Printable View
those are almost my plans exactly. what do we have to vote for anyway? they stand up there and tell us lies while brain-dead americans cheer them on. then when they get into office they don't do a damn thing but vote themselves a raise each year and give senseless speeches about how their decisions are best for everybody. i just wonder how much money has been kicked back to the current administration for all of these gigantic no-bid contracts.
The Euro is the currency that has reserve capability, the EU economy is actually larger than the US, and the ECB has the liquidity and clout to make the Euro the currency of choice. Watch for oil producing nations to switch sales to Euros, Iran and Russia already have plans for this, other nations will follow. Even Warren Buffet and Bill Gates gave negative comments for the future of the Greenback. Alan Greenspan himself hinted that the Euro would overshadow the Dollar in the near future. Anyone who keeps a significant amount of their wealth in US currency is going to be screwed over financially. The peak of US prosperity will always be the second half of the 20th Century, in those times the US really had no competition. Asia is changing the equation with almost limitless white and blue collar slave labor.
The biggest problem with the US is its dependence on debt, the US has used foreign nations to finance debt, many of these countries are no longer willing to finance our debt. The US has used shortcut after shortcut to making short term gains. Our last trump card, China, is now turning away from us, they happen to be the biggest financier of US debt.
As far as the election goes, I think people are still too upset with Bush for any Republican to be elected, its either Obama or Clinton, and I wouldn't be surprised if they run together in November.
Historians will look at the first decade of the new millenium as the end of Pax Americana, the next decade will see a more multipolar world order(the last time this existed there were two World Wars so its not going to be welcome change), eventually you will see an Asian dominated world by mid century.
[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]
As far as the election goes, I think people are still too upset with Bush for any Republican to be elected, its either Obama or Clinton, and I wouldn't be surprised if they run together in November.[/QUOTE]
As true as this may be it is like really depressing. My plans of moving out of the USA may go into overdrive if this happens.
[QUOTE=Beavis]As true as this may be it is like really depressing. My plans of moving out of the USA may go into overdrive if this happens.[/QUOTE]
Democrats in power means you are leaving the country... does that mean I can come back? )))
Democrats and Republicans are one and the same, the Dems maybe a bit more liberal with regards to certain special interests, but historically they have supported an ultra aggressive foreign policy. Vietnam started under JFK, and if you compared JFK to Bush today, JFK might have nuked the entire Mideast, he was liberal for someone in the 60's but not today.
Either way, America boils down to one thing, money. Making money has been the attraction of people worldwide to the USA, the worry now is that the American dollar is destined to collapse, and will bring down the USA's economy and its status in the near future. The Dollar has never went through such a severe devaluation over the past few years in decades past, the last time a dollar devaluation occured in the early 90's it only lost about 15 to 20 percent of its value, its lost nearly 60 percent of its value against the Euro in this recent rout, and is sinking against the Yen, Aussie and Canadian Dollar, and the Swiss Franc, even the Real. The Chinese have propped up the Dollar for several years in order to devalue the Yuan, to keep Chinese exports cheap, now the Chinese are going to move away from the Dollar in the near future, unpegging the yuan from the greenback, when that happens the yuan will go into the ionosphere while the US Dollar plummets into green toilet paper.
You honestly think people come to the US for freedom?? We have the highest incarceration rate on the planet. Even the average Chinese citizen has one fourth the chance of an average American of going to jail, an American is four times more likely to be locked up than a Chinese person!!! If you are a minority, you can forget about civil rights, most police in every major city engage in aggressive racial profiling, this was especially evident in New York, my hometown, where you would see massive numbers of police in black neighborhoods but in other areas they would be few in number. Our treatment of immigrants is nothing short of horrible, Canada and Australia are far more immigrant friendly than the US. Money and the ability to get rich or well to do is what glues America together more than anything else, and sadly this ability is going to be greatly reduced in the coming years once the Dollar finally collapses.
[QUOTE=Doctor_Skank]Democrats in power means you are leaving the country... does that mean I can come back? )))[/QUOTE]
Why does it matter which party gets elected? They are both a band of crooks and nothing else. Obama and Hillary together, one can just shudder at the thought. Neither wil do anything to help the working man. The Dems will raise taxes to give to the people who have made welfare a way of life while the republicans will give tax breaks to huge corporations to export your job. If you are in the group of people who make between 30K to 200K you have no direction to turn, your screwed either way.
The UK just passed the US in standard of living, the average income for a citizen of the UK is now higher than for the average American. Germany and France are also coming in real close. These countries within five years will have a much higher standard of living than the US, and you can blame the devaluing dollar for this, the government saying it boosts exports is nonsense, the trade deficit has gotten bigger not smaller. The US is now 6th or 7th place in terms of nominal GDP, in 1999, it was number 2 with only Barbados being higher. A major currency analyst sees the US per capita rank dipping to 30th place in 5 to 10 years, but within 5 years it will definitely not be listed among the top ten countries in the world in terms of standard of living.
If America is screwed there is always Canada.
