08-07-2011, 10:09 PM
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Join Date: Jan 2005
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Numbers tell the Tale
The current European/American Social Welfare State is dying, the numbers tell us that and we have to change what we do the Status Quo is inadequate.
A few articles this weekend provided information documenting why this is so for the US.
First the amount of money were are track to be paying just to service the debt:
Quote:
Otherwise, by 2020 just the interest payments on the debt will be larger than the U.S. military budget. That’s not paying down the debt, but merely staying current on the servicing — like when you get your MasterCard statement and you can’t afford to pay off any of what you borrowed but you can just about cover the monthly interest charge.
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And even those numbers pre-suppose interest rates will remain at their present historic low. Last week, the firm of Macroeconomic Advisors, one of the Obama administration’s favorite economic analysts, predicted that interest rates on ten-year U.S. Treasury notes would be just shy of nine percent by 2021. If that number is right, there are two possibilities: The Chinese will be able to quintuple the size of their armed forces and stick us with the tab. Or we’ll be living in a Mad Max theme park. I