State of the Union

[Static]

hahaha

 

[Tipsy]

I don't need a source when I fully understand the natural progression of human psyche and logic. You know this too.

Let me use the stereotypical black criminal. Coming from a broken home, mainly with no father with just a mother struggling to keep them alive, sometimes not even having a mother that good to care for them. They look towards their friends, now assuming all the friends are older and into crime the young meandering boy looks up to them and wants to be them and in turn becomes a "victim of circumstance."

Now that is not always the case but mainly that is how street gangs get their numbers. Bloods, crips, Mexican mafia, Mexican Noestra familia, all those gangs bassically brainwash little kids(young teens)into that lifestyle.\

While their are other types of criminals it is that generalization of criminal that overrun our prisons and take our tax dollars.

Or rather than trying to be harsher on the criminals we could fix our education system and give people an option to actually escape poverty and feeling there is no other option. Personally, I feel the less excuses the government has to harm any citizen the better.

Even before the war illegal immigrants were pouring in. Our country itself is too overly compassionate, we don't see a problem until it properly presents itself and usually it is too late.

I think instead of border patrol we have immigrant hunters. Look for the immigrants all across the southern line and clean from the bottom up deporting all those who do NOTHING for the country. Because lets face it, there are some illegal immigrants who don't speak English but still help our country run.

Either that, or we could use our resources to secure the boarder and then try to integrate the immigrants into the economy without being a burden to the nation (such as their usage of social programs) by having domestic economic reform. If we had a freer economy immigration wouldn't even be a problem and I'd gladly compromise on giving amnesty in return for massive economic reform in terms of a change/removal of a lot of regulation.

Well lives lost are a staple of what makes humanity what it is. History has shown while humanity presses on it loses it's number. I am not saying their deaths should be brushed off but war is war and its what happens.

I can't say much other than I disagree with your opinion. I view that as what makes us not human.

But if we look at it from a futility stand point American's with all our money just help the africans to make ourselves feel better because 10 dollars a month goes a long way for %0.0008 of the population. (a number i pulled out my arse but you see my point i assume)

I think the money in foreign aid given by the government should be given back to the taxpayers and it should be the choice of individuals to use their money how they see fit, be it giving it to Africa, another charity, spending it on themselves, or whatever. Maybe it's useless, then again I support the notion that people should use their money

We are too high in power as Americans(political part of USA) to just say what we really need to do.

We need to wipe out every single piece of Terrorist trash until there are none left. But that in itself is futile. The terrorist are natural cowards. Blending into the crowds until they feel a target is big enough to go AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA BoOM!

How I see it, I'd put the priority of safety for Americans before the priority of "wip[ing] out every single piece of Terrorist trash" and the first can be accomplished better with our resources at home.

But seriously, what Tipsy said is generally correct. What people don't understand is that the United States is in a desperate NEED of a recession. The dollar NEEDS to drop so that we can increase domestic production and begin to step up our exports once more. If things go further down the road they are currently in and it goes too far, we'll get to a point where we depend entirely on foreign imports and the dollar will stagnate to a point where the European market will not need us anymore. If we let the dollar drop out now, we can increase the strength of our domestic economy and the next time the dollar resurges as the global currency (it will have a massive fallout once OPEC changes to the Euro) it will be stronger than ever and more resilient to foreign crisis.

The only thing currently standing in our way of banning OPEC from using the dollar and dropping into a much needed recession is our dependence on foreign oil. $12 a gallon will not be pretty, we desperately need to develop better technology to retrieve the massive amounts of oil in the Canadian tar pits, and we need to retract many of our land preservation acts and begin to drill oil on the East and West coasts, and most of all Alaska. There is plenty of oil in these areas and the national reserve to hold us until we can completely rid ourselves of the need for crude oil on a national level.

I personally wouldn't go that far because I think it is possible, with the right government action, to both avoid the recession and help the economy, but what you're saying is probably the more likely course because of how wonderful our government is.

:juggle:

The color of you is for angels.

 

[Static]

Or rather than trying to be harsher on the criminals we could fix our education system and give people an option to actually escape poverty and feeling there is no other option. Personally, I feel the less excuses the government has to harm any citizen the better.

The no child left behind act is in its entirety a good idea. But with all good ideas come the bad men running it. It wasn't a total flunk though, Bush is trying to integrate pel-grants to inner city families for kids with protential to take them out of a failing public school into a Private school, religious or otherwise.

There was one line during his Speech that really got to me, but I feel he said this with the knowledge of his timeline as President.

"If American citizens have to budget their money so should their government." (something to that degree)

Honestly though tipsy, a well educated man, or woman I am not sure, such as yourself can see that bush is not to blame for the economy. It is the greed of the rich which has helped, not completely but helped, dig the whole of this economic slump. Such as I said earlier it is Natural progression of human psyche and logic.

