Empire - Extra: It's the 'stupid' economy

[HardWarUK]

The No.1 mistake far too many people in the west make, is believing this is just another recession!

[HardWarUK]

People don't know there is gold and platinum in most electronic items,and those and other commodities are beginning to run out.

[countypolk863]

America suks it a big as joke an it full of gay an hoes blacks an the kkk, my advise get as far alway if you can.

[kaunghtut]

it will turn around. US wasn't built in a day and it won't disappear in a day. But this is democracy. It is messy. Things won't get done simply by an order. In that case, China is better. U want to build a dam, just an order. it gets done no matter 1 million people displace or lost everything. Democracy has its disadvantages like Tyranny of majority. For americans, It is hard to accept the reality, after all, they had a good life without worries and struggle for so long. Its all about Time.

[gmfutube]

"American Brands"...LOL...doesn't it make you feel good to know that despite losing your job, home and health care that Coca Cola is doing well?

[kimintexas]

Ron Paul 2012 or nothing

[DoctrinaBytes]

@kimintexas Keep dreaming RP will never get elected.

[Walhei960]

Obama is such a liar and hypocrite. America has been declining since the Liberals have controlled the News Media. That decline is real to some degree but one hundred percent in the minds of Liberals. Liberals real talent is lying, scheming, spinning facts, deceiving, and rewriting history.

[SuperGodless666]

The cancers that are destroying the US economy and standard of living are costly, unjust wars and the stranglehold that religion has on the population. Churches suck billions out of the economy, pay no taxes, and victimize the already victimised.

[1140Cecile]

There might be a correlation between the fact that Christian faith is still very strong in the U.S. and Americans continuing belief that the U.S. is still No. 1. in most metrics. The majority of Americans insist on retaining their Christian faith even though there is a mountain of evidence that debunks their holy book, the Bible. People WANT to keep believing and so they do. They also WANT to believe that they're No. 1 in everything when statistics show they're No. 1 only in military power.

[SwamiRasputin]

I have a web page in yahoo groups that wiil help explain these trying times:

The Occupy Movement

[jacobsczgmail]

Usa is surviving just because pulled the dead horse in Europe causing the Eu crisis.This is very unfair.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

2 - been forgotten. Previously the economic and political elites understood, b/c of experiences with revolutions and attempted revolutions, the need to maintain pro-social policies. Now those who are opposed to them - the economic elites - have managed, by raping history, to convince large parts of the world population that such policies are superficial, that they don't prosperity and social instability, and are instead the work of ideologues moved by class envy. They'll soon learn otherwise.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos What are you talking about? Social Security has been in America for several decades. And you know what? It's a Ponzi Scheme. There are plenty of "pro-social" policies as you call them but they aren't actually pro-social. It's just taking from Peter to give to Paul and it's expecting a small young work-force to pay for a growing elderly population. You're completely distorting history. The "pro-social" policies were introduced by FDR and LBJ.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@g The welfare state was created in Europe in XIX century, and as said before it was intended to reduce the appeal of revolutionary ideologies over disquieted urban workers. It isn't the work of ideologized or populist politicians but of pragmatic elites who knew social-democratic policies were the least of two evils. If you think social-policies are unsustainable, don't think the alternative is. Since ancient times free competition has led to social instability and even revolutions.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos Like the Communist revolution in Cuba 50 years ago? Puhleeze, free competition has been the only way to improve a whole nation's living standards.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@gshooting Prove me how free competition has led to life standards improvements in Sweden and Norway. Prove me how Plato was wrong when he said, on his Republic, that unregulated economic competition leads to poverty, social instability and ultimately to socialist revolutions. I want proofs and arguments, not slogans. And Cuba - Cuba is a better place to live, as far as socioeconomic conditions are concerned, than most of her Caribbean neighbors with their US-inspired capitalism.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

1 - Policies can be changed when there's no longer a perceived utility for them. The modern welfare state was created in the mid XIX c. by European politicians who aimed to curb the appeal the far-left exerted over urban workers: they learned they needed to work on improving people's life standards to limit the growing influence of revolutionary ideologies. But b/c of the social stability that's reigned in the 1st World since WW2 the utility pro-social policies and legislation has...

