Posted on 03/31/2009 9:47:30 AM PDT by iThinkBig
Ironically, any turning inward will be the natural result of forces beyond our control. “Control” is the operable word here.
Since WWII, around the world, especially in the first world, people have become caught up in the illusion that they really control things that are not in their control. Be it economics, or the weather, or what all else, it is an arrogance that begs for comeuppance.
In truth, the nations of the world, the US government, multinational and national corporations, and we as a people, have always had the choice to either have a Tower of Babel approach to life, or to keep some sense of humbleness about us when faced with forces beyond our control.
Our current economic situation is like flying in an aircraft at altitude when the fuel runs out. Right now, Obama is the pilot, but it doesn’t really matter who is the pilot. He can try every stunt and trick in the book, but the plane has to return to Earth.
There is no effort involved here. The plane will return to Earth, no matter if he promises us the Moon and the stars that he will somehow, someway, keep the plane flying. And for our part, as passengers, we may absolutely, truly want that plane to continue on its course, but it doesn’t matter.
If we are very fortunate, the landing will be more like a glide than a crash, and yet the situation remains: we are out of fuel.
So once we have landed, economically, there really is no choice but to renounce the national debt, Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Again, it’s not our choice. If we were in control, or could in any way do what we wanted to do, we wouldn’t do that.
But it’s not left up to us.
The insanity of a consumer driven society is being revealed in this "crisis." We simply cannot continue spending our way to prosperity and the government spending machine must be turned way down. Wealth preservation should be paramount in every American's mind. Not the desire for the latest Chinese consumer goods and hedonistic lifestyle.
Unfortunately, I doubt my vision is palatable to most Americans.
Hmmm. That may be true. This could be a weaponized version of influenza. Who would release it though? That would probably be a better question.
“The feeling of wealth is nice but it was based on a fake AAA rating. The full faith of that rating was implicitly inherited by entities like Fannie and Freddie and then by extension to the to-big-to-fail financial entities. The bondholders in Citi and the others have the backing of the Fed and Treasury which means our federal balance sheet includes their trillions in liabilities and many trillions in derivatives. There is no way for them to fail now, so the federal government must fail instead, and that will take time.
In fact the way we retain that feeling of wealth is financial warfare and it is no coincidence that the week after Switzerland was accused of covering for tax evasion they started their own quantitative easing. If countries can not be persuaded that way, then we can simply do it for them. Then we print dollars to our heart’s content to maintain our foolish illusion of wealth while knowing that the competitors to the dollar are doing the same. The physical warfare you keep alluding to is much too crude and will only be used as a last resort.”
No debate. On war just stating the trend is not our friend.
Well April, you have my phone number in your Freepmail. That platform and plan are already being implemented. If your going to really help, then at times one must take risk. Certainly, I took risk to display my phone number. Actually, I displayed my cell number all over the Internet. I do not want undue attention, but mechanisms that allow collaborative problem solving rather then simple discussions online are nuetral.
There is no conceivable way that influenza could be weaponized, for the reason that it is a better natural weapon than we could improve, and if we did, there would be no way to defend against its variants. It is too dangerous to use as a weapon.
To explain. The respected chief epidemiologist of Vietnam discovered a herd of pigs, each of which had about five unique mutations of the virus in them, vying for the “best strain”. Then the semi-finalists of each pig would compete with those of the other pigs until a “grand champion” emerged as the primary strain of the entire herd.
He realized with some shock, that this process was, in effect, like a giant, if slow computer, composed of thousands of flocks and herds all over Asia, continually developing better strains in a methodical process of elimination and competition.
To make matters worse, viruses can swap techniques with different viruses to expand their territory, and do so in many animals with immune systems similar to humans, who likewise carry other types of influenza virus, like ferrets an pigs.
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