[ralfy]

The biggest problem with Japan is they have the longest life span in the world at about 80 years. They have a huge older non working population that is dependent on the younger ones working. Most western countries are that way. Some older people can work longer, but some can't due to health and age related problems. Thus Japan is highly in debt. The US is getting that way, but welfare, food stamps, and welfare programs such as rent subsities, are a huge burden on society. Too many able bodied people not working. Right now in my area, fast food places all have help wanted signs. They are also paying more than minimum wage. When I was growing up these jobs were filled with teenagers working after school and on weekends. Today they are not. Omaha, Nebraska cut their crime rate by over 60% by working with businesses, schools, churches, and others to get teenagers jobs. This included violent crime. If this was practiced in most places teens wouldn't be getting into trouble, but earning money to buy cars or things they want, or like me paying my way through college. It is not encouraged today. If this happened young enough, many would get out of poverty and we wouldn't need so many immigrants.

Here is the crime reduction model news:
How one city cut gun violence in half and may become a model around the country - ABC News (go.com)

That's not a problem because most people want to live as long as they can. The problem's a drop in birth rates due to prosperity. Countries like the U. have been able to avoid that with immigration, but even next-gen immigrants also experience low birth rates.

Japan is heavily in debt like the U.S. and many other industrialized countries because of late capitalism.

Crime is minimized given lower poverty, but the latter goes up given more poverty, and poverty goes up when population aging, lower birth rates, higher debt, and the effects of late capitalism take their toll.

 

[Dixie_Dude]

There are other factors. Almost every restaurant I have been too lately have help wanted signs. Lowe's and Home Depot have help wanted signs. It is a fact that Gen z's and Millennial's want to work their own hours and ways. 50% of young people 18-30 are not working when help wanted signs are all over town. Parents letting their grown kids stay at home is a problem. If these young people went out and had to work and pay bills like my generation had too, the economy would be booming, even with inflation. I totally disagree linking birth rate with economic growth. So called Free Trade has sucked our manufacturing out of the country otherwise we would still be having economic growth. As I have shown, giving teenagers jobs cuts crime and helps cut poverty.

Each generation of Americans up until now, has had a better life than their parents. This is the first generation that hasn't and it is because they are just plain lazy and don't want to work, or what to work their own way even if it doesn't pay the bills. Has nothing to do with birth rate, but parents spoiling their kids, buying them cars, letting them live at home until 35, or even giving them down payments on their homes and such. My generation (boomers) and back worked for their own things. Very few had rich parents. Some rich parents still made their kids get jobs, but as wealth increased, the parents gave too much to their kids without requiring them to work.

Even with America's low birth rate, there are still jobs, and jobs being given to illegals and immigrants that American's don't want because either rich parents or the government is taking care of them. I prep because of the stupid politicians who are trying their best to bring down America, and because even known problems like protecting the power grid from terrorists or an EMP, or microbiologists playing God creating new viruses by splicing DNA, or a fabricated breakdown of our transportation and food processing. Economic problems are government caused, not capitalism. Capitalism will have it's highs and lows, but sometimes it is government interference, or weather related. There is not just one thing causing our problems, but many all at once. Most like stacked dominos that can fall and affect another.

 

[Littlebits]

Help Wanted signs are only if you want to work minimum wage or less with zero benefits, else they don't need "help"...

 

[sonya1]

Looked this up, live expectancy in 1950 was much lower than now. Social Security History (ssa.gov)
You can look at the numbers. Most people only collected social security for a short time
What the government should have done is raise ss age to keep up with rising life expectancy. It would have been gradual so nobody would have had to work a huge amount of time extra. But the ****ing politicians chose to be reelected instead of balancing the budget. In a way I can see why, look at what's happening in France right now, massive protests just to have to work an extra 2 years. If people want to retire earlier, they just need to save more money so they can afford it.

Health care: this I disagree with conservatives here . I think we should have a one payer socialized system like the rest of the modern world. It would be cheaper and more fair.

Those a the 2 big items besides the military that caused the debt in the first place.
If then the US stopped interfering all over the world and have a base in 85 countries and get involved in every war on the planet they could cut spending on that also. Just secure the border with Mexico and that would be good enough

People in the US first of all don't want to look at math and facts. Second they always want to point fingers at someone else. People like Dixie want to believe that if only we cut out all welfare, the budget would be balanced, but it would not be. That's only a small part of the whole debt and deficit problem.
look it up yourself most of the spending is in ss, medicare/caid and military, plus the interest on the debt

The Federal Budget in 2019: An Infographic | Congressional Budget Office (cbo.gov)

 

[sonya1]

Help Wanted signs are only if you want to work minimum wage or less with zero benefits, else they don't need "help"...

