Posted on 03/20/2008 2:56:09 AM PDT by Fennie
The Bush administration forecasts a $410 billion federal budget deficit for this year, an indication that, as the US saving rate is approximately zero, the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars but also dependent on foreigners to finance part of the US government's domestic expenditures. Foreign borrowing is paying US government salaries--perhaps that of the president himself--or funding the expenditures of the various cabinet departments. Financially, the US is not an independent country.
A troubled currency and financial system and large budget and trade deficits do not present an attractive face to creditors. Yet Washington in its hubris seems to believe that the US can forever rely on the Chinese, Japanese and Saudis to finance America's life beyond its means. Imagine the shock when the day arrives that a US Treasury auction of new debt instruments is not fully subsribed...
the US is not only dependent on foreigners to finance its wars...the US is smart enough to let them. Luckily the Chinese (who have opposed the US liberation of Iraq, at least, not sure about Afghanistan, or US military presence deeper in Central Asia) don't have a free press, because the people there would wonder why their government has one public attitude about the US military deployments, while simultaneously making money off of them.
Maybe because they are funding their military with record trade surpluses and outside investment, unlike us. Hopefully we arn't putting the carriers up for collateral.
Manufacturing tech, even in strategic industries has been shipped overseas for nothing. When an item sits in Chinese customs it is analyzed to be copied. There are no patents to the Red Chinese.
Short-term thinking is a function of the rise of corporatism over true capitalism.
I am speaking from my own current experience. They care one quarter at a time and very little else.
We are getting raped. Quit worshiping blindly at the alter of Free Trade.
It was a good thing until he lost his way......and then his mind.
Only problem - spending was out of control even before the RATs took over the House and Senate. The Republicans are just as addicted to overspending as the Democrats - see the vote on a temporary end to earmarks....
Let me know how YOUR company, the one you began and grew, does these long term plans, why don't you ?
If you haven't one, then you have nothing to say imo.
Your company, that you began and grew ? Or just your worthless $.02 about someone else's ?
I find that comments like yours generally come from those who have never built a company, and really have no firsthand experience about running one. After all, if you can't survive the next quarter, what good are your long term plans ?
Since WWII the US$ has been the world's reserve currency, so we could obtain goods and services from abroad by printing money and sending oversees. A lot of the money accumulated in bank vaults and never came back.
Exchanging pieces of paper for goods and services is a nice gig if you can get it. Unfortunately, all of those excess dollars are weighing down on the process, and the more we print, the further it drops (which is rather new for us).
All of those years of neglecting our own manufacturing base are about to bite us big time.
“Fair” means I cut my tariffs if you cut yours, not whatever you feel the word should mean, and certainly not what a Democrat, leftist, or other malcontent says it means.
We are not talking about “surviving” the next quarter. We are talking about self serving behavior designed to squeeze every personal advantage from a company regardless of the long term consequences to that company or the owners. Yes, the owners, or shareholders, are responsible as they elect the boards that perpetuate these idiotic policies. But unless you are an institutional sized investor it is pretty hard to know what is going on much less take any effective action.
The country cannot go bankrupt. It is impossible.
Sorry amigo, but it is so much more complex than that it’s not funny. Trade agreements on paper do not equal the real world and even the trade agreements on paper are highly complex documents.
“Thanks for listening to my rant/ruminations. (I can go on if you want) :-)”
You must go, for you ideas make too much sense and do not follow the religion of FREE TRADE!
Go now!
...only kidding, your right. Pay now or pay later, it is just that simple.
Many have already found out how to vote themselves a living from the treasury instead of bolting on wheels at the GM plant.
Correct.
And were you also aware the still ongoing policy of NASA to allow foreigners to copy all of our blueprints and schematics for spacecraft and rocket designs?
And were you aware that as part of a round of GATT that set up the WTO that Boeing was forced to relinquish proprietary technology, to EADS/AIrbus for butkus?
“Only problem - spending was out of control even before the RATs took over the House and Senate.”
The Republicans are mediocre.
The Democrats are horrible.
There is a difference.
“he Republicans are just as addicted to overspending as the Democrats - see the vote on a temporary end to earmarks”
In aggregate, no they are not.
Some Republicans are bad, but the only real fiscal conservatives are in the Republican party, and the only hope for lower spending and taxes is a return of the Republican majority.
The Democrat majority has taken Bush’s spending proposals and consistently gone beyond them. They are abjectly desirous of spending us into ruin.
Let me guess: too complex for people to understand that, if our tariff is 0%, then theirs should be 0% also.
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