[gshooting]

What has happened to the US income per capita Al Jazeera? Hey? Households aren't flesh and blood people, and the people that live in them can vary over time.

[pakidude2004]

bottom line fix American economy. It is us the people needs to fix this economy.

[ahmed337799]

USA! USA! USA!

WE'RE NUMBER ONE WE'RE NUMBER ONE WE'RE NUMBER ONE!

[usergently]

3:50 there's an imbecile for you!.

[ducklamb1]

its called the american dream because a person has to be asleep to believe it.

[normalais]

@ducklamb1 USA has problems, but it still is one of the best countries to live in. Only a handful of countries, like Norway, Switzerland, Netherlans, Finland, Sweden are better.

[TheEnneagram]

DEMOCRACY IS A TOOL OF THE ELITES TO GIVE YOU THE ILLUSION OF CHOICE AND SELF-DETERMINATION. WAGING WARS TO BRING DEMOCRACY TO OTHER COUNTRIES IS AN ATTEMPT TO SUBJUGATE THEM. THE USA IS A CRIMINAL REGIME.

[ReignbowSmite]

@TheEnneagram That's a lie. Democracy is a tool of the majority unless you become lazy and don't pay attention just like american's have. Do you have a solution or are you content just whining in capslock?

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@ReignbowSmite Democracies can be perverted when there are huge income gaps that give, to a small minority of the population, much more leverage than the working and middle-classes have at their disposal. Saying that democracies degenerate when people become lazy is just ludicrous.

[ReignbowSmite]

@RafaelFernandeSantos How do you think the wage gap grows so wide? While people are sitting there with their fingers up their assholes watching Jersey shore, regulations are removed to allow the wage gap to grow. When I say "Lazy" I'm not talking about unemployed, I'm talking about being politically lazy/unaware. Couple that with the purposeful degradation of the public sector over the last 3 or 4 decades by Christians and people with privatization interests lobbying.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@ReignbowSmite Income gaps increase b/c that's what happens to an economy that is poorly regulated, that cuts taxes for the richest citizens and that weakens the bargain power of trade unions. BTW, something similar is happening in China and India, and I don't think the average Chinese or Indian have much time for Jersey Shore or can be described as lazy. It's just that high income gaps are to be expected in capitalist economy with weak worker rights and undertaxed elites.

[ReignbowSmite]

@Rafael They stoopify people through the media, it doesn't have to be Jersey shore perse. Indians have the time for 2-3 hour bollywood movies.

Ignorant and lazy people allow the good regulations to be dissolved by politicians and lobbiests from under their noses. The people don't start to complain until they see the effects of not having that regulation. People are allowing these things happen because they neglect politics. There are different types of capitalism and china isn't a democracy.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@RS Everywhere in the world citizens lack knowledge about policy issues that will have an impact on his life standards. If this is repeated often enough, he'll believe that tax cuts for the rich will result in general prosperity. Like you said, mobilization only happens when policy effects start to show. But this isn't a US thing only. People everywhere in the world form their opinions based on experience rather previous knowledge. Laziness has nothing to do with that either.

[ReignbowSmite]

@ReignbowSmite 2)All it takes to control a population is one generation that has been made stupid through miseducation or manipulated through restriction of knowledge. People's opinions are based on experience AND access to knowledge, which only comes through an education. They deregulate the system until students are intellectually lazy enough not pay attention to politics and regulation. Once the education system is ruined, it's easy for that generation to be more stupefied and controlled.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite What are you talking about? You're saying that more regulations = more prosperity? What absolute nonsense.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting It depends on the regulations. Some regulations (like property rights) would equal prosperity wouldn't it? Not all regulations are bad, if you think they are, than you and I have nothing further to discuss.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite Oh great you use shallow thinking to suggest that I am against all regulation. I am not. I am against unneccessary regulation. More regulation does not necessarily mean good regulation and in a lot of cases, it has a negative impact on growth.

