Is the country headed for disaster??

[Riggerjack]

I should mention my hostility toward taxes is really that I feel unfairly put upon, more an objection to how my money is used, and in April, taxpayers rage against a poorly designed system.

I sometimes fantasize that we should move elections to April 15th, and multiply votes by taxes. In this way we could ensure the tax burden is never piled to heavily on any particular minority.


Of course, giving the rich and the productive a bigger voice in America is clearly a fantasy.

[Chad]

The main variable for social security to be in crisis is if we have a declining rate of population growth, which we currently do. If that stabilizes, which is predicted (we will see), and we move some variables around, social security would stabilize.

Also, it's not a big deal for social security to "always be in crisis." Every system of this type is always in flux, as the underlying variables are difficult to control and predict. Even a pre-paid system would have significant volatility due to uncontrollable variables. This doesn't mean we should stop doing difficult things. Though, it does mean we need to get better at doing them, which could be done a multiple of ways.

I understand your desire to have the tax money spent more efficiently.

My fantasy for voting is to have the value of a vote start to decline from a certain age...say 75 and up. The average person is completely clueless normally, let alone when age takes it's tool on the mind and they allow their life to close in around them. I don't want my grandmother (85) having any say in our future.

[jacob]

From other thread (recommended reading):

https://larrylittlefield.wordpress.com/ ... vernments/

H/T GandK

[Riggerjack]

@jacob, that was a fun read.

What I have noticed is the larger the organization, the less efficient it is. This goes double for government.

As an example, I own a house in Marysville, a suburb of Everett, one in Everett, and the rural house on whidbey island. They all have similar property taxes, highest in Everett, lowest on whidbey. This fits with the local governments, highest budgets per capita are in the city. But the services provided by local government are completely different. Everett has the most cops, but far higher crime, potholes, graffiti. Marysville has graffiti, some cops and crime, few potholes, whidbey, few cops, nearly no crime, and the only potholes are on private property (parking lots). This is not to say that whidbey is well run, we just had a scandal over our no fare bus system getting run into bankruptcy thru mismanagement. Of course we don't have a county symphony, or a public relations gem like a sister city in Asia with all the associated expenses, either, so maybe that's the difference...

[Solvent]

Yep, that's what you get with liberal policies of taking from those who earned it via a progressive tax system, and giving it to those who didn't.

Not every country with a progressive tax system becomes Greece. Not every country that prefers rule by conservatives becomes Pakistan.

[unno2002]

Personal opinion: The US is not “heading” to a disaster; we’re already spiraling down it.

Politicians, bureaucrats, police, agents, judges, etc., violate their oath to the Constitution. These folks used to be referred to as public servants. They now have greater privileges and “rights” than the people for whom they are supposed to be employees of.

In particular at the federal level, there are multiple entities with oversight of the same item or action, with too many of such government entities not being authorized by any plain language reading of the Constitution.

The dollar used to have value such that you could walk into a bank, turn in $20 in paper currency, and obtain a $20 gold coin. That coin contained a little less than one ounce of gold.

What does a $20 bill buy today?
What will an ounce of gold buy today?

In 1913 or so, Congress and President Wilson created the Federal Reserve Act, handing the banking cartel legal authority to sit at the top of the banking process in the US. The Federal Reserve Bank is not a government entity, it is privately owned, and it’s profits to go????

In the 1930’s, President Roosevelt (FDR), by executive order, made private citizen ownership of gold illegal. It had to be turned in for paper money. Once the bulk had been confiscated, FDR then raised the dollar rate per ounce of gold, essentially putting the entire US on “closeout sale” of something like 65% off, if you were outside the US and had gold / gold backed currency to bring to the US. International banks could still get government gold for their dollars, but US citizens could not.

Then we had President Nixon, who by executive order “temporarily” disconnected the dollar from gold for even international banks. With no physical commodity fixed exchange rate, the politicians and top bankers were free to print, borrow, and spend far more…

It appears that illegal aliens, and even the dead, vote.

The “free speech” zone, is supposed to be the entire country, not some fenced area tucked out of sight.

There is argument available that the income tax amendment to the Constitution was never legally adopted.

Corporations, fictional entities created by statute, and corporate management & employees, are granted personal immunity of civil & often criminal liability for their decisions and actions.

