite planet".
At first wood (for charcoal) smelted easily obtained iron ore, but nearly all of the trees got felled and, fortunately(?) easy coal filled the gap - but mines got deeper and deeper (more expensive).
Hey Presto easy oil was discovered, but the US variety peaked around 1971. (So much for the energy side of things, which is currently being fought over - at great expense).
Along the way all other resources also became harder to find and extract - easy gold peaked a century ago, as a matter of interest - so both depletion and greater expense has gradually put the skids under "endless growth".
Financialization has obscured the fundamental problem but, for instance, payment of loans (for development) and compounding interest dictate that there must always be MOAR of everything in future, so as to pre-pay for present production and consumption.
The reality is that there is less and less of everything, from fish in the sea to arable land to clean water. And despite commodity price manipulation, what's left is more expensive to extract.
Collapse is inevitable sometime soon, though global war could hasten it greatly.
To re-itereate: ALL current economic theories are now wrong ... always were, but no one foresaw the time when we'd run smack up against our actually finite planet.
Too many consumers?
They got an app for that.
This is true.
It's also true that automation and technology is making average people economically pauperized by usurping their ability to add value by producing something which in our world has come to = reason for existence.
We started out as browsers.
There were ample resources to just hunt and gather things and we've moved from that to a highly specialized and comparmentalised existence where you don't kill your own food or gather your own resources you do something arcane and others mass produce what you need.
In the process our humanity has been strip mined from us completely.
So soon to be considered worthless eaters all of us by our new machine / elite overlords.
This is not what we were designed for and it's robbing us of meaning in our lives.
So stabbing each other over jackrabbits and a handful of berries will gain us back our humanity?
I'm not convinced your argument is valid.
It's a choice to lose or keep your humanity but the system isn't fucking interested in helping you at all in fact it's desgined to wrench it out of your hands.
It's always been the same choice and the same deal if you want to chuck it all and stab someone over a jackrabbit then go ahead.
Nothing has changed on that front and nothing will change.
However the modern world is nothing like what we were designed for.
In fact the modern world just lets you HIRE SOMEONE to stab the poor fucker and take his jackrabbit or more aptly, bribe someone, to hire someone to get you to stab your fucking self in the eye over said jackrabbit and then cut it up and sell jackrabbit debt tranches on it.
Raising your own rabbits and berries and trading them locally with your community for other products of value produced by others in your community will earn us back part of our humanity. Certainly the infinite growth system wouldn't allow this type of activity to develop into a formidable force and furthermore the creation of this scenario requires the acceptance of a totally new economic worldview for most everyone. The issue I see with your comment is that your presumption of people stabbing each other over commodities is accurate, but only in the current cultural paradigm which is intimately and inextricably related to our economic worldview of scarcity and competition along with it's associated manifestations in all of us (fear/anger etc.). Were peope to adopt a different lifestyle and economic worldview there are many cultural, societal and personal changes that are all part of the package which could perhaps result in a much different outcome than you've assumed.
this article should be titled: Has there ever been a bigger bunch of fucking morons?
keep voting, thinking voting helps when those in the District of Corruption stay there no matter who anyone votes for. vote them out? they just go to 'K' street and loot with the help of their cronies who you thought would 'clean up the mess'...this time.
keep thinking your government does things in your best interest.
keep thinking you have a chance.
until people really get fed up and start lynching these fuckers in DC - nothing will ever change
I am not sure human selfishness varies much, heck I'm not sure much about humans varies much at all.
That's the problem they fall for the same shit for thousands of fucking years and swiming upstream from that exhausts them after just a couple generations they're back to bootlickers and ass munchers.
Historically our nation WAS an exception for a little while. Now it's back to your regularly scheduled schlonging.
Hey Mr. Guest Poster: I'll bet you wrote your little article sitting in your new pajamas that were made by slaves in China that somebody bought you for Christmas. I'll also bet you own an I-Phone or some such shit that was also made by slave labor in some country, and I'll bet ALL, ALL, of the clothing you wear was made either by slaves in a foreign country or some prison labor right here in this country. And I'll also bet you invest in corporations that use slave labor all over the world. But you wouldn't give a damn about that. Would you, Mr. Guest poster? Mr. Guest Poster: what we need is a prosperous productive net trade surplus economy. Its not magic. Building walls to keep Mexicans out wont do it. Keynesian shuffling wont do it, government redistribution doesn't do it, and turning your economy into a gambling casino doesn't do it. Yet that is what we are preached every day by the likes of politicians **and*** people who don't do anything but sit around bitching, blaming some politician or another, or people who vote for some politician or another. So excuse me, Mr. Guest Poster, if I don't buy what snake oil you are selling. Its no different than the snake oil all the rest are. Its rubbish. What’s happening is that day after day, month after month, and year after year, Americans are buying goods and services manufactured by foreigners, and those foreigners are not buying goods and services manufactured by Americans. We are creating millions --- tens of millions of jobs in other countries with our purchasing power, and we are losing tens of millions of jobs in our country, because foreigners are not buying our goods and services. What are the foreigners doing? They’re buying up our assets!!! And because of it...we lose twice. We lose the jobs, and we are driven deeper and deeper into national debt --- and, ultimately, national bankruptcy. That is the end game. That’s why before NAFTA (and soon the TPP) was (and the TPP will be) enacted, this country never had a trade deficit as much as $140 billion a year, while every single year since then --- for 20 years now... we have had a trade deficit of over $140 billion a year. Until we as a people decide to once again be a net exporting, productive, surplus economy, the current trends will continue regardless of your stinking politics, your stinking politicians or all the rest of you chronic fucking complainers and chronic fucking blamers of some political party crap that goes on around this fucking place every goddamn day. Happy fucking new year.
Tell ya what. Walk around your house. Pick stuff up. Look at it. See where it was made.
Say it to yourself, what country did it come from?
Say it!!! Then tell yourself that YOU bought it.
And then say "Thanks... Obama."
To sum up.
Human progress has resulted in converting people to commodities.
Meaning has been stripped out of existence.
Our spiritual sides are starving for meaning because we've forgotten what it means to be human. Human beings aren't called human doings we're called human beings that is to say we don't get born here justifying our existence our existence was justified from the moment we were concieved.
Since life is a spiritual journey then when you arrive on this planet you owe no one anything and you have a right to feed and clothe yourself and to live your life as best you see fit.
You arrive however into a slave planet where you must "get a job" to feed yourself forget that you were never designed to have a "job" you were desinged to live and that's it.
We all live now mostly in ways we were not desined to live in. There was no cosmic need for accountants or scientists or anything of the sort we were pretty much designed to hunt down some food sit around a fire and fart then laugh at this make some babies then die of old age.
That's it.
Oh and ponder what it all means which can be many things to many different people.
Then the modern world comes along and says get a job or starve bitches!
Then you work some ruling class siphons off your labors, taxes you, indebts you, aggregates wealth buys up votes from people who've figured it out and don't work and start wars and shit all without any of your real informed consent.
If you mention this you're just not a positive person you're full of negativity and culled from the herd no one wants to talk to you.
Well I wouldn't want to talk to me either because I'm pissed off and fed up of all this jackassary.
You tell people this and the hardest working ones will show you all the wealth they've achieved and say you're just an idiot.
No they are because they did all this inside a system that is stripping the soul out of everyone. THEY LOSE AUTOFUCKINGMATICALL
Y before they fucking started.
I'm so glad your kids can get spoiled from all you achieved because heaven knows when kids are handed things they didn't earn that works out so fucking well but go ahead and back slap yourself you've achieved so fucking much in this bizzaro world good job at playing the game and winning whatever the fuck that means.
that's not human progress you are describing here. that's the elevation of "The Market" to divine levels, particularly when you write about "converting people to commodities"
Hubris...the Greeks knew all about it.
The purity of capitalism in all its dogmatic and neo-Papal spendour.
The barbarians of Raqa who love that OTHER totalitarian dogma of past : the Good book and love of ONE infallible God; now has its pseudo-pagan and money loving equivalent : In MARKET GOD of PERFECtion we trust, and the Greenback is its Prophet!
When "perfect" totalitarian constructs rub shoulders like colliding galaxies, we ought to see a few SUPERNOVAs in the celestial skies!
Foisting all the debt on our grandchildren? Well, perhaps you'd better go talk to those grandchildren again, because you'd have to be delusional to think they are going to pay it.
Go ahead, set up your various Ponzi schemes...those grandchildren are just going to say "Fuck off", and will NOT be funding your future schemes.
Better figure something else out, because the future will be here soon, and you won't be getting your hands on its money.
True enough.
They'll be working on their own iPonzi schemes.
One man's debt is another man's credit. What happens when the next generation says, "we ain't got the money, we ain't paying?" Then the rich people who hold the debt won't be so rich. The sun will still rise, farmers will still plant.
"Not a dime’s worth of difference between Republicans and Democrats"
This is the only part of the entire post that is true. The rest of his speculation uses a broad brush to paint all of us in the over 50 age bracket as a bunch of debt-strapped whiners. I think he likes to pander to millenials who seem to forget that we have paid more into SS/MC than we'll ever see. In fact, I have probably been paying into the system almost twice as long as some of them have been alive.
I live debt-free and below my means. Our house and land has been paid off for over 10 years now, and I live in a mostly agricultural county where taxes are low (less than $900 for 45 acres with home/2 barns/loafing sheds, etc). We may not live in a mansion (1344 sf) but we can at least say it's paid for. As each debt load was paid off, that amount was then directed into our savings account (same later converted to more fungible commodities) and some then dutifully transferred into an IRA-CD. So, not all of us old codgers are irresponsible whiny-assed losers like what YOU see when you look in the mirror Mister Guest Poster. I have planned ahead and done my best to NOT be a drag on society.
The article serves the purpose of motivating younger generations to throw out the current paradigm. You have nothing to worry about if that ever happens.
The point of the article is a good one. But there are other generations that could be said to have fucked people over worse. I am not sure the level of culpabilty one is suppose to have if your government is committing genocide. Is taking land from people because you have better weapons selfish?