Yep, for a little while our son was working while going to college. It was just not worth it. The extra gas and upkeep of the vehicle alone made it not worth it. It is not to our financial advantage for him to work while going to college. He now goes full time no job other than helping us on the farm, and gets free financial aid. He would not get that if he earned income. It would also take him longer to get his degree.
A min wage job without health insurance is just not worth it. If you live further away the vehicle maintenance and gas will eat up the profit, if you live in the city, the housing will cost more than it's worth it. So the only people that get min wager jobs are teenagers that want spending money and still live with their parents or bored retired people that want a little extra income

 

[sonya1]

And then there is the problem of our corrupt politicians and elite to only protect themselves and bail out their rich friends who's banks are failing. By creating more money than exists and bailing out those banks, they will create even more inflation. It ONLY benefits the rich. Only the rich have more than 250k in one bank.
All of you that want to believe that "if only we cut out all welfare and people worked those min wage jobs everything would be ok" are just idiots. Sorry but it's the truth. That's a tiny fraction compared to how the rich scam the country for money.

 

[rugster]

I see lots of posts on how the US financial system is going to collapse but few discussions on how it could be fixed. Part of this is because nobody seems to want to address the real issue. Lots of people say "government should have , could have blah blah blah" but no solutions.

The debt obligations are too massive there is no conventional fix

-Social Security and Medicare carry a combined $60+ trillion dollar unfunded liability
-US National debt is 31.6 trillion dollars expressed as a per citizen obligation of 544K for each of us and debt interest of 14,200+ dollars a year. about 20% of this year's budget is debt spending
-State and local governments are facing massive unfunded public employee pension obligations of 1.4 trillion.

It's just as bad in most states they face huge public pension unfunded liability issues

Historically the fix is war and war-driven destruction or seizure of asses, wealth, people, capitulation currencies, and sovereign banks that's what you are being prepared for subconsciously.

 

[Dixie_Dude]

Most jobs with help wanted signs are above minimum wage now. Anyway, there are millions of teenagers who could work, but don't and could take the jobs, because their parents provide everything for them, instead of them learning to work for what they want. I made $1.30 and hour at a hamburger joint right after high school. Minimum wage at that time was $1.60, but if you had fewer than 100 employees, you could pay less. I worked 60 hours a week that summer to buy my first car. I later got a better job and worked my way up and through school. Burger King starts now at $11 an hour for part time work, while the minimum wage is $7.25. Kids don't have bills, so they can work to save for their cars, video games, etc. Parents shouldn't just give stuff to them. Let them earn to learn.

Kids can stay on their parents health care until they are 26. I am also talking about kids getting jobs at 16 to get the work ethic. I worked at 16 bagging groceries. Parents dropped me off to work and picked me up. Idea of 26 was if they stayed in school and got a Phd. Working for a kid may be harder out in the country, but in a small town or up, surely they can find a job doing something. Getting kids jobs is what Omaha, Nebraska found out reduced crime. Most crime is committed by teens and young adults who have no jobs, including violent crimes.

 

[jandlms]

And then there is the problem of our corrupt politicians and elite to only protect themselves and bail out their rich friends who's banks are failing. By creating more money than exists and bailing out those banks, they will create even more inflation. It ONLY benefits the rich. Only the rich have more than 250k in one bank.
All of you that want to believe that "if only we cut out all welfare and people worked those min wage jobs everything would be ok" are just idiots. Sorry but it's the truth. That's a tiny fraction compared to how the rich scam the country for money.

This is a confusing fact to me. Rich people by and large are rich because they don’t do stupid or non profitable things with their money. Before you made the above statement about rich people keeping tons of money in banks ,I would have said that rich people probably keep up to the 250,000 FDIC insured limit. The rest of their wealth is invested in stocks, bonds, real estate whatever.
if what you say is true and the rich are keeping huge amounts of money in banks as cash we need to ask ourselves why? A bank account is a stupid investment. Safe but stupid. My impression is that the money stored at SVB was invested poorly by the bank and that’s why they went under. For example they provided 5 billion of their assets to a startup hedge fund specializing in renewable energy. The fund isn’t even running yet! Hazard of having few bankers on the board governing the bank I guess.
So back to this huge amount of dollars being kept in banks by the rich. Why?It’s not a good investment from a gaining more wealth standpoint. Is it a hedge? Against what? The collapse of the dollar wouldn’t seem to necessitate holding lots of dollars. I realize this is a bit tangential to the original post but WHY?