I would also disagree with what you said before. All it takes to control a population (or a majority of that population) is to promise them free goodies and not have to explain who is paying for those goodies.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting I never suggested it, I just said (IF YOU ARE, WE HAVE NOTHING FURTHER TO DISCUSS). If you're not against all regulations then obviously it's not applicable.

I don't know anyone with free fucking goodies, so that premise goes out the window.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite What the hell do you call the Welfare State then?

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Define what "welfare" is, because that's an empty word in the libertarian's use.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite Something for nothing.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting You mean like the *roads* that keet your vehicle in good shape, the *side walks* you walked to *school* or *the park* with? And the *street lights* that kept you safe and allowed you to spot danger? like an open man hole that covers your fancy *under street sewers*! These things were paid for by a collective of people and maintained with taxes. You used these things by virtue of being born into a social contract, now you, me, and Sam pay to maintain it for the next generation.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite No...I'm talking about people who do not work at all and have no intention of working because they know the State will take care of them. I don't know where you come off equating Welfare State = Government provided infrastructure/services paid by MY taxes.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Those people are EXTREMELY rare. Most people enjoy doing something they are good at, and WANT to be productive. Working class american's are depressed, because they're working their asses off only to lose their jobs in the end anyway, or to pay off debt. You go anywhere but down in the USA.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Everyone gets something for "nothing", but it's not nothing because taxes are giving back to what YOU used. You got your mothers milk for nothing.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting The majority of people on this planet don't get anything free at all and are illiterate, but will willingly march into wars because their lack of education makes them easily frightened and manipulated... nothing to do with free "goodies" like clean parasite free drinking water. Don't you know how fascism and despotism work? They don't become despots because people get "goodies".

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite Nonsense. The people who do not get anything free at all and are illiterate do not willingly march into wars. Are you going to blame children in Africa who become soldiers because they are FORCED into it. What the bloody hell do you think children and women are supposed to defend themselves with. Do you really think a North Korean citizen has a CHOICE in joining the army. You're completely ignorant of reality, AND you're changing the subject. America is NOT Africa/Third World.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Yes they do, all over. In Africa, in the middle east, even Hitler said "All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach." and "How fortunate for governments that the people they administer don't think." I did NOT blame people made to be stupid, I blame oligarchies wanting to control masses american's never used to be stupid until the education system was fucked with and not allowed to evolve.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite How do you know that they are just stupid and not scared? Oh and you can blame the Federal Dept of Education on your education system. Money is pumped into it hand over fist and it hasn't done anything but bad.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Educated people aren't easily frightened. They're more likely to use critical thinking, anyone who understands behaviour and psychology knows this.

Blame the department of education for financial cuts and cutting arts programs? Blame the Education department for the fundamentalist creatards who want religion and creationism taught in schools? No... there are others to blame for the dismantling of the department of education. I never suggested just throwing money at it was a solution.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Despotism - /watch?v=1Ayxot9vQ_k

Democracy is a sliding scale, not on or off. Metaphorically, stupid people wave flags, smart people burn them to keep government afraid of the majority of citizens who use it as a tool.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting You need to read Mein Kampf, and watch "Century of the self".

We're talking about democracies here, and you keep bringing up dictatorships, Red herring.

Democracy =/= Dictatorship.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite It's a red herring for you to be talking about people not getting anything free at all and being illiterate, tarring America with one brush and equating it to all third worlds, ignoring the fact that people have a choice, just thinking that all soldiers join the military to go to war rather than to serve their citizens and the claim that I wrong in saying your gross generalisation of America is more fitting for an African country.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Haha, ok... if you think so. The statistics don't lie. Gross generalizations of what? How Capitalism works? lol

u go now.

[gmfutube]

@gshooting Most of the fighting done by the South in the Civil War was done by ignorant people who didn't own a slave, or much of anything else. They didn't get an "freebies" or handouts, but they left their farms and families to be slaughtered.

