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Starving Uncle Sam: Is the U.S. Teetering on the Edge of Bankruptcy?
America the destitute? It’s easy to picture the United States as a Hummer packed full of shopping bags, with supersized sodas in the cupholders and a plasma screen TV poking through the sunroof – a nation whose sins are those of excess. It feels stranger to depict the country as a pauper with its empty pockets pulled inside out.
Yet the idea that Uncle Sam has run out of cash now appears everywhere in public debate. The slogan, ‘We’re broke’ is used to justify an historic shredding of our social safety net. 
"Nor is hunger only a metaphor: just when demand for state-supported food stamps reaches a record high, conservatives attack the budget for them." (photo: Technosailor)
So, is it true? Is America teetering on the edge of bankruptcy?
The short answer is no. Yes, the cost of America’s private healthcare system is spiralling out of control. The nation will have to address this in coming decades to remain solvent.
Yes, for the sake of the planet, we have to constrain our culture of wanton consumption. And, yes, in the long run, the US must curtail its domestic debts and armed overseas adventurism or it will risk having the dollar displaced as the world’s reserve currency.
But, for the time being, there are few things that offer safer refuge for international investors in moments of distress than the American Greenback.
The biggest problem right now for the economy is not debt. It is that millions of people who want work cannot find jobs. This results both in mass despair and in a huge loss of economic output.
America’s de facto jobs programme, the US military, is a highly inefficient one, with a devilish downside: the steady hiring of soldiers and endless production of arms eventually leads lawmakers to think that these should not be sitting idle.
That we’re supposedly too poor to fund anything except the military is by design. Since the time of Ronald Reagan, the Right has followed a strategy of ‘starving the beast’. Unlike in other countries, advocates of austerity cannot turn to the International Monetary Fund to mandate destruction of widely popular social programmes. Instead, by continually passing tax cuts, they have aimed to deprive the public sector of the funds to carry out initiatives they regard as noxiously redistributive.
No need to campaign against public programmes individually: they defeat them en masse by making it impossible for the state to foot the bill. (Extra bonus: perennial tax cuts disproportionately benefited their wealthy campaign donors.)
One of the radical Right’s Washington Machiavellis, Grover Norquist, famously argued that he sought not merely to emaciate the state but ‘to get it down to the size where we can drown it in the bathtub’.
In the abstract, the strategy might sound only slightly distasteful – and perhaps even a little clever. The reality is more ugly. Deliberate starvation is a cruel and violent act, and murder by bathwater a psychopathic one.
Starving the public means that after-school programmes for children who need them the most are being eliminated; and cities plagued with crime and joblessness add to both by sending police officers into unemployment. Nor is hunger only a metaphor: just when demand for state-supported food stamps reaches a record high, conservatives attack the budget for them.
If the rightwingers continue to have their way, the elderly will be given miserly healthcare vouchers and told that they must barter for medical services on the open market. And the task of finding a US public library with decent hours of operation will grow akin to spotting the elusive California condor.
Today we are seeing that government is not an abstraction. Rather, its services are a basic expression of the common good. They are things that affect the daily lives of most Americans.
As they are eliminated, we are being forced into an unpleasant realization: we are the ones being strangled in the tub. The beast being starved is us.
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39 Comments so far
Show AllRight to the point:
"The reality is more ugly. Deliberate starvation is a cruel and violent act, and murder by bathwater a psychopathic one...we are the ones being strangled in the tub. The beast being starved is us."
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At this point, self-defense becomes the overwhelming imperative.
Manysummits
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? Bankruptcy ? NO, it IS the collapse of the amerikan imperialist empire ! The nasty details will be determined by the attitudes of the people...looks real bad !
There is a choice; join the rebellion, or continue on with the war mongers, waging war on the Planet !
Somebody ought to drown that fat fuck Norquist in a extra large bathtub. It amazes me that the corporate media gives this asshole credibility.
