I have said it before. the germans don't have these trade problems. it is time for the US to look at itself.
I have said it before. the germans don't have these trade problems. it is time for the US to look at itself.
Exactly right. Now, in response to this FACT, why are we hell-bent (not "we" per se, but the a-holes who run the money pump) doing everything in their power to inflate prices, inflate the cost of living while crushing the standard of living. The deflationary onset that began in earnest a few years ago, if left unfettered would have destroyed the bank's collateral (that's a given). On the flip side, the cost of living would have dropped precipitously AND would have come more in alignment with incomes, reduced the NEED for borrowing to finance tuitions, home purchases, etc, etc... Finally, once the cost of living reverted to the mean, competitiveness in so far as labor becomes a reality since people are not forced to demand higher wages to pay for these out of whack living expenses. Jobs become available and also take a burden off of state governments and continued unemployment benefits. Instead, we've mortgaged everything in this country to salvage "bubble pricing" while the real economy is screaming deflation. Hence, we are mired in this bifurcated economy that is doing nothing to solve the underlying problems.
A quote on another site summed it up succinctly. That next door neighbor who has been out of work for several years, stopped paying his mortgage, collects food stamps and has been living off of unemployment insurance AND no one is the wiser. i.e. the outward signs of personal struggle have been largely masked by all the stop gap hand outs that have turned this into a "silent" depressionary event. The real raw numbers are horrific, yet the vocal majority who always ask for proof or offer anecdotes of their neighbors buying new gadgets, second cars, etc...once you stop paying the mortgage, stop paying for food and can collect unemployment to boot, you're living better than any working stiff out there.
So, you're going to take the rant of some other site without actually doing any fact checking on your own first? Food stamp eligibility has some fairly strict requirements. If someone has enough assets to maintain the outward appearance of normalcy simply by not paying their mortgage I highly doubt they qualify to receive food stamps. Second, you talk about this "silent" depression. But, instead of some bullshit anecdote, how about starting with how twisted the computations behind the numbers are; like the underemployment/unemployment rate that's computed today compared to how it was done when it first came out. Same goes for CPI and so on. Bottom line, no one, even you, know what the fuck is really going on because no one's telling the god damned truth.