Pure capitalism is, of course, bound to fail. The U.S., thank god, does not embrace pure capitalism. Unfortunately it embraces something no better. So the U.S. will eventually fail, but that is a long, long way off. In the meantime, the U.S. will continue to borrow money to pay for very expensive and sophisticated things that are sent abroad at great expense and then purposely destroyed. They even train people, at taxpayer expense, to go with these objects, and set them on fire, figuratively speaking. Some of these expensive objects are manufactured to be dropped from great altitudes and exploded near the Earths surface, killing nearby creatures and destroying property. The destroyed property is them sometimes replaced at U.S. taxpayer expense. From a global perspective, this is not an especially popular activity, nor is it looked upon as being wise or sensible. If the U.S. was at all interested in winning friends and influencing people in favorable ways, they could probably find something better to do with their time and money. To keep building things and then destroying them is not helpful to either the economy or the living standards of U.S. citizens. Neverheless the U.S. persists in this destructive behavior because in the United States people are constantlty told that making things and destroying them, and in the process killing people you don't know, is honorable, and that god is on your side when you behave this way, just as people in other countries are told that exploding a backpack in a crowded market place is honorable and will assure ones place in heaven. Until the U.S recognizes that doing these things is neither sensible nor honorable, it will continue down its present road toward both moral and financial bankruptcy, just as other countries before have followed the same destructive path leading to a bad ending, a very bad ending indeed.
From a military perspective, the US is very much like ancient Rome before it fell. It's supply lines are over extended.
Sounds good, but your assuming we have control and have been in a position to do something about it. I have been voting 3rd party, but that hasn't done much. Big money has been running this country for awhile, and the supreme court just gave their stamp of approval so they can have even more power. I don't think the founding fathers wanted businesses to have more power than the average voter.
Where was the state of Arizona and its precious illegal immigration laws when Bush was in office? Oh, right, that was 'different'. We had a GOP President then, but now we're going to try to blame a Democrat President for the immigration mess. The radical right-wing won't believe that a hard right-wing President like Bush could wreak such havoc on our country. They'd rather resort to distracting tactics than to take responsibility for the mess that was caused. You should read conservative Republican John Dean's book "Conservatives without Conscience" for a real eye-opening look at today's GOP.
Arizona has been trying for years to get the Feds to help out with the immigration issue. For example in 2005 the state requested that the Federal government reimburse the money for the cost of keeping illegals in prison. This is an on-going problem that both parties have ignored, so quit pulling the party line of "You didn't complain under Bush so shut up" and let's start trying to work out a solution!
The number one thing Republicans did was ease trade restrictions. The number two is start the war in Iraq. Do what Reagan did and just bomb the he-ll out of them. We can recover if we just pull out of wars. War on terrrorism, what a joke. Just like Vietnam was a war to stop communism and our drug war that prevents drugs LOL LOL. If Israel is attacked then we can help defend them. At least they don't hate our guts if we help them. Cut Spending and elimInate waste. i heard Obama is spending big bucks to study ants, etc. Spend money on stem cell research to cure people to eliminate disease and cut costs. A professor at Cleveland State discovered a chemical that cures cancer. Thats the last you'll hear about it for 10 years while people die! We supress technology for greed and misery on America. No wonder states want to separate from this country. Cut the spending and funding of pork and crony jobs. Give people back a quality of life and a modest living.
But the unsaid truth is there is a war economy. The us will always keep the dollars flowing to war machines and boots on the ground. Peace simply doesn't pay. What do you think the end solution was the great depression WWII and what do you think will pull us out of this recession? Every recession we had since WWII ended up in some conflict or war, 50s Korea, 60s,70s,80s cold war. When that ended iraq part 1 on the heels of that recession, 2001 recession 9/11....
MYTH: "Yes, Stockman is equally damning of the Democrats' Keynesian policies." TRUTH: The policies of the Republicans are MORE KEYNESIAN then the Democrats policies.
I'd like you to rethink the statement, "...peace simply does not pay." It seems all the hard evidence suggests that it does pay, and pay very well. (I don't think you'll find much poverty in Switzerland, except among the Turkish street sweepers the Swiss import to do their dirty work.) On the other hand there is a plethora of evidence showing that a war economy can not be sustained except by great sacrifice, and will not produce a sustainable and healthy economy in the long run. For example, past borrowing from the U.S. social security system to pay for wars now threatens the soundness of the system, because there is no money, other than that which is newly created out of nothing, to repay the system. (The problem with medicare is of an entirely different nature not related to that of social security and wars. Thus I find it bothersome that these two problems are often incorrectly conflated.) It is true that U.S. recessions have often ended in involvement in yet another war, and this is a likely genesis of the false idea that wars breed economic prosperity. Of course, that idea is utter nonsense. But it is not nonsensical to recognize that the profits of the military industrial complex require a high level of fear. The most effective weapon in their lobbyists' arsenal is fear, and they are at the same time chief exponents of the absurd idea that wars breed economic prosperity!