 

[sonya1]

Anyway, there are millions of teenagers who could work, but don't and could take the jobs, because their parents provide everything for them, instead of them learning to work for what they want.

NONE of that would in the least bit help the current economic system. You don't seem to understand what we are even talking about here at all.

You just want to complain about other stuff! I think you should create your own thread and address the issues YOU want to talk about, one at a time and not just throw out stuff in the form of walls of text that have nothing to do with THIS thread.

But since you insist lets look at teenagers getting jobs : first, they have school until 4 pm, starting in the morning. Then they have homework. If you want your teenager to do well in high school and get into college and get a decent degree, they will have to take advanced classes, study and do their homework.
So there is really not much time left to "get a job". They can work part time at a fast food place, or a gas station or a store. My daughter was a lifeguard and the local public pool and then later at a theme park. She made more than min wage, but realistically she would not have been able to have a job at all without us giving her a vehicle.
By the time you give them a vehicle, pay the insurance and gas, it is totally not worth it.

If all the teenagers would have gotten jobs last summer, inflation would have gone up even more!! Don't you get that? They also would have needed a cheap used vehicle ( none available) , gas ($5 a gallon) and insurance ( went up even without tickets)
Then they would have had more money to spend on stuff, leading to more empty shelves.

You don't get that there is already TOO MUCH MONEY out there! This is why they raised the interest rate. But that in turn caused the banks to fail....

It's really simple what needs to happen . The banks should not have been bailed out, the government should not have sent checks to everyone during covid, the age of ss and other pensions should go up , the military should be cut back, the borders should be closed to the illegals and the taxes on the rich and middle class should be raised. This would stop inflation and the deficit, and maybe eventually the debt could be paid. Is this going to happen? Oh hell NO, no politicians on either side will do any of those things....

 

[sonya1]

This is a confusing fact to me. Rich people by and large are rich because they don’t do stupid or non profitable things with their money. Before you made the above statement about rich people keeping tons of money in banks ,I would have said that rich people probably keep up to the 250,000 FDIC insured limit. The rest of their wealth is invested in stocks, bonds, real estate whatever.
if what you say is true and the rich are keeping huge amounts of money in banks as cash we need to ask ourselves why? A bank account is a stupid investment. Safe but stupid. My impression is that the money stored at SVB was invested poorly by the bank and that’s why they went under. For example they provided 5 billion of their assets to a startup hedge fund specializing in renewable energy. The fund isn’t even running yet! Hazard of having few bankers on the board governing the bank I guess.
So back to this huge amount of dollars being kept in banks by the rich. Why?It’s not a good investment from a gaining more wealth standpoint. Is it a hedge? Against what? The collapse of the dollar wouldn’t seem to necessitate holding lots of dollars. I realize this is a bit tangential to the original post but WHY?

So why are they saying the will bail out EVERYONE, including those with over 250k in the bank? If there was no such people, why say that? Why not only give the money back to people FDIC insured up to 250k like they are supposed to> It makes no sense.
Who then does the bank owe the money to ?

 

[jandlms]

So why are they saying the will bail out EVERYONE, including those with over 250k in the bank? If there was no such people, why say that? Why not only give the money back to people FDIC insured up to 250k like they are supposed to> It makes no sense.
Who then does the bank owe the money to ?

There is more to this whole issue than we are hearing. Mainstream media and the talking heads keep saying 5his is simply a case of bad “woke” investments made by a bank governed by people who have no business being on a bank governance board. Methinks there is a bit more there behind the scenes.

 

[ralfy]

There are other factors. Almost every restaurant I have been too lately have help wanted signs. Lowe's and Home Depot have help wanted signs. It is a fact that Gen z's and Millennial's want to work their own hours and ways. 50% of young people 18-30 are not working when help wanted signs are all over town. Parents letting their grown kids stay at home is a problem. If these young people went out and had to work and pay bills like my generation had too, the economy would be booming, even with inflation. I totally disagree linking birth rate with economic growth. So called Free Trade has sucked our manufacturing out of the country otherwise we would still be having economic growth. As I have shown, giving teenagers jobs cuts crime and helps cut poverty.