Those attempting to operate / initiate a business in the US face regulations / laws regarding labor, benefits, tax, zoning, EEO, pollution, the list goes on and on, impediments that do not exist in multiple foreign jurisdictions. Think even of a “dollar store”, where it is cheaper to make that stuff in a place such as China, and ship it to the other side of the planet, then to make it locally.

What is still manufactured within the US borders, and can it be manufactured from resources within the US borders? For everything we import, what happens when the sellers no longer want US dollars?

In the early 70’s, the US became a net importer of fossil fuels. What in the US works, if fuel imports are cut off? What would politicians do? What would the population demand?

It can be argued that in the 90’s the US became a net importer of food items.

It would seem the US is also a net importer of just about every other manufactured item used by US households.

If high school, mandatory in most places, more or less ends at age 18, and Social Security as a retirement fund is available at age 62, then it would appear that the workforce is expected to be those from age 18 to 62. Whether or not you are unemployed because you cannot find a job, cannot physically or mentally work, or are voluntarily not working because you may be in college, or just refuse to work, you are still unemployed. The real unemployment percentage has got to be horrible.

Can those who see the disaster in progress stop it, or even slow it down? I doubt it. Too many have their lifestyle connected to keeping the game going for as long as possible.

As others have wrote, don’t worry about what you cannot change. Just realize what is happening, utilize resources while they are available, and prepare to wait out the worst of the coming collapse. Which unfortunately could include the warning of others about “… living within just a few miles of primary nuclear targets… “

Those targets however do not necessarily have to be military facilities, or a missile or falling bomb target. The weapons might be delivered by boat, or truck, and detonated by some random suicide “bomber”.

Government promises… There are on the books debts (i.e. Treasury notes) and off the books debt (Social Security, federal pensions, medicare costs, other federal handouts, etc. As they come due, the off the books debt are coming on the books, since the politicians are having to officially borrow to pay the new off the books debt payments. Social Security is a significant example, the “Trust Fund” not actually existing in any real world terms. Every cent of extra tax, the supposedly went into the trust fund, was turned into an IOU to the SS system, and the money spent. Now, as the trust fund needs to be tapped for payments, that previously taxed & spent money must again be taxed from someone, or borrowed “on the books”.
____________________


An aspect I feel compelled to comment on… a deduction from tax owed due to something like mortgage interest and property tax deduction, is NOT a government handout. It is a reduction is how much is stolen at gunpoint from that taxpayer.

As a means to distinguish, assume some functional means where the government does not have tax revenue. All government payments are funded by either borrowing or printing currency. Tax deductions and credits cease. Handouts do not.

__________________
Again, don’t worry about what you cannot change. For me though, that doesn’t mean I won’t bring up what I believe is going on, if the issue is raised. It also does not mean I am disconnecting from the existing system, while it functions. We are however working on means to be “ok” to the extent we can while that system continues to spiral down. There are lots of “prepper” discussion groups out there, for those concerned enough to initiate some personal/family action, just pick a group with the level between “Survivalist” and “Permaculture” that fits you.

[Dragline]

So are you saying that the 19th Century was some kind of "Golden Era" that we only need to go back to for our utopian dreams to come true?

[Riggerjack]

@unno2002, welcome. If you go back thru the politics and eternal disagreements forum, you will find that most of your points are already discussed, argued, debated, and ranted about.
In particular, you will find that Felix and I have gone round after round after round on debt, inflation and money policy.
Some of your rhetoric is based on assmtions that simply aren't true. America doesn't make anything anymore is just union propaganda. American manufacturing is stronger than ever, still the largest in the world, and if it were measured independently of all the rest of our economy, would be the 4th largest economy in the world. But we don't use people as much for that, anymore. Nowadays, manufacturing jobs tend to be technical and highly paid. Hard to unionize those guys. (I am a member of 2 unions, BTW)

I'm not going to pick apart your points, as I agree with some of them, but I think you may find a lot of good information reading back thru the ground already covered here. I'd post some links, but I'm posting by phone.

[jennypenny]

So are you saying that the 19th Century was some kind of "Golden Era" that we only need to go back to for our utopian dreams to come true?

I've read several different arguments that the 19th Century was indeed a "Golden Age" in the US. It's a common viewpoint amongst preppers and survivalists. From their perspective, as well as an environmental perspective, it does seem like a more sustainable level of consumption with a more capable populace. Personally, I connect more to the literature and writings of that time. It's hard to deny the appeal of the ubiquitous pastoral images from that era in American history.