Perhaps Oblahblah and his ilk should stop lending Norquist credibility.
Norquist is the one in power. Never elected (not that means anything anymore), but telling everybody in power what to do and they do it. "Hope is the desire for a contingency in which we have no agency"--Derek Jensen
I've had my fill of hope thank you. Pass some of that prosperity down to this end of the table. You fat fucks have been hiding that bowl behind the grits and hog jowls long enough.
The concept of the US Government being "broke" is ludicrous. The government has the power, the constitutional permission, the historical precedent, and the moral duty to create as much debt-free money as necessary to ensure that no one need go hungry, avoid the doctor, or live with crushing student loan debt. Why hardly anyone on the right or left realizes this is testament to the outrageously successful 98 year long bankster PR campaign accompanying the looting of the nation by the oligarchical owners of the Federal Reserve System. It's way past time to call them out, jail them, and kick them out of our lives, once and for all.
The corporatization of our government is SICK. the "privatization" and the "redistribution" of public funds..... the fact that the BIGGEST welfare drain on our country is CORPORATE welfare! http://www.corporations.org/welfare/
BUT - if our "elected" officials are now "ceo's and managers" of AMERICA as a "business" investment....... It would be STUPID to make it SMALLER!!! For a "corporation" to succeed it must EXPAND and INVEST and even us simpletons know that! You don't "hire" others to do the job that the "family" or "employees" can do.
You don't redistribute your capital and assets to a "partner" that gets MORE income from the deal than YOU do! To throw america to the mercy of corporations is not "good business".It take away our right to pursuit of happiness as most of us are NO LONGER even CONSIDERABLE for a job! 1. we are not currently employed. 2. our credit is shot and they wont hire you if you've endured horrid financial times recently. 3. If the owner or ceo of the private corporation doesn't approve of your lifestyle or your wives or kids.... ur fired! 4. your too old and there is no discrimination laws anymore because the supreme court just took away rights to age discrimination and civil litigation. 5. The guy that hires you doesn't like the look of your friend on facebook - it reminds him of his ex-wife.
Ridiculous to privatize - the corporative mindset is profit over people and i can't see
throwing our seniors and disabled to these sorts. Investing in the future means in our country and our government.... It means a fighting chance for those who are not of the "upper echelons".
Quote-
Few would argue that corporations today are not only ubiquitous but have enormous power over our lives. Was it always this way? How did it get this way? And what are the implications of this situation for democracy? Indeed, so much power and wealth has been amassed by corporations that they can be said to govern, presenting a mortal threat to our body politic. To use a medical analogy, when a suregeon cuts out a cancer, it's not to punish the cancer, it's to save the body. If we wish to prevent the total demise of democracy - rule by the people- then we must return corporations to their subservient role....... *WOMENS INTERNATIONAL LEAQUE for PEACE and FREEDOM..
"the oligarchical owners of the Federal Reserve System"
Just who do you think owns the Fed? And what does ownership mean in this case?
One hundred percent of its shareholders are private banks. None of its stock is owned by the government. Ownership in this case means that the immense profits generated by this scam go to the owners of those private banks. Not one cent goes to the Treasury.
It should be amazing, but I would bet that there are still way too many people who don't know that the Feral Reserve is NOT a part of the Federal government, and who don't understand what that means!
Voltaire said that the Holy Roman Empire was "..neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire." Today, you could imagine him saying that the Federal Reserve "..is neither federal nor a reserve." It is a system, however. A system for impoverishing everything and everyone it touches, except the people who own it. It needs to go the way of the Holy Roman Empire, and soon.
Exactly. Most Amereichans have no clue about their government at all, which is sad, pathetic, and says a lot about the state we are in. The Federal Reserve is a privately-owned corporation - not that you'd hear that in the MSM or civics classes - and it is all the proof you need that the Amereichan government and its economy is a Plutocracy, not a democracy. Private corporations have no place in a representative democracy's government, certainly not owning and operating our entire monetary system for profit. Yet, that is the fact here in the U.S. Very revealing.