I have to agree with Beavis, the Democrats and Republicans are equally bad. And if you think if Al Gore was in office instead of George W, there would be no Iraq War, think again, his Zionist VP Lieberman would have guaranteed an invasion, maybe even one against Iran too, but on that note Iran is not going to be attacked, the next President will not do anything about Iran either. That country is going nuclear because of Russia, and will play a role in the USA's decline in the world, the EU and China will as well.
[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]. The Dollar has never went through such a severe devaluation over the past few years in decades past, the last time a dollar devaluation occured in the early 90's it only lost about 15 to 20 percent of its value, its lost nearly 60 percent of its value against the Euro in this recent rout, and is sinking against the Yen, Aussie and Canadian Dollar, and the Swiss Franc, even the Real. .[/QUOTE]
The dollar was worth about 3.75 German marks in 1970 and by 1980 it was worth about 1.75. From there it went back up to 3.40 by 1985 and down to about 1.60 in 1988.
The dollar gets around.
The Deutsche Mark never had the liquidity of the Euro, there are more Euros in circulation now than US dollars. The Euro is also becoming a reserve currency alternative, the Mark never had this status. The other thing is that this time around the Dollar is declining against multiple currencies. Another pattern to watch for is the percent of reserves in one currency or another, the Euro has been increasing steadily since it has been introduced.
China is also a big factor in where the Dollar will go these days, China was a non factor in those time periods that you had mentioned unlike now when their economy could actually become bigger than the US's in the near future. I don't recall a point in history where a foreign government had so much control over the Greenback, Mr. Paulson of the Treasury ran off to China for some kind of meeting with the Chinese last year, not a good sign.
The US share of global wealth was much bigger in those periods as well compared to today. Again Asia is going to be a factor in this. Foreign debt today is massive and much larger in real terms than in those time periods as well.
You were making one argument and now you are making different one. You said it had "never" behaved this way and I was just observing that it has, more than once. The dollar behaved the same way against all other major currencies during those time frames. Yen. Pound. The arguments you are making were made in the 1980's, except the crux was Japan, not China.
[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]The Deutsche Mark never had the liquidity of the Euro, there are more Euros in circulation now than US dollars. The Euro is also becoming a reserve currency alternative, the Mark never had this status. The other thing is that this time around the Dollar is declining against multiple currencies. Another pattern to watch for is the percent of reserves in one currency or another, the Euro has been increasing steadily since it has been introduced.
China is also a big factor in where the Dollar will go these days, China was a non factor in those time periods that you had mentioned unlike now when their economy could actually become bigger than the US's in the near future. I don't recall a point in history where a foreign government had so much control over the Greenback, Mr. Paulson of the Treasury ran off to China for some kind of meeting with the Chinese last year, not a good sign.
The US share of global wealth was much bigger in those periods as well compared to today. Again Asia is going to be a factor in this. Foreign debt today is massive and much larger in real terms than in those time periods as well.[/QUOTE]
[QUOTE=CBGBConnisur]And if you think if Al Gore was in office instead of George W, there would be no Iraq War, think again...[/QUOTE]
Good point. If you had been asked in 2000 which of the two - Gore or Bush - would be more likely to involve the US in a war in Iraq a lot of people probably would have said Gore, since Bush took positions which tended to be anti-internationalist and, of course, the Clinton/Gore administration had bombed Iraq at least a couple of times.
the deutsche mark only accounted for about 1-2 percent of currency reserves even at its peak. the euro counts for 25 percent of world currency reserves(the us dollar is 65 percent and it used to be 85 percent in the late 90's) and that number is increasing steadily. japan never had the ability to surpass the us, that was 80's paranoia, japan is a country the size of california with less than half the population. china is a country larger than the us, with five times the population and the fastest growing economy on the planet, its currency is grossly undervalued(so a cheap currency can be a major advantage for an exporter at least), if the yuan was not artificially devalued, the chinese economy would be nearly 9 trillion us, its right now slightly larger than germany's in nominal terms. the european union is another major world contender, with 430 million people and a total economy that is worth 15 trillion us, its actually larger than the us economy, still only 12 countries use the euro, but more of the new states will adopt the currency in the near future. oil producing countries are also looking to sell oil for euros instead of dollars, that would have serious ramifications for the usa's ability to finance easy debt through petrodollars(some people think this was the real reason behind iraq as saddam sold oil for euros in one transaction). the yen and the mark were never credible competitors to the dollar but the euro is a real competitor, these days there is massive foreign buying of us companies, goods, real estate, might sound good but in reality it is a way of losing autonomy to foreign entities.
the federal reserve is also playing with fire, rapidly increasing the money supply and reducing interest rates to stimulate the economy, while this may speed up the economy in the short run, it will continue to put downward pressure on the dollar.
regardless, in the future the us will lose its independence to the global economy, that does not look good to me. the thing that made america great was that we were able to keep the world at a comfortable distance, depending upon ourselves. but as i said the us will still be a prosperous country but not the the sole economic power in the world, that status did earn us some advantages.
you started out making a historical claim "it's never happened before" and now you are saying what has happened before is not significant.
based on your reasoning, you could argue the us should dump it's position as the global currency of choice, since american growth has been lackluster since assuming that role. instead, we should take a lesson from the chinese playbook and work to keep the buck artificially low.