OTOH, that Golden Age was only for a certain segment of the population. Minorities and immigrants had few rights, if any. Women were still essentially property in many states. Little House on the Prairie does not accurately represent the experience of most women. For every Laura Ingalls Wilder, there were a dozen Sister Carries. Even the most conservative women I know (who think the advent of birth control, abortion, and no-contest divorce was bad for women) would never want to go back to the 19th century. Although I think the Industrial Revolution started us down an unsustainable and environmentally-destructive path, it also brought about [at least attempts at] equality. A standardized workforce meant that it was much easier to measure equality, or inequality, as it were.

I wish we could take what worked in the 19th century and what worked in the 20th century, and use it as a foundation for progress in this century, but I don't see that happening. Or, at least, I don't see it happening until after a visit from one of the Four Horsemen.

[sky]

A number of Midwestern states defaulted on loans in the early 1800s because of heavy investments in the transportation system of the future: canals.

[EdithKeeler]

Personal opinion: The US is not “heading” to a disaster; we’re already spiraling down it.

My personal opinion: Nah. We're not heading for disaster.

Are we in the middle of an economic shift? I think so. Not quite buggies giving over to cars, but kind of. Things are changing, and the nature of work is changing--has changed--continues to change--whether you work in a factory or work in an office, or work in something that was unimaginable 10 years ago. Added to automation, computing power increasing, etc. you also have a more global world than we had just a few years ago. That's going to continue to change, too.

Add to that the societal shifts we've seen and are continuing to see. The number of women in the work force. Changes in cultural norms (ie gay marriage), which can then give rise to changes in economic issues--who gets benefits? How is inheritance handled? How might taxes change?

Religion is changing. It used to be the one area with some relative homogeneity. How many people no longer self-identify as religious? How many Christian sects are there compared to 50 years ago? How many other religions are in the US? Birthrate is changing. Who's having babies and how many compared to 50 years ago? It's a good bit different. Morals and ethics are changing. We have the ability to tinker with our own genetics. How should that be handled? Should we do it at all? (Me: I think not). What about our legal system? Is it keeping up with the moral and ethical issues surrounding surrogacy, how fertilized eggs should be stored and handled, who can bank eggs and sperm, what they can be used for?

People bemoan the "death of the middle class," forgetting that the "middle class" as we know it now is kind of a flash in history.

I just think that we're seeing change in a lot of different areas coming to us all at once (because they're really kind of a snowball/domino chain anyway) and of course we worry about it. I suspect that thru different times in history, various Americans have wrung their hands woefully, bemoaning the death of the US and that they were heading for disaster. Yet we survived. People are resilient. We'll figure it out, and it's gonna be (relatively) fine. Personally, I worry a LOT more about global warming. I do think that is a disaster, and it makes me very sad to hear about all of these animal species dying out. The latest I heard today: the polar bear population is likely to be reduced by almost half in 10 years. That's scary and sad.

[Riggerjack]

"I just think that we're seeing change in a lot of different areas coming to us all at once (because they're really kind of a snowball/domino chain anyway) and of course we worry about it. I suspect that thru different times in history, various Americans have wrung their hands woefully, bemoaning the death of the US and that they were heading for disaster. Yet we survived. People are resilient. We'll figure it out, and it's gonna be (relatively) fine. Personally, I worry a LOT more about global warming. I do think that is a disaster, and it makes me very sad to hear about all of these animal species dying out. The latest I heard today: the polar bear population is likely to be reduced by almost half in 10 years. That's scary and sad."

So much respect for the adaptability and endurance of man, and so little for that adaptability and endurance of nature. I know the drum beats doom and gloom, but nature cares not about that beat. We've all heard the propaganda: a species dies every hour, blah, blah. I bought into it too. Megadeath has a song with that quote in the lyrics. It got me googling a few years ago. The Wikipedia page on extinction used to reference some royal society list of animal extinction s since the late 1700's. The total was 585 species. In 250 years. Now, that is nothing to be proud of, but it isn't the mass extinction we are getting sold, either.
There is no reference to this group anymore on Wikipedia. Googling now just goes to red list propaganda sites. It's sureal enough to seem Orwellian. So, since I couldn't find the reference I was looking for, I started looking at the extinction list on Wikipedia, now. It is so much longer, it is intimidating. Until you actually look into it, and start noticing all the repeated listings. Wait, how can the same species keep going extinct? Oh, it seems that each place a species isn't, is an extinction of that species, in that place. For instance, Coho Salmon was listed as extinct over 20 times. This is a fish so rare, that recreational anglers aren't allowed to take any, since last year. Yup this species is so endangered, it can only be commercially harvested in Washington state.

