no wonder even in this day and age my cousin goes out with a concealed knife as he can get "hammered" by fellow humans any time for no reason other than to show their superiority. Pretty sad.
Its a symbiotic relationship. The American consumer has also been living off the the rest of the world with lower inflation, low interest rates, cheap goods, higher standard of material living etc. Now this link is becoming very tenuous. What next for the world?
My country (Belgium) used to own the Congo. It is estimated 10 million died under the Belgian regime, many more handicaped for life (arms chopped of if they didnt obey) or traumatised for life. We robbed the place blind to the equivalent of 200 billion USD today contributing significantly to the Belgian economy becoming one of the biggest in the world at that time regardless of it's small size. We left in the 60's and the sad part is by many locals the Belgian period is considered to be the good times compared to what happened after. People here today consider this to be merely a very small footnote in history as they come to grasp with the new reality of a changing world were they themselves drop lower in the global foodchain. Blaming everyone and everything for the downturn refusing to understand these things move in cycles and their rise to prosperity perhaps was build on the same questionable princibles they atribute their decline to today.
For the vast majority, the standard of living has been stagnant or declining my entire life. When I was a kid, there was very little homelessness, only the occasional bag lady. Not so today. Dollar devaluation needs to take place. All it is is recognition of reality. You can't have recovery without using all the tools in your arsenal, and that includes devaluing to help your exports. If the rest of the world doesn't like it, tough. Just means it's working.
My gut feeling is that there is a misconception that the Americans are materialistic people. Above all they a freedom loving people. You can give them gold, ipads, TV etc... up the gazoo but they will not accept to leave in tyranny like in China or the middle east. A true American does not need much more than freedom. They can care less how devalued the dollar gets. Ever wander why there is not much unrest in the USA? 99% of the world population has no idea what Americans are like and what drives them. Imagine you are in 1977 or so. The dollar is down the shutter, America just lost the Vietnam war, inflation is huge, the Nixon Watergate completely embarrassed the government etc... USSR looks as strong as ever. The Japanese are starting to take over and the US industry is starting too look quite uncompetitive etc..... So what happened? P.S. Also 99% of the rest of the world don't know what freedom is. It takes a good 4-7+ years to leave the USA to start feeling and understand the freedom. If you have never had sex I can't explain to you how it feels. So don't bother to ridicule the freedom if you don't know how it feels to be free. And very very very few of you outside the USA know what freedom means. The surprise will come to you when you realize that it is not about the money, not for the Americans at least. It is about the freedom to take risks and be what ever you want to be.
Today, November 9, 2010 is the 72nd anniversary of Kristallnacht "The Night of Broken Glass." http://frank.mtsu.edu/~baustin/knacht.html Never Again. God bless America.
Yes, but their instruction manuals leave something to be desired: ACHTUNG! Das Machine ist nicht fur Gefingerpoken und Mittengrabben. Ist easy schnappen der Springenwerk, blowenfusen und corkenpoppen mit spitzensparken. Ist nicht fur gewerken by das Dummkopfen. Das rubbernecken Sightseeren keepen hands in das pockets. Relaxen und watch das Blinkenlights.
That was a joke sign we put up in a computer room many years ago, back when computers actually had blinking lights, and I had hair. Funny stuff.
Old iron: http://www.thegalleryofoldiron.com/370_155.HTM They actually made those blinking lights look like the old relic is doing something, according to the text.