The unemployment problem is more than just a statistic, even more important is the loss of self-confidence, fulfillment, dignity, and a sense of feeling cutoff from the rest of society. Our government has let us down. We are no longer a nation (assuming we ever were).
"The unemployment problem is more than just a statistic, even more important is the loss of self-confidence, fulfillment, dignity, and a sense of feeling cutoff from the rest of society."--Lingum
thank you for framing this discussion in human terms! when my newspeak teleprompt reader tosses an obligatory bone, reminding the viewership, "there are also human costs to consider, such as the case of mr. smith who has been looking for work to support the family ever since his long-time employer had to downsize." during the interview the smiths express shame. lady smith's parttime job doesn't cover their basic survival costs of living and they've been forced to apply for food stamps.
"i never thought that we'd have to take charity," ms. smith explains, "but we've fallen so dangerously behind that if one of us doesn't find something soon we may lose our home." i remember when my most charitable christian mother-in-law had fallen and broken an ankle. church ladies rushed in to help prepare food, bringing casseroles and such. dad's culinary skills meant he could combine cereal with a splash of milk in a bowl, but nothing more. she bemoaned the fact that somehow all the help made her feel like a "charity case" and she didn't like that one bit. i kept my mouth shut, but mused in my little bird brain, "what about the advice, 'do unto others as you would wish them to do unto you'. therefore, if it be shameful to feel like a lowly charity case, why does putting another in that position bring such a rewarding sense of self-worth, accomplishment and pride?" well, i guess, that when we fail to respect the recipient as ourself and his potential, we withhold the greatest charity of all. the person in need who accepts the alms with smiles, "you've saved the day. thank you, thank you so much!" might have accomplished a greater act of charity, lifting the givers sense of self worth simply by appreciating YOU. maybe that is what one liberal philosopher cited above meant in saying, "let not your left hand know what your right hand does!" Love for our fellow man and for ourselves inspires an assist which helps a fine human over a bump in the road without thought to how the charitable act appears on my heaven-bound permanent record. also, someday i may have an opportunity to lift another's self-esteem as he helps me over one of life's little bumps. tit for tat and all that.
i think wall street holds our political system in its greedy palm in that the ethical ones who frame the argument in human terms rather that purely economic voodoo terms and business statistics cannot buy media exposure, no how, no way. we need to lift our eyes and see that the international business-for-immediate-profit is the spoiler we all need wiggle out from under. we need to find a way beyond the voting booth to make the people voice more compelling than campaing dollar gifts from self-severing corporate godfathers.
The common good? Sir, don't you know that term has been abolished in this new age? Titans have no truck with commonness.
no, the country is not broke, but the thieves are in power. and if they can manage, they will starve those groups who made some gains toward social equality in the past 50 years, women, minorities, people who work .....
thats a pretty large contingency to steal from. and citizens are finally, with the 3 unpopular wars and the attempts to steal our retirement savings and decimate the medical safety net we paid for as workers, realizing that we have no power over this through what we used to believe was " representative" and "responsible" government.
when your government is run for and by thieves who will not represent the people or the nation's common good......what option is left to the people BUT the "london" option. its 1968 all over again..... except now those in power are oppressing and ignoring an even larger segment of the population than just the blacks.
the greedy never seem to learn from history : little pigs may be fed, but big pigs get eaten
. . . And Obama just stands by and watches!!! Enjoy your term, Mr. President, -- it'll be your last!
Really, it does not bother anyone at the top of the power pyramid whether this Obama's last term. The person that replaces him will be equally in their pocket.
It might give some of the electorate solace, but will make no difference in the great scheme of things.
Yeah. Maybe we can "elect" Perry and he'll pray US out of the dismal future the Congresses and Presidents of the last several decades have created, in concert with the
corpora-fascist Powers-that-Be.