Now, I'm not saying we don't alter the environment, or that these alterations aren't a negative impact. I'm saying go out and actually look at the wilds, because it's death has been greatly exaggerated.

[Dragline]

So are you saying that the 19th Century was some kind of "Golden Era" that we only need to go back to for our utopian dreams to come true?

I've read several different arguments that the 19th Century was indeed a "Golden Age" in the US. It's a common viewpoint amongst preppers and survivalists. From their perspective, as well as an environmental perspective, it does seem like a more sustainable level of consumption with a more capable populace. Personally, I connect more to the literature and writings of that time. It's hard to deny the appeal of the ubiquitous pastoral images from that era in American history.

OTOH, that Golden Age was only for a certain segment of the population. Minorities and immigrants had few rights, if any. Women were still essentially property in many states. Little House on the Prairie does not accurately represent the experience of most women. For every Laura Ingalls Wilder, there were a dozen Sister Carries. Even the most conservative women I know (who think the advent of birth control, abortion, and no-contest divorce was bad for women) would never want to go back to the 19th century. Although I think the Industrial Revolution started us down an unsustainable and environmentally-destructive path, it also brought about [at least attempts at] equality. A standardized workforce meant that it was much easier to measure equality, or inequality, as it were.

I wish we could take what worked in the 19th century and what worked in the 20th century, and use it as a foundation for progress in this century, but I don't see that happening. Or, at least, I don't see it happening until after a visit from one of the Four Horsemen.

If we go back a little further to the early 19th, we could relive the joys of slavery and debtor's prisons.

As you rightly conclude, for every era there were aspects that we might like and some that we probably wouldn't, and it varies widely depending on "who you are/were", which usually dictated what you were allowed to do, at that time and place in history.

That's why I think historical nostalgia is an inherently fallacious exercise and usually quite misleading in trying to decide "what to do now?", particularly when its based only on history books and not on personal experience. It ends up just being an exercise in cherry-picking facts/data and utopian fantasies about past imagined worlds that never really existed in all their supposed glory -- its just the other side of the coin from the futurist's outlook, which is usually just as flawed.

I'd probably disagree on the environmental front as well. The human impact on the environment was generally less severe simply because their were fewer people with less developed technology. But the attitude toward it was mostly very rapacious -- driving another species to extinction was generally great sport:

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smithsoni ... 82/?no-ist

"Four years later, the Great Auk vanished from the world entirely when fishermen hunted down the last pair on the shores of Eldey Island, off the coast of Iceland. The men spotted the mates in the distance and attacked, catching and killing the birds as they fled for safety. The female had been incubating an egg, but in the race to catch the adults, one of the fishermen crushed it with his boot, stamping out the species for good."

https://www.audubon.org/magazine/may-ju ... nt-extinct

"Even as the pigeons’ numbers crashed, “there was virtually no effort to save them,” says Joel Greenberg, a research associate with Chicago’s Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum and the Field Museum. “People just slaughtered them more intensely. They killed them until the very end.”"


And humans were quite good at poisoning themselves. The leading cause of death on the Oregon Trail, for example, was dysentary and related illnesses contracted at the filthy watering holes people stopped at due to what prior travelers had done/left.

[cmonkey]

Now, I'm not saying we don't alter the environment, or that these alterations aren't a negative impact. I'm saying go out and actually look at the wilds, because it's death has been greatly exaggerated.

This is something I have been wrestling with as well over the last few years and its really the thing that got me interested in homesteading and building up the environment around me. There certainly is a lot of yelling around environmental destruction, species loss and things could be a lot better.

As I walk down the road each morning to the bus stop, I pause and look at the cracks and holes forming in the very (new) smooth/black highway I walk along and I see the grass/weeds growing in them. This simple observation really struck me as powerful a few weeks back because I realized the incredible fortitude that life displays when it grows in road cracks. Simply grass and water can bust up some of our most "permanent" structures. It takes a tremendous amount of energy on our part to hold up the house of cards we've build, yet the small amount of energy in grass combined with time can tear that down. We don't stand a chance on long time scales. Life has survived much worse than human ecological impact. The current levels of disregard are merely an inconvenience from natures point of view. From a human perspective, its a disaster. Change your perspective and you have a totally different story.

