[B4Ranch]

Look at the differences in economic balance. Since NAFTA our has been way out of balance, all the money goes to foreign countries. China, well they are getting the opposite picture. More money going in than coming out. Help explain why we are $3,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) in the hole? Look at our foreign aid output and war costs.

[RightWhale]

$3,000,000,000,000.00 (TRILLION) in the hole

It's worse than even that.

Public debt is about $6 trillion. Private debt is another $6 trillion. Can a country spend itself to prosperity by going into debt? So long as the economy expands almost everyone is happy, but a 2-year recession and counting kind of takes the fun out of it.

NASA is grounded until they figure out what to do with their International Orbiting Black Hole. Space Station Alpha? They should call it Space Station Omega. $30 billion right there doing nothing. $30 billion could build an impressive space infrastructure, bases on the moon and Mars and in between if they do it correctly.

[MarkWar]

>Look at our foreign aid output and war costs.

Hmmm. Jerry Pournelle -- and others -- like to say that the US crushed the Soviet Union by making them spend till they died trying to keep up with us in space, in arms, and in Southeast Asia. The "Seventy Years War," I believe Pournelle has called it.

With the US already sending so much money overseas, and now all the terrorism costs -- not to mention the indirect terrorism costs, like giving hundreds of millions to North Korea to entice them to be good, etc. -- how long will it be before the US collapses the way the Soviet Union did?!

Mark W.