[Cringing Negativism Network]

No.

We are in a crisis, 16 trillion in debt with our two parties out to lunch.

Our government is huge and wasteful, and the good guys sold out and support China.

Nothing is working at present.

It is quite frustrating.

[marktwain]

We are in a crisis, 16 trillion in debt with our two parties out to lunch.

I do not see it that way at all. One party controls the MSM, the Presidency, the Senate, and has manged to intimidate the Supreme Court. A large number of the Republicans in the House are terrified of the MSM.

Consequently, they have not been able to stop the Democrats from a calculated path to reduce military power, make more people dependent on the Government, and blame it all on the Republicans via the MSM.

[Cvengr]

I’ve been trying to communicate to my peers what a robust economy means and why our present economic and regulated government prohibits our successful return to a healthy economy.

I’ve tried to reduce it to the concept of centralized command and decentralized control. Economically, were becoming more and more centrally controlled without any rational economic command, even regulations inhibiting rational economic command.

Here’s a military parallel.

From WWI thru Vietnam, the US military trained their junior ranks to be able to survive during attrition warfare. If calamity struck, destroying the normal operations of a unit; a ship; a battalion; a squadron; those in the military had been trained to be able to respond with what they had available to continue to fight the war as the situation was immediately obvious to everybody throughout the ranks.

An enemy which struck a US military unit, would face intelligent defense by the use of immediate offensive counterattack in breadth and depth. An infantry unit exposed to an ambush, would immediately flank into the direction of the threat and immediately counterattack. Nobody had to ask permission or wait for somebody else to come up with a plan or provide a comfortable solution to the threat they faced. Everybody responded immediately.

There have been times in the history of the US where Americans have been free with liberty to respond to economic hardships immediately.

Those times are manifest by people identifying opportunities to contract, transact, generally work in return for either compensation, barter or trade without being fettered to complete their contracts.

We don’t have that today.

Try to start a business and look at the encumbrances lumped in front of those seeking to work. In almost every endeavor, it costs more to file and gain permission to work, than it does to perform the task at hand.

When Americans migrated west, many pioneers shifted their trades, jobs, businesses from what they had previously thought they would perform to meet the situation they found themselves. They weren’t artificially hindered from their right to pursue happiness and they recognized that meant they had liberty to pursue other endeavors (not a preference in sexual orientation).

Until we have a body politic devoted to the removal of 90% of our regulations, and a return to God, we won’t see a return of our freedoms, liberties or economic prosperity.

[LS]

Well, sorry, I'd like to think that the economy is languishng but that isn't what the data seems to be showing. Holiday sales were down slightly, but new home sales have rebounded, realtors I know are starting to do better, and any restaurant or mall you go to is full of customers. Dayton, a depressed town, has cranes up all over. I have raised this point about shoppers and restaurants now for two years and the only answer I get here is "credit cards." We'll, credit runs out and supposedly banks aren't lending, yet people keep spending. Yet there is no inflation.

China's manufacturing sector has slowed, Europe is a mess, and we're still the last place to go.

So, despite the debt and deficits, you aren't seeing the inflation that has been predicted fo SIX YEARS, nor are you seeing enough economic hardship that people would turn out the Dems. My conclusion has to be, then, that things aren't all that bad, and certainly not bad enough to spark widespread unrest. There is some venture capital for sure-fire projects, although high risk stuff is still tough to finance.

It's possible this is a lull before the taxamaggedon---but again we heard this for years now, that it's all "about to blow." So far, again aside from debt, no big indicators this is happening.