To this day, it is their descendants who still make excuses for slavery. The most politically and historically ignorant people I know don't get any .gov handouts.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting Let's not forget net neutrality... a REGULATION that's supposed to keep the internet a fair playing ground, ESPECIALLY for small businesses!

Not all regulations are bad.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite I didn't say all were either.

[ReignbowSmite]

@gshooting I never said you did... it was pre-emptive warning because I didn't to waste my time. Can you read? If you're not against all regulations, then that statement does not apply to you.

[gshooting]

@ReignbowSmite Then why are you repeating that statement then?

[HamletSlaya101]

@ReignbowSmite agreed all the way bro

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos Nonsense. You're demagoguing the issue. Yeah, just bundle all Tea Partiers and capitalists into one group and say they're only interest is to defend the rich. Absolute hogwash. They don't want the US fed government's spending to get out of control. What's the point of a debt ceiling if you're just going to push it up? Might as well not have one.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@gshooting The Tea Party and the capitalists are so worried about US debt, that they insist on cuting taxes for the deep pocketed. Makes sense to you? So keep voting for politicians that clearly take into account only the interests of the minority. Per se, the debt-to-GDP ratio has no effect on the lives of Americans. What does produce an impact is your government's ability to repay its debts, and this is impaired by recession-inducing austerity and tax cuts.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos I did not hear of any Tea Partier that wanted to cut taxes for the rich and I will not except any distorted definition from you implying that keeping the taxes at the current rate is a tax cut because that would be nonsense. The government doesn't give ANYTHING. It can only TAKE.

You CANNOT spend your way out of a recession. All the countries that are in massive debt have HAD to cut. So you and your opinion is out of step with the rest of the world.

Debt DOES matter.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@g How do you think China managed to escape the 2008 recession? By stimulating public borrowing to spend in investment. I don't know who taught you austerity is the way to bounce back from recession, but this is wrong, this is voodoo economics with no basis on experience.

As for Tea Party support for tax cuts, this is something that I've read. For example: "Tea Party supporters rally for tax cuts, scaled-back government." (Sun Times)

I could bore you with more headlines.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos Providing headlines from newspapers is one of the worst ways to give evidence. China escaped the 2008 recession because they actually produce a lot. It has nothing to do with the government spending. Look at what all that spending has done. Several ghost towns and cities litter China with many houses and apartments built, but with NO ONE in them, and if you think that this huge housing bubble won't have an effect on China, you're deluding yourself. THAT is voodoo economics.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@g There needs to be demand to what one produces. At first demand to Chinese goods came from the 1st World. But b/c of the 2008 crisis, such demand dampened. The Chinese then turned inwards: they invested large sums of money, financed through local debt, to compensate for the drop in exports. Their stimulus package has been widely reported in the past; that you haven't learned about it shows how ignorant you are. "They produce a lot": this isn't even the beginning of an explanation.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos You're ignorant of what this stimulus has done to China. You couldn't even be bothered to talk about the ghost town and cities.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@g And yes, the fact that China has overinvested means the housing and investment bubble will burst. But if they hadn't spent, this would happen: growth would've dampened, unemployment would've ballooned, and the Chinese working class would've turned against the government in much of the same way Arabs have turned against theirs. And the Chinese's situation would be all the more desperate as their country lacks social safety nets. In other words: less growth, more instability.

[gshooting]

@RafaelFernandeSantos Because the Chinese lack social safety nets, they save A LOT, and the more savings you have, the more investment you can have. Look at the Western countries with safety nets. They have little savings, they buy most things on credit and now look at them.

[RafaelFernandeSantos]

@g Just as the welfare state can become unsustainable when growth and revenues are down, so one can run out of savings in protracted periods of economic weakening and unemployment. And btw, it's precisely China's high savings and investment rate that has produced the an investment bubble. If only China could rely more on comsumption.