I really don't think it's an accident that the quality of Republican candidates is so dismal. I believe they are only putting up a show because they have the best Republican president they could ask for - he gives them and the oligarchs all that they want and more while keeping the pesky liberals/progressives/Democrats, etc. largely silent and/or ineffective. Obama will practically have to eat children raw before he will be out of that equation - "lesser of two evils".
Sad but so very true. Redux of the '96 scam.
The government is we the people.
Those that argue for less government want less people controlling what the society does. These bogus arguments to freedom, individuality are really meant to be to lawfulness. And those that make the laws can break the laws.
More government is the only way to protect people.
I wish the government really was "We the people." If it were, we'd have had universal health care since at least 20 years ago, when polls indicated that some 78% of the people wanted it. This general coup d'etat has been sort of a sea change, taking place gradually, from the assassination of JFK and RFK in the 1960's, to the "Supreme" Court stopping the Florida vote count in 2000. I feel like a frog in a slowly heating pot and now that it's almost boiling, it's too late to jump out. I wish everybody good luck. You'll all need it. As for me, I am getting old and full of years anyway. I'm glad I lived through the Golden Years.
"""The biggest problem right now for the economy is not debt. It is that millions of people who want work cannot find jobs. This results both in mass despair and in a huge loss of economic output."""
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Exactly what would be expected when the anti-trust laws are ignored as they were beginning in rearend ronnie reagan's turn at the helm. That was the beginning of the vertically integrated and horizontally integrated monopolies running amuck.
They ended up owning all the empty factories which they intend to keep empty and unused and business they offshore to cheaper labor. So the people are left with no affordable infrastructure to put those factories and properties back to use.
It's all planned to keep those vertical and horizontal monopolies in control IF some good idea came along that would create a huge profit that would open those dead places. But it would also mean the cheap labor would prevail and that is not really about immigrants getting the low pay fare jobs, it will mean automation and robotics will become the labor force.
So they pulled a rabbit out ot the hat w/last weeks unemployment #s. The government & busienss reporters went with the less reliable CES (Current Establishment Survey) report which indicated a net gain of 117,000 jobs in July '11 (These are the 'B' Tables of the Bureau of Labour Statistics (BLS). Even though the more reliable figure is the BLS's CPS (Current Population Survey) which showed a net loss of 198,000 non-agricultural workers (These are the 'A' Tables fo the BLS).
And poof, just like that, they had a not so negative jobs report, coming on the heels of the dismal reports on the collapse of manufacturing activity & consumer confidence....:-)
And get this: The 'B' Tables conceal the fact that over the past 4 months: a) 481,000 part-time workers were hired (to replace those who've lost full-time jobs with full benefits & at much lower wages), and ; b) 579,000 workers were not counted in the unemployment statistics since they've been so discouraged in finding work they've left the labour force altogether.
All told, the BLS' 'A' Tables show employment fell by a whopping/staggering 926,000 over the past 4 months (April - July)!
So, I think the BLS & Uncle Sam is using New Math from the 'No Child Left Behind' programm, a bizarro mathematics, where addition is addition & subtraction is addition...
Is the US teetering on bankruptcy?
Isn't that the plan?
Moral and Ecological bankruptcy, happened so long ago, that financial bankruptcy is an inevitable measure of this. Passing so far down into corruption, none of the players of big business and military business can remember the initial qualms of innocence. Everything is now fought as a war, because gains and spoils are the capitalists right, and the political right is nothing but naked capitalism. Gains and spoils come from possession of resources, and command of killing. But this is not sustainable.
This is not an enterprise of cooperation from top to bottom, the whole organisation relies on warped self interest, from fear and greed. It seems to be the spirit of the human enterprise, the motivational force of destruction. The game will go on, like a chemical reaction, motivated by the largest amounts of money to be made from nature, and who can profit from it. After all the reactants are consumed, there will be a tepid equilibrium, the equivalent of death, with no more low entropy, no more low hanging fruit, worth picking. The energy and spirit of capitalist dynamism was all fossil fueled. Collapse is just a matter of a short time.