Each generation of Americans up until now, has had a better life than their parents. This is the first generation that hasn't and it is because they are just plain lazy and don't want to work, or what to work their own way even if it doesn't pay the bills. Has nothing to do with birth rate, but parents spoiling their kids, buying them cars, letting them live at home until 35, or even giving them down payments on their homes and such. My generation (boomers) and back worked for their own things. Very few had rich parents. Some rich parents still made their kids get jobs, but as wealth increased, the parents gave too much to their kids without requiring them to work.

Even with America's low birth rate, there are still jobs, and jobs being given to illegals and immigrants that American's don't want because either rich parents or the government is taking care of them. I prep because of the stupid politicians who are trying their best to bring down America, and because even known problems like protecting the power grid from terrorists or an EMP, or microbiologists playing God creating new viruses by splicing DNA, or a fabricated breakdown of our transportation and food processing. Economic problems are government caused, not capitalism. Capitalism will have it's highs and lows, but sometimes it is government interference, or weather related. There is not just one thing causing our problems, but many all at once. Most like stacked dominos that can fall and affect another.

The second phrase of the second sentence of your last paragraph and the last sentence of your post shows that you're starting to think about the elephants in the room, as they derail every other point that you make.

 

[ralfy]

Most jobs with help wanted signs are above minimum wage now. Anyway, there are millions of teenagers who could work, but don't and could take the jobs, because their parents provide everything for them, instead of them learning to work for what they want. I made $1.30 and hour at a hamburger joint right after high school. Minimum wage at that time was $1.60, but if you had fewer than 100 employees, you could pay less. I worked 60 hours a week that summer to buy my first car. I later got a better job and worked my way up and through school. Burger King starts now at $11 an hour for part time work, while the minimum wage is $7.25. Kids don't have bills, so they can work to save for their cars, video games, etc. Parents shouldn't just give stuff to them. Let them earn to learn.

Kids can stay on their parents health care until they are 26. I am also talking about kids getting jobs at 16 to get the work ethic. I worked at 16 bagging groceries. Parents dropped me off to work and picked me up. Idea of 26 was if they stayed in school and got a Phd. Working for a kid may be harder out in the country, but in a small town or up, surely they can find a job doing something. Getting kids jobs is what Omaha, Nebraska found out reduced crime. Most crime is committed by teens and young adults who have no jobs, including violent crimes.

These are all effects of late capitalism, seen in other industrialized countries, are effects of those elephants, and have no solutions.

 

[ralfy]

This is a confusing fact to me. Rich people by and large are rich because they don’t do stupid or non profitable things with their money. Before you made the above statement about rich people keeping tons of money in banks ,I would have said that rich people probably keep up to the 250,000 FDIC insured limit. The rest of their wealth is invested in stocks, bonds, real estate whatever.
if what you say is true and the rich are keeping huge amounts of money in banks as cash we need to ask ourselves why? A bank account is a stupid investment. Safe but stupid. My impression is that the money stored at SVB was invested poorly by the bank and that’s why they went under. For example they provided 5 billion of their assets to a startup hedge fund specializing in renewable energy. The fund isn’t even running yet! Hazard of having few bankers on the board governing the bank I guess.
So back to this huge amount of dollars being kept in banks by the rich. Why?It’s not a good investment from a gaining more wealth standpoint. Is it a hedge? Against what? The collapse of the dollar wouldn’t seem to necessitate holding lots of dollars. I realize this is a bit tangential to the original post but WHY?

The money kept in the bank was used by businesses for payroll, etc.. The bank invested in bonds, among others, whose prices went down (and which caused the bank to fail because they had to sell bonds at a loss to cover increasing withdrawals from businesses facing economic difficulties) because interest rates were hiked, and they were hiked in order to deal with inflation, which in turn was caused by a pandemic, war, and more credit creation needed for recovery. The last is part of decades of heavy borrowing and spending initiated by Reagan in order to make up for the effects of real wages peaking in the 1970s and of a Triffin dilemma, which led to chronic trade deficits.

Capitalism is like an Alien vs. Predator movie: whoever wins, we lose.

That is also the premise of the elephants in the room: the mainstream talk about aboveground problems (e.g., lousy politicians) but they're actually below ground, i.e., diminishing returns and environmental damage that are predicaments because there are no solutions for them.

Hence, prepping and survivalism.

 

[ralfy]

There is more to this whole issue than we are hearing. Mainstream media and the talking heads keep saying 5his is simply a case of bad “woke” investments made by a bank governed by people who have no business being on a bank governance board. Methinks there is a bit more there behind the scenes.