A similar observation I made while at work, taking a walk/break around the parking lot. I work by a very busy/noisy part of town with Interstates and trains and local roads all converging. Yet through all the noise I often hear a robin or a cardinal singing his heart out almost drowning out the traffic. I realized that those birds will be around long after the roar of the traffic has ended and it gave me a great sense of peace.

[jacob]

Short note: WRT extinction the concern is not so much with whether species X still exists-out-of-context (i.e. absolute global extinction) but whether the species still interacts meaningfully with the eco-system thus contributing to its resilience and ability to service other species, most importantly, ourselves.

Hence people who worry about species extinctions aren't so concerned about the extinction of the existence of the species as the extinction of the ecological functionality of the species.

E.g. we don't eat bees, but we do eat plants that are pollinated by bees. Thus it matters more that bees are still functional than whether they exist or not. (Sometimes the existence argument is made in terms of using species DNA or whatever to develop medicines to cure more humans).

In that regard the functional extinction of keystone species is of particular concern.

If the argument is about life in general, I wouldn't worry about it. Life in some form will endure. The main concern is the preservation of life not as we know it but as humans depend on it. For example, life in the oceans might eventually be replaced by an abundance of toxic(*) green algae which will flourish under the changed conditions. It just won't be a happy place for humans in such an outcome.

(*) Toxic to humans, fish, and many other current species ... but obviously not toxic to the algae themselves.

[jennypenny]

I'd probably disagree on the environmental front as well. The human impact on the environment was generally less severe simply because their were fewer people with less developed technology.

I guess I was thinking of large-scale destruction like atomic bombs, or incidents like Bhopal or Love Canal, but I can see your point. Many in that era viewed nature as something to be "conquered."

[EdithKeeler]

So much respect for the adaptability and endurance of man, and so little for that adaptability and endurance of nature. I know the drum beats doom and gloom, but nature cares not about that beat. We've all heard the propaganda: a species dies every hour, blah, blah. I bought into it too. Megadeath has a song with that quote in the lyrics. It got me googling a few years ago. The Wikipedia page on extinction used to reference some royal society list of animal extinction s since the late 1700's. The total was 585 species. In 250 years. Now, that is nothing to be proud of, but it isn't the mass extinction we are getting sold, either.
.....

Now, I'm not saying we don't alter the environment, or that these alterations aren't a negative impact. I'm saying go out and actually look at the wilds, because it's death has been greatly exaggerated.

Well, I suspect nature wins in the long run--all I have to do is look at my back yard if I don't mow for a couple of weeks to see that--but it's going to be significantly altered if we kill off animals and species. I think it's possible for man to live in better harmony with nature, to be more respectful of it, than we do. And face it--we, because of our greater brain capacity, ability to use tools, etc. are better suited to adapt than animals. I don't think though, that it makes it OK to kill them off.

Jacob points out the interrelationship with things in nature--kill the honeybees, what pollinates certain vegetables we eat? I think of the article I read some years ago about the consequences of the extinction of the passenger pigeon--surprisingly, the loss of the passenger pigeon led to a significant increase in the number of ticks, and therefore tick-borne diseases, and as we learned this year, we even have a NEW tick-borne disease to worry about.

Yeah, maybe it won't matter too much if we lose the polar bears, or the black rhino, or elephants, or silverback gorillas, etc. I'm not sure my life is significantly impacted by the fact that ivory billed woodpeckers are gone. But what's the impact of the loss of ALL of those animals over time?

We can bemoan economic stuff and taxes and welfare and entitlements all we want...but we can fix them if they don't work right. We can't bring back honeybees if we kill them all. (Well, we maybe could... but we all saw what happened when we tried bringing stuff back in "Jurassic Park.")

[black_son_of_gray]

Broadly speaking, there is a certain amount of biodiversity that is crucial for human survival. It might be relatively high. But it might be relatively low. The scary point is this: we have absolutely no idea what that amount is. It's like playing Russian Roulette where we don't know the total number of possible tries. The best thing we can do is slow the rate we pull the trigger.