We get attacked--- we go to war--- we raise taxes for the war--- the rich business men of this country outsource or completely move to different states. Now this is a summary of the vaguest proportions.

But we must take Enron, standard Oil, and such other Big business' into mind. It is greed like this that sets the Domino effect into motion, the end result is...? The poor get poorer. While the Rich stay comfortable.

 

[Tipsy]

The no child left behind act is in its entirety a good idea. But with all good ideas come the bad men running it. It wasn't a total flunk though, Bush is trying to integrate pel-grants to inner city families for kids with protential to take them out of a failing public school into a Private school, religious or otherwise.

There was one line during his Speech that really got to me, but I feel he said this with the knowledge of his timeline as President.

"If American citizens have to budget their money so should their government." (something to that degree)

Honestly though tipsy, a well educated man, or woman I am not sure, such as yourself can see that bush is not to blame for the economy. It is the greed of the rich which has helped, not completely but helped, dig the whole of this economic slump. Such as I said earlier it is Natural progression of human psyche and logic.

We get attacked--- we go to war--- we raise taxes for the war--- the rich business men of this country outsource or completely move to different states. Now this is a summary of the vaguest proportions.

But we must take Enron, standard Oil, and such other Big business' into mind. It is greed like this that sets the Domino effect into motion, the end result is...? The poor get poorer. While the Rich stay comfortable.

No Child Left Behind failed because it continued to centralize the power behind schools, something that's been happening since around the 60's. Back then, we had 100k+ schools districts, now we have about 15k. Funding is moving more from local levels to state and federal. No Child Left Behind tried to bring accountability, something best done by parents. Best way to do that? Universal voucher plan - and I mean nothing like the **** launched in DC, Cleavland, and the couple other supposedly choice programs. Or, put more simply, what should someone expect by an act both initially sponsored by Ted Kennedy and supported by Bush?

As for the economy, I don't blame Bush at all - I still blame Alan Greenspan and Ben Bernanke. The economy is unpredictable in a lot of places, but in terms of what happens when the fed tries to mitigate fallout, it's been predicted since Greenspan started that doctrine that a moral hazard will occur - that means, people will stock up on a relatively inelastic part of the market and the price will shoot up and an unsustainable rate. Sound like housing at all?

 

[Sakuhta]

I personally wouldn't go that far because I think it is possible, with the right government action, to both avoid the recession and help the economy, but what you're saying is probably the more likely course because of how wonderful our government is.

You cannot avoid a recession when your currency is losing value in the global market, and you can't stop your currency from losing value in the global market without strengthening the domestic economy, and our domestic economy can not be strengthened without increasing domestic production and exports, and we can not compete with foreign prices because the dollar is currently too strong and too expensive. Solution? A recession, and a weak dollar. It is inevitable.

 

[Static]

Now when you say recession... What is the difference of that and depression?

And tipsy, I did some research and found out Greenspan did do some messing around in the federal reserve but it seems bernanke is at least making steps to remedy the situation.

Just like the next President is going to have a bit of a mess to clean Bernanke has quite the dilemma on his hands that will take years to come back from. Increasing and decreasing rates on hwhatnot here and there.

 

[Tipsy]

You cannot avoid a recession when your currency is losing value in the global market, and you can't stop your currency from losing value in the global market without strengthening the domestic economy, and our domestic economy can not be strengthened without increasing domestic production and exports,

Cut spending and taxes. The government's deficit spending is the reason why our currency is inflating (because of money just being printed out of thin air) and tax cuts (more specifically, marginal tax cuts) will stimulate the economy. This will both hold inflation down and stimulate the economy meaning the currency will stop losing its value and the domestic economy will be strengthened. (And spending cuts must be much greater than tax cuts.)

and we can not compete with foreign prices because the dollar is currently too strong and too expensive.

Or we could allow the market to take its course and continue converting our economy into one that is knowledge based and allow the low-skill labor jobs to be outsourced elsewhere while higher paying, higher skilled jobs become more dominant in the United States. Comparative advantage?

Solution? A recession, and a weak dollar. It is inevitable.

It's not inevitable; it's what will happen if the government doesn't fix what it has screwed up.

And tipsy, I did some research and found out Greenspan did do some messing around in the federal reserve but it seems bernanke is at least making steps to remedy the situation.

Just like the next President is going to have a bit of a mess to clean Bernanke has quite the dilemma on his hands that will take years to come back from. Increasing and decreasing rates on hwhatnot here and there.

The problem is, macroeconomic policy is too blunt of an instrument to be used to fix the economy and manipulating interest rates (like Greenspan did and Bernanke is doing now) and that is going to screw us in the long term. The problem with the subprime loans in the housing market only happened because of this macroeconomic manipulation.

Now when you say recession... What is the difference of that and depression?

A recession is, by definition, just when the GDP decreases over a period of at least 6 months. That's important because GDP is a measurement (not exact, but a good estimate) of all the final goods and services. A depression is just a very severe recession.