water rant

[lethe]

What's our top export?
It's probably porn.
Screw the car companies, maybe the porn industry should get their bailout money.

[Popeye the Sailor]

thats great...... but what else is out there thats exported?

there seems to be no ballance in import and export...it's all about take and very little about sell.

This stuff bugs you. I don't understand why you're not out there running for an office.


Get two jobs, save one for a campaign fund 

[Grampa]

What's our top export?
It's probably porn.
Screw the car companies, maybe the porn industry should get their bailout money.

if it's what the world wants...... hell yeah (it's a renewable resource afterall   )

[lethe]

This stuff bugs you. I don't understand why you're not out there running for an office.

He hasn't lost his humanity yet.

[Grampa]

This stuff bugs you. I don't understand why you're not out there running for an office.


Get two jobs, save one for a campaign fund 

A: nobody will vote for me.... there be some funky shit in my closet

B: it's one of the reasons I want to go back to school to teach.

[nateqwik]

exactly..... nobody is talking about producing what the world wants..... only about shuffling money within the borders.

zero growth and a slow painfull death.

Unfortunately this has been tried...TWICE in the past 100 years and both times it has failed. Some consider FDR to be the man whose public works policy brought this country out of depression. WRONG! His failed policy only prolonged the depression. WWII was what put this country back on track. People HAD to produce goods mainly for the war effort. Jimmy Carter tried something similar in the seventies. The country was in the crapper and the OPEC embargo wasn't helping matters any. So Carter falls back on what? Public works! Remember the BILLIONS spent on the Alaska pipeline? Did this lift the country out of recession? NOPE! Only when Reagan came in and used the policy of cutting taxes (which his own VP considered "voodoo economics") did this country start to turn around. Now look where we are. It's 2009. We have a national debt of 10.6 TRILLION dollars. We have already borrowed Billions from China to pay off a "stimulus package" which failed. Miserably. Our new commander in chief wants to rebuild this country by borrowing MORE money to pass ANOTHER stimulus package AND he wants to "invest" in infrastructure using what? PUBLIC WORKS POLICY! What's that line about those who don't learn from history? Oh yeah.....DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!! Sorry about my rant but I just don't get how some can be so blind, stupid, or both.

[Grampa]

the reason I used water as a metaphor for money is.... like the tide, there is an ebb and flow to finances. the water never really disappears, it just transfers or evaporates in the air, only later to fall as rain.

same with money.... somebody always has lots and somebody always has none.


money is acquired two ways.... taken or earned.

I want to hear more from the smart people how we are going to earn it and less how they are going to shuffle it.

[lethe]

Build a better mousetrap?

[Grampa]

Unfortunately this has been tried...TWICE in the past 100 years and both times it has failed. Some consider FDR to be the man whose public works policy brought this country out of depression. WRONG! His failed policy only prolonged the depression. WWII was what put this country back on track. People HAD to produce goods mainly for the war effort. Jimmy Carter tried something similar in the seventies. The country was in the crapper and the OPEC embargo wasn't helping matters any. So Carter falls back on what? Public works! Remember the BILLIONS spent on the Alaska pipeline? Did this lift the country out of recession? NOPE! Only when Reagan came in and used the policy of cutting taxes (which his own VP considered "voodoo economics") did this country start to turn around. Now look where we are. It's 2009. We have a national debt of 10.6 TRILLION dollars. We have already borrowed Billions from China to pay off a "stimulus package" which failed. Miserably. Our new commander in chief wants to rebuild this country by borrowing MORE money to pass ANOTHER stimulus package AND he wants to "invest" in infrastructure using what? PUBLIC WORKS POLICY! What's that line about those who don't learn from history? Oh yeah.....DOOMED TO REPEAT IT!! Sorry about my rant but I just don't get how some can be so blind, stupid, or both.

please no naming political figures.... try to discuss the matter w/o the names and treat the discussion on business terms.

for me.... it's as simple as..... a business needs to sell more than it spends.

what are we selling?

[nateqwik]

Nothing. Thanks to "free" trade and tax incentives we have become a nation of consumers only. We manufacture very little. Some believe we should be "service oriented". Unfortuneately, when the world gets worried and won't spend money, there is no need for service.

[Grampa]

Nothing. Thanks to "free" trade and tax incentives we have become a nation of consumers only. We manufacture very little. Some believe we should be "service oriented". Unfortuneately, when the world gets worried and won't spend money, there is no need for service.

I find it very frustrating to hear the smart ones on tv talk about consumer confidence as if that's the problem.

[Drunken Monkey]

<Mod Hat>

And this is now, thanks to nateqwik, a political discussion.

Thread Locked.

</Mod Hat>