It's like the unemployment issue mentioned earlier: one would think that capitalists want high employment because that means more sales of goods and services. But high employment also means more power for workers to demand for higher pay, which capitalists don't want because even though it means more buying power it also means higher costs for capitalists, and in turn lower profits. The irony, then, is that capitalists prefer some level of unemployment because it gives them more power over workers.

It's also seen in automation, which is discussed in other threads: capitalists want that because it leads to higher productivity and lower costs, and in turn higher sales and greater profits. The catch is that robots aren't customers, so by replacing more workers with robots capitalists end up with more goods and services that fewer people can pay for because of lack of jobs.

Such in the case of present circumstances, where interest rates were raised to deal with inflation, but which is beginning to gut the bond and stock markets. With bailouts needed more credit is created, which makes inflation worse.

It's like being caught between a rock and a hard place. But this is only icing on the cake. The real, brutal predicaments are found underneath an economic system that needs not only continuous but even increasing economic growth, and they are the elephants in the room. The latter will make these billy goats look like child's play.

At least that's what preppers and survivalists claim.

 

[sonya1]

That is also the premise of the elephants in the room: the mainstream talk about aboveground problems (e.g., lousy politicians) but they're actually below ground, i.e., diminishing returns and environmental damage that are predicaments because there are no solutions for them.

Hence, prepping and survivalism.

There are solutions but our government won't do them. I already listed them. The population would have to live with a lower standard of consumption and work longer. There are solutions to everything. It's just our corrupt government and entitled population won't do them

Solution to debt and inflationI already listed ( raise age of retirement, raise taxes, cut back the military, don't hand out money to other countries, close the border to illegals, cut out welfare, raise interest rates to very high so people stop spending and the money supply shrinks)
There ARE solutions

Solutions to too many resources being used up: close the borders to the illegals and only let a min amount of immigrants in, raise tax on gas so people drive less, or mileage tax like they are already proposing. Stop giving people any tax breaks for having kids. Live with the risk of nuclear accidents and run everything you can on nuclear power and electricity, do not allow new housing developments, use alternative energy where possible. Put the freight on electric trains instead of semis, and only have a large enough military to protect this country.

There are always solutions but politicians and this entire population wants to kick the can down the road as far as possible and would rather risk a complete and sudden crash than give up anything now before it's too late.

Oh and I would hate the solutions also btw, since I am 3 years away from collecting ss, and we depend on a lot of fuel to run our farm . It would suck. But if that is what is necessary for our kids and grandkids to avoid disaster I would be willing to accept it.

 

[Wydaho]

Have to love this Administrations' path to "Energy Independence" with their support of this announcement: UN calls for mass fossil fuel shutdowns to prevent 'climate time-bomb' | Fox News

 

[ralfy]

There are solutions but our government won't do them. I already listed them. The population would have to live with a lower standard of consumption and work longer. There are solutions to everything. It's just our corrupt government and entitled population won't do them

Solution to debt and inflationI already listed ( raise age of retirement, raise taxes, cut back the military, don't hand out money to other countries, close the border to illegals, cut out welfare, raise interest rates to very high so people stop spending and the money supply shrinks)
There ARE solutions

Solutions to too many resources being used up: close the borders to the illegals and only let a min amount of immigrants in, raise tax on gas so people drive less, or mileage tax like they are already proposing. Stop giving people any tax breaks for having kids. Live with the risk of nuclear accidents and run everything you can on nuclear power and electricity, do not allow new housing developments, use alternative energy where possible. Put the freight on electric trains instead of semis, and only have a large enough military to protect this country.

There are always solutions but politicians and this entire population wants to kick the can down the road as far as possible and would rather risk a complete and sudden crash than give up anything now before it's too late.

Oh and I would hate the solutions also btw, since I am 3 years away from collecting ss, and we depend on a lot of fuel to run our farm . It would suck. But if that is what is necessary for our kids and grandkids to avoid disaster I would be willing to accept it.

I think those are not solutions but what happens when there are no solutions.

 

[sonya1]

Have to love this Administrations' path to "Energy Independence" with their support of this announcement: UN calls for mass fossil fuel shutdowns to prevent 'climate time-bomb' | Fox News

That's funny, I read on some European news site that Biden just gave the ok on drilling for oil or something in Alaska and they also blasted China for building over 100 new coal power plants....