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| Home Front: Culture Wars |
| Will Americans Be Able To Handle The Next Great Depression? |
| 2010-01-20 |
| Excerpt: If you want to get an idea of where the U.S. is headed, go spend a few days in Detroit. Once one of the shining examples of the American Dream, today many areas of Detroit resemble a war zone. The real unemployment rate in Detroit is somewhere up around 45 or 50 percent and the crime rate is shooting through the roof. Vandalism is rampant and some houses in the worst areas are virtually unsellable because they aren't even worth the taxes that must be paid of them. When people get desperate, their true character comes out. When the U.S. financial system completely fails one day, the thin veneer of civilization that we all take for granted will evaporate in a matter of days. At that point we will all wish that we had paid a lot more attention to teaching our kids about "character" and "morality". |
| Posted by:Uncle Phester |
| #7 New link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U6D6PhN0_Qc |
| Posted by: Uncle Phester 2010-01-20 12:23 |
| #6 Looks like the site has been hacked |
| Posted by: tipper 2010-01-20 11:57 |
| #5 Society and economics was a whole lot different back then. To start with, what were the real problems of the GD? Even with the Dust Bowl, there was an overabundance of food at the same time people were starving. We still have an overabundance of food, but not a huge overage, and we can quickly get it to those who need it if we choose to. It's cheaper to give it away than to warehouse it until it rots. We have a lot more housing, and much of it is empty. If we choose to, we can easily put homeless families in these homes, starting with no equity, but when they do get jobs, they will gain equity until they own the home on a low interest lease. In exchange for their maintaining the home. Major deflation just kicked America's butt back then, because nobody had any money. This could savagely hit us again if there was a collapse in the viability of electronic money, which could happen several ways. There just isn't enough paper money and coins to go around. The way around this is for each State to issue plain paper scrip, with encrypted dot matrix bar code on the back of each bill, as individual identification, associated with the note holder. A simple scanner is required for a legal transfer of the note. This means there is enough currency, of *some* kind, to support the markets, until the dollar is stabilized. Scrip is carefully controlled, so it seriously inhibits black marketeering, hoarding, and prices, values and taxes are controlled and automatic as well. Stable as a glacier. This also concentrates dollars at the State level, so that the State can import critical goods (like pharmaceuticals), not manufactured in that State. Other things we have now is a lot more urbanization, better transportation, mass transportation, superb communications, and lots of technological innovation. In many ways, the way to transcend a depression is to do exactly the opposite of what was done in the GD. That is, less national government, and more State and local control. Cash only medicine, no insurance, no government medical, and little or no malpractice, except for criminal malpractice. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2010-01-20 09:20 |
| #4 I am 71. I was born in Detroit. As a young kid, I remember the tail-end of the Great Depression and World War II. This too will pass. In many ways Detroit is like Haiti. The following was obtained Googling "Why is Haiti so poor." Replace "Haiti" with "Detroit" and you have The role of The elite's protection of its wealth. Add a few more reasons. Failed Federal government policies of social engineering. Union stranglehold on the automotive industry. Poor leadership in Michigan and Detroit. A one industry economy in Detroit. Too many trial lawyers--lawyers valued more than engineers. Lawyers don't create anything. CEOs getting paid far more than they are worth. |
| Posted by: JohnQC 2010-01-20 09:05 |
| #3 we will all wish that we had paid a lot more attention to teaching our kids about "character" and "morality". And marksmanship. But not ALL of us will wish that - some of us DID it. |
| Posted by: Glenmore 2010-01-20 08:37 |
| #2 Check out the video...really sad that the pussified men are like a deer in headlights...20 yrs ago, before the NOW crowd de-balled the men, this guy would have been jumped within 5 seconds. Even after he hits the gal with the monitor the pussies just watched. |
| Posted by: HammerHead 2010-01-20 08:10 |
| #1 Also, that the sobs in washington had quit it with the H1B visas and unsecured borders... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2010-01-20 01:18 |