The cost of the war scams, and their exhorbitant equipment contract rip offs, has gone into private ownership. The finance and insurance wizards have worked their lifetime scams. How did you ever think that 1 per cent of the population gets 40 per cent of the wealth? Here is a clue. It was never through a sense of ethics towards people and nature. How can we tell? Its the billionaires, energy czars, and Wall St executives, and corporations that run your Government, your Justice system, Your prisons, and your poverty.
Nice read.
Could be time for a review of ,"The Plan for A New Amerikan Century".
The neo-con signatures on the fascist document, maybe another rude, wake-up call.
Just hazily, dreaming , again...............
This is an interesting article. However, why should we take up the con servative BS about needing cut back on social programs or risk a deficit or debts, when the fact is that by doing so we simly play the neo cons' game and we're on the defensive when we need to be on the offensive to beat these jack asses? How about we say we'll run up the federal deficit on social programs, foreign and domestic that we can't afford the military industrial national security complex and all the insanity that goes with i?. It's time for sane policies, as we've already tried the insane ones. Normal human behavior of egalitarinism is adaptive, evolutionary, and sustainable and it's good for all.
This is an interesting article. However, why should we take up the con servative BS about needing cut back on social programs or risk a deficit or debts, when the fact is that by doing so we simly play the neo cons' game and we're on the defensive when we need to be on the offensive to beat these jack asses? How about we say we'll run up the federal deficit on social programs, foreign and domestic that we can't afford the military industrial national security complex and all the insanity that goes with i?. It's time for sane policies, as we've already tried the insane ones. Normal human behavior of egalitarinism is adaptive, evolutionary, and sustainable and it's good for all.
I've often wondered, "If Grover Norquist's stated objective is to drown the government in the bathtub, isn't that the same thing as the objective of overthrowing the government, and isn't that, by definition, treason? So, why isn't Grover Norquist being investigated for treason? Isn't there a book called 'None Dare Call It Treason'? Is it about Grover Norquist?"
I think it was the Demoks who repeatedly shouted for the state to nanny the people. So the people grew weak, dependent, and unable to defend their own better interests, well-being, and dignity. Notice that the Repuks and Demoks need each other to promote two competing criminal ideologies against the people, to keep the people distracted from recognizing the real contest: The elites' class war aggression against the people.
Define "elite", please. It used to mean exceptional. You know, accomplished persons of above-average intelligence.
"So the people grew weak, dependent, and unable to defend their own better interests, well-being, and dignity."
WHICH people, exactly? YOUR people? Because I for one have NOT grown "weak, dependent, and unable to defend my own better interests, well-being, and dignity." Speak for yourself, Bubba.
I think you really need to get laid. Anything to take your mind off that "class war aggression against the people" obsession of yours.
"At this point, self-defense becomes the overwhelming imperative."
But our liberal leaders like Thom Hartmann, Rachel Maddow, Ed Shultz, ETC. say we should disarm now and trust the powers that be that we will be just fine.
Yeah, right.
A corrupt and wasteful government has undermined the support of those taxpayers who have entrusted their wealth for the common good and defense.
To translate the problem into terms, which you might find irritating but enlightening. Assume you make $22,000 per year and spend $38,000 per year. You've recently increased your spending and now owe $130,000.
All the while, you are spending your money on road-trips, junk food and the purchase of 10 pairs of tennis shoes. This is a picture of someone in complete denial. This is a picture of Mark Engler's America. What part of being broke can't you understand Mr. Engler? We appreciate that you want to save the whales, us old people and don't forget the children. The road to hell is indeed paved with good intentions. The old people need respect and the children need a mother and a father. The US government has taken those things away. I say drown it and start over. Please do your math homework, eat your vegies and try to do some real work, where you sweat and see the work of your hands.