[quote=cbgbconnisur]the deutsche mark only accounted for about 1-2 percent of currency reserves even at its peak. the euro counts for 25 percent of world currency reserves(the us dollar is 65 percent and it used to be 85 percent in the late 90's) and that number is increasing steadily. japan never had the ability to surpass the us, that was 80's paranoia, japan is a country the size of california with less than half the population. china is a country larger than the us, with five times the population and the fastest growing economy on the planet, its currency is grossly undervalued(so a cheap currency can be a major advantage for an exporter at least), if the yuan was not artificially devalued, the chinese economy would be nearly 9 trillion us, its right now slightly larger than germany's in nominal terms. the european union is another major world contender, with 430 million people and a total economy that is worth 15 trillion us, its actually larger than the us economy, still only 12 countries use the euro, but more of the new states will adopt the currency in the near future. oil producing countries are also looking to sell oil for euros instead of dollars, that would have serious ramifications for the usa's ability to finance easy debt through petrodollars(some people think this was the real reason behind iraq as saddam sold oil for euros in one transaction). the yen and the mark were never credible competitors to the dollar but the euro is a real competitor, these days there is massive foreign buying of us companies, goods, real estate, might sound good but in reality it is a way of losing autonomy to foreign entities.
the federal reserve is also playing with fire, rapidly increasing the money supply and reducing interest rates to stimulate the economy, while this may speed up the economy in the short run, it will continue to put downward pressure on the dollar.
regardless, in the future the us will lose its independence to the global economy, that does not look good to me. the thing that made america great was that we were able to keep the world at a comfortable distance, depending upon ourselves. but as i said the us will still be a prosperous country but not the the sole economic power in the world, that status did earn us some advantages.[/quote]
The Chinese playbook would not work well for America, we are a society that loves to consume, the Chinese like to produce, and I think with the Euro, this is the first genuine threat to American prosperity in history, I was wrong for assuming this recent devaluation of the Dollar did not happen before, thanks for the correction, but we have not seen another currency take up such a significant percent of world currency reserves since the British Pound in the 1960's, the Euro accounts for at least 25 percent of world currency reserves in a matter of only six years. For much of the time period that you mentioned the dollar fluctuations, the US Dollar was the dominant reserve currency and did not have a single major competitor, most of the other international currencies such as the Mark, Yen, and Pound accounted for no more than 1 to 2 percent of world reserves each. The fact that the Euro now accounts for one fourth of world central bank reserves is very significant, and that percent will continue to grow as more of the newer EU states begin to adopt the Euro. Oil producing nations like Russia and Venezuela sell their oil for Euros, I am predicting that OPECs stance regarding selling oil for Euros is a question of when and not if, when this happens the advantages of the petrodollar will be history.
The other interesting note is that during the 1970 to the early 1990's the US per capita GDP was 25 to 50 percent higher than the UK, Germany, France, and Japan. Today the UK just passed us, France and Germany are both coming close to passing us in per capita output as the Euro continues to appreciate in value.
The Euro is definitely having a significant effect on shifting the balance of the world economy, if people like Greenspan and Buffet are talking about it, I would definitely believe it.
One other note is that I keep hearing reporters on CNBC and CNN mention the ECB now in addition to the Federal Reserve in their economic commentary, that is also significant because they attribute serious significance to the ECB.
[QUOTE=Jelly Donut]Good point. If you had been asked in 2000 which of the two - Gore or Bush - would be more likely to involve the US in a war in Iraq a lot of people probably would have said Gore, since Bush took positions which tended to be anti-internationalist and, of course, the Clinton/Gore administration had bombed Iraq at least a couple of times.[/QUOTE]
Actually with no "Chicken Hawks" in the Executive Branch, you actually might have had an effort to rebuild Iraq after we bombed the shiet out of it. But honestly Gore had no designs of being a "War Time President" and we might not have gone into Iraq, but be knee deep in the bull over in Afghanistan which has gotten progressively worst as well.
In all honestly there's no way too tell and our [i]Military Industrial Complex[/i] while evil in a sense is no where NEAR as evil as Multinational companies like Chevon, Exxon-Mobil, Shell and BP; that pay African nations to bump off their own people while they pollute the skyies and swindle people out of land, resources and money.
Exxon-Mobil pays the media MILLIONS to debunk any talk of global warming.
You have to give these morons some credit though, they have fought this war(s) with an all volunteer military force, while playing, "Hey look what's in my left hand and not what's in my right hand".
Said somebody said on a show I was watching on Link TV;
The internet is not the answer to get the message out of the crimes of this administration. Those that are intelligent enough to use Google effectively can find the truth, its everywhere. Its those too lazy to get up from the couch while watching American Idol and turn to Fox News to get their dose of "Fair and Balanced" news.
Those that listen to Micheal Savage, Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reily are seriously out to lunch.
Its "THOSE" people you need to get informed
Luckily they only make up about 30% of Americans and as long as we have high voter turnout (like we have had thus far) we can cancel those numb-nuts out.