Posted on 03/07/2009 2:46:40 AM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The stock market has plunged to its lowest point in decades, unemployment is up, and home foreclosures are sweeping the country. Still, Americans think it can get even worse a lot worse. Fully 61 percent of Americans think it is possible the United States government could literally go bankrupt. Thats according to a new Fox News poll released Thursday.
And what about the billions of dollars the government has spent since last fall to get the economy back on track? Many Americans think its simply not working: 44 percent say things would be the same as they are today or even better without the spending, while 38 percent think things could have been a lot worse, without the spending. Another 14 percent think it is too soon to tell.
Some 60 percent of Americans now describe themselves as confident about the future security of your job, down from 64 percent in September 2008 and 82 percent in October 2007.
Lower earning workers are the least confident in their job security. Nearly half (45 percent) of households with annual incomes under $50,000 are confident in their job security, compared to 70 percent of higher earning households.
Opinion Dynamics Corp. conducted the national telephone poll of 900 registered voters for FOX News from March 3 - March 4, 2009. The poll has a 3-point error margin.
Even with these growing concerns about financial stability at the national and household levels, most Americans remain optimistic that the policies of President Obama will provide some relief.
A 63 percent majority of Americans believe Obamas priorities and policies are more likely to significantly help the country, while 25 percent believe they are more likely to seriously harm the country. Democrats nearly unanimously (90 percent) believe Obamas policies will help...
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
The losses in employment (i.e. the layoffs) have been on a *steady curve* going upward since a year ago. The layoffs started in the last year of the Bush Administration. I do really think that what is going on now is the accumulation of decades of problems in our financial system. It was “about time” that some kind of disaster like this happened.
So, just think of it this way — if John McCain had been elected, he would be blamed for all this. Now we can blame Obama... LOL...
“If America is bankrupt, why are we paying taxes?”
People are incensed that the federal government keeps shoveling tax money into AIG, with no hope that that failed company will ever recover. Yet, all of us keep sending money to D.C. to prop up our failed government. The reason for that is that they can arrest you and take everything you have. The death knell for our republic was the passing of the income tax.
However, with the pool of “the rich” shrinking by the day, the gravy train for our corrupt political system may at last be grinding to a halt.
While we haven't yet seen the Fed make wholesale purchases of Treasuries, it's not to say they won't.
We already ARE bankrupt.
These initiatives will only be successful if the Kenyan has sufficient tax revenues and adequate access to credit (Treasuries) to pay for his grandiose schemes.
Purposely slowing down the economy through a concerted effort to save more & spend less will help crater tax receipts. With falling revenues, -0- will be forced to borrow more to make up the shortfalls.
Escalating demand for debt (increased risk = increased prices of debt & higher interest rates), and a dawning realization that invested funds will not contribute to increased imports (Chinese perspective), will serve to detonate the bond market and dry up his ability to loan money.
No taxes and no Treasuries means the shiftless punk from ChiTown will be sh!t out of luck trying to take over our country. Wake up and get with the program. It's not really an option - we're literally in a fight for our lives. If we help breathe new life into the economy, we're merely funding the agents of our oppression.
And yet many Freepers castigated Mike Huckabee during the primary who was for the Fair Tax which would have eliminated the IRS.
You can’t have it both ways, moan and bitch and complain about the IRS and then when you have a chance to DO SOMETHING to get rid of it turn around and castigate a fellow Republican who wanted to get rid of it.
Push the Fair Tax and dissolve the IRS. The fastest way to spur an economic recovery. Anything else is just temporary window dressing.
BB has threatened to purchase 7/10 year Treasuries in order to keep long bond rates down, but that was purely from a monetary perspective.
>>The reason for that is that they can arrest you and take everything you have. <<
They will then have to provide room and board for millions, filling the prisons to overflowing. Gulags are not the answer; escape and mayhem are too costly.
What is “FIRE”?
You are starting to make excuses already for Obama's failure. I guess that is as farsighted as the left gets.
NUFF SAID...
Democrats are projecting their uncomfortable thoughts of envy onto others as greed. Actually true greed is just an extreme form of envy. Most greedy people are leftists. Wanting a profit for hard work or capital risk is not greed.
They'd either have to make budget cutbacks or, as you suggest, start printing money. Neither is effective, so the net effect is that the welfare state would collapse. That should be our end goal. "
The lug nuts are loose on the wheels of the economy now. If any one of them falls off, things will go from bad to unthinkable.
But if your plan resulted in the removal of 0, maybe it would work out, after all.
I think today the more relevant example would be General Electric, a company that is a perfect microcosm of America's economic problems.
The paradox is that we ourselves continue to fund the very agents of our oppression. By saving more & spending less, we act to starve the beast at the source.
See this report...3rd quarter 2008 investment bank derivative exposure..... note JP Morgans total derivative exposure of over 87 TRILLION dollars..the top five American investment banks carry a total over 170 TRILLION dollars of derivative exposure.
http://www.occ.gov/ftp/release/2008-152a.pdf
Now...not all these derivative positions are (or probably should say were ) necessarily bad positions...but they for sure were probably not taken in anticipation of the volatility and declines weve seen. In other words...they may well be almost all bad at this point. To continue to tie the US Treasury to this mess will take the US Govmt under.
The synthesis of Wall Street with the Federal Treasury and our W-2s/1099s makes us the largest hedge fund ever.
We ARE bankrupt as long as we allow Timmy Geitner and Wall Street keys to the Federal Treasury.
But McCain wouldn't be working so hard to completely trash the system and maybe we would see the other side of this soon.
And Sarah would be VP, not Biden:)
I like the FairTax, but I didn’t trust Huckabee with it based on his prior tax record.
However, I’m starting to like him more now as a Fox host than I did as a candidate...
Of course we also screw/starve ourselves in the process...saving is fine until too many people lose their jobs due to less consumption and no longer have anything to save.
Orwellian Newspeak.
I think that at some point the US will recall the currency, issue new, revalued currency. Doing so will "erase" 90% of the debt. With the consequence of destroying financially everyone that holds US debt. It will also make it impossible for the US to sell more debt. Just a matter of moving a decimal point.
At that point the smart thing to do would be to go back on the gold standard. That won't happen.
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