[TheEnneagram]

@ReignbowSmite You simply don't know your history. Democracy was invented for idiots. Look it up. It's an Hellenic idea.

As for solutions, NOT ONE spiritual leader anywahere ever has conflated morality with majority. Instititutions that stand the test of time are anti-democratic meritocracies ... for example: monasteries, mafias and military. There are, of course, others.

Would you like some cheese with your whine. Cheers.

[ReignbowSmite]

@TheEnneagram See Athenian lot democracy. You simply don't understand human behavior. I never conflated morality with majority. Majority just means that you don't always get what you want, but sometimes you do.

You're the one whining about not getting it your way every time. Any more personal insults?

[bboucharde]

Page 2: I focus on Calif here, as it is usually a harbinger of the USA's future. In addition, the hostile regulatory environment that scares away manufacturing is the product of a legislature controlled by Liberal-Socialists and radical environmentalists. It is a laboratory for the rest of the nation to view: "How NOT to run a state." Finally, the refusal of the federal government to effectively control the human-wave illegal-alien problem places a huge burden on the state's social services.

[ReignbowSmite]

@bboucharde "the hostile regulatory environment that scares away manufacturing is the product of a legislature" First, LOL at "hostile regulations" I see you've gone through the cult of libertarianism word redefinition brainwash. Give me some examples of "hostile" regulations.

Not all environmentalists are socialists or liberal, it's mostly every day people who want to keep their air, soil, and water clean of dumped manufacturing chemicals and poisonous by-products.

[gmfutube]

@bboucharde California led the way with regulation on auto emissions. Do you miss being poisoned by leaded gasoline?

California was a shining example of possibility when they created a state university system that was low cost and excellent.

Then California became an example of what not to do. They refused to raise taxes and that was/is the cause of California's troubles.

[bboucharde]

@gmfutube Thanks for your thoughts. Unlike many people on YouTube, I will need to do some research before responding intelligently to you re: the impetus behind the mandate for unleaded gasoline. For the rest, I can answer. The Calif legislature, for 20 years, has been playing fiscal games to avoid cutting spending and raising taxes. They used every fiscal trick in the book to misrepresent the financial condition of the state gov and of the county govs. See page 2.

[bboucharde]

@gmfutube Page 2: Also, for the past 20 years, the compensation & benefits for state & local gov employees in Calif has become scandalously high, as Governor Brown (whom I have met & support) is well aware of. It will be very difficult if not impossible to reduce the outlay for EXISTING retirees & employees, but I can assure you that all NEW state employees are going to see much lower benefits, because the existing are unsustainable. Calif is in the worst trouble since it was founded in 1849.

[bboucharde]

Wakeup Call: This video understates the damage in places like California, where 20% of adults are unemployed, not the 10% national statistic cited in the story. In California, entire industries have died or moved to other states. For example, there used to be a steel industry in Southern Calif, but it's gone. Likewise, tire and car production in the Southland. Also, most of the garment, furniture, & machinery manufacturing= gone. Even worse, 50% of Calif high school graduates are illiterate.

[TheEnneagram]

@bboucharde VERY TRUE

[ReignbowSmite]

@ReignbowSmite Oops, your 20% was regarding literacy rates, which is just as appalling.

[gmfutube]

@bboucharde The education mess is the result of people refusing to fund the system by freezing taxes.

The steel industry died from off-shoring. Would you prefer to make steel here with the wages and environmental standards of China?

Off-shoring happens when a government refuses to protect its own workers. You either "compete" with places like China (low wages, no rights, pollution) or you make it expensive for them to bring the products back in.

[bboucharde]

@gmfutube The causes of the education mess in Calif are complex---I cannot write a book here. The fundamental problem started in the late 1960's with the rise of postmodernism and multiculturalism, which have done grave damage to Calif. The original centers of this ideological infection are the humanities departments at UC and CSU campuses. These are also hotbeds of "Green Marxism," which is fertilized & watered by lots of folks who could never survive in the real world, running a business.

[TheTeachaSehGaza]

everything yo people do is about the USA