BF2S Forums Are America's Best Days Behind Us?

Superior Mind wrote:

JohnG@lt wrote:

Superior Mind wrote:

As I began earlier: if the elderly could rely on their kin to care and provide for them there may be less of an issue in trying to eliminate or reorganize social security and medicade. I think one of the reasons the American family is a fragile and mostly imagined entity is because our business making paradigm coerces children to move far from their parents to seek out work. If people had a reason to stay in "Springfield" as much as they do to move to a New York or LA, we might see people giving a shit about things like hyper-local infrastructure. Instead rural and agrarian towns dry up in the face of farming giants along with a lack of industry to support infastructure. Basically, we ought to be more self reliant. People with land should be encouraged to grow on it and sell in local-only vendor markets. Let big farmers sell out of state and out of country. Make the local small scale farmers sell amongst each other.

Move out of Brooklyn. Seriously.

What do mean by that?

Because you started off ok but then you just devolved into hipsterthink

I agree with you about retirees. I think we as a culture waste a fantastic resource with the way we treat out elderly. It would be awesome if instead of moving to Florida as soon as they retired they instead came to live with their children, even if only part time. Why? Because who better to teach your kids while you're off working than your retired parents? My grandparents did it for me when I was a kid and they had me doing multiplication before I even started kindergarten. Way better than day care.

But, and this is a big but, it's free will man. Those retirees have earned whatever lifestyle they wish to live once they retire. If they want to retire to Florida so be it. I've told my mom that I would love for her to live with me and my fiancee when she's ready to retire but she's had her heart set on moving to Arizona for the past twenty years.

And no, the business paradigm doesn't dictate that kids move away, people move to the coast because it's exciting and new and interesting. The midwest is utterly boring unless you're into county fairs with butter sculptures and shit. Cows suck. Besides, they're adults, why should they continue to be reliant on their parents for the rest of their lives?

And then you go on about consuming local food blah blah blah. I'm sure you're a cool dude man, but the entire paragraph read like something a stoner came up with one night while he was baked. THAT's what I meant about moving out of Brooklyn. There's a lot of stupid ideas being peddled there.

Dilbert_X wrote:

FEOS wrote:

Yes, they're related, but the largest portion of our annual budget is still entitlement programs.

You mean like the 'defence' budget?

Not an entitlement program. That falls under discretionary spending. Entitlement programs are "must pays" in the budget.

JohnG@lt wrote:

Pug wrote:

Dood, as long as the gdp is positive, debt doesn't matter.  Of course, if you are projecting gdp to be negative, then it's a different story

This. Its just a number that doesnt really mean anything. Same with trade deficits. They're simplistic ideas that the media pushes because they're easy to understand by your average moron. If you are basing your arguments on either it makes you look uneducated.

In the short term you're right.
In the long term you're wrong.

Just because I don't swallow a particular economic theory without thinking or blinking doesn't mean I'm uneducated.
Just because a lot of people swallow a particular economic theory without thinking or blinking doesn't mean its right either.

Last edited by Dilbert_X (2011-03-07 23:26:24)

Pug wrote:

Sure, makes sense if you think GDP will be negative in the long run.  But if true, I'd like to know how you came up with that conclusion since obviously this would be a complete reversal from historical trends.

Since you are apparently educated and follow a different particular economic theory, feel free to share it with us to support your argument.

not gonna happen mate

dayarath wrote:

The playing field is going to be levelled a bit with the rise of powers such as the EU and China + the (slower) emerging ones like Russia and India, it would probably mark the end of US dominance around the globe, but the "best days" won't be going any time soon.

Unless of course, you categorize best days as the amount of influence you have in foreign affairs. The US will probably still be a very relevant player for the coming 50-100 years, but not as controlling as in the '90s - now. I also anticipate the US to regress to a more isolationist stance on world affairs as its actions around the globe have become largely unpopular both internationally and domestically.

Right but there's a huge difference between releasing our grasp on economic dominance and sliding into decline. China et al probably will catch up at some point but it's not like it matters. The end result of globalization is that everyone who plays the game sees their assets leveled off over time. If wealth were zero sum, this would mean that America and other first world nations would lose wealth over time and that it would be gained by China, India etc. Wealth is not zero sum, however, so it doesn't work like this. Globalization simply means that eventually every worker will have the means to purchase a flat screen tv or whatever the mark of luxury is when that time comes.

The only naysayers should be those who feel that the economic power of their own country is somehow translatable to the size of their own penis. "Ohnoez, Chinaman is just as wealthy as me now, it must mean I'm poor." Please.

dayarath wrote:

Pretty much... which is why I didn't address the economic side of things, think it's still a good 30-40 years to go till your average Chinese citizen has living conditions similar to that of the US / north Europe though. What'll be interesting to see is if their form of government lasts and yields better results than ours in the long run.

At the moment it's more like the entire western world is 'in decline' if anything. In Europe the different welfare states are exposed as being very fragile and extremely expensive, in the US that living on credit isn't the best of ideas.

What you reckon the US will look like in about 20-40 years from now?

I think we're about to get crushed by the retirement of the baby boomers. Either taxes are going to get jacked up to ridiculous proportions, baby boomers will have their benefits cut drastically, or we're going to go even further into debt. Our baby boomer generation hasn't been a fan of paying taxes so they've kicked the can down the road for the past thirty or so years that they've been in power. They've been keeping it propped up just long enough for them to reach retirement, and then they're going to slam it shut behind themselves. I'll take care of my own parents, but I'll be voting to send the rest of them off to the gas chambers in the next decade or so. I despise the baby boomers.

So, aside from having our old people dying in the streets because they refused to plan for their own retirement, I don't see much difference between America now, and America in 20-40 years.

you can still cut quite a bit on the military budget though.

Us not so much, people expect free healthcare, free education and a state funded retirement..... something's gotta go

dayarath wrote:

you can still cut quite a bit on the military budget though.

Us not so much, people expect free healthcare, free education and a state funded retirement..... something's gotta go

We could cut our military to the bone and it wouldn't matter. We're about to have more than half our workforce retire in the next thirty years. More than half the tax base disappears, and entitlement spending rises exponentially. Somethings gotta give.

dayarath wrote:

most of them die off in between 65-75 though, unless we keep trying to lengthen people's lifespans without attempting to make them useful beyond 65 the impact shouldn't be that bad.

Yes, it really will be that bad.

insurance companies are going to get fucked by the retiring baby boomers

dayarath wrote:

insurance companies are going to get fucked by the retiring baby boomers

Not really. Medicare covers retirees. Also, they don't stop paying for their premiums once they retire. They do however, by definition, stop collecting income and thus do not pay income tax.

Last edited by JohnG@lt (2011-03-08 18:01:44)

sounds like a good time to be a lawyer innit.

One very good side-effect is that most people are actually reasonably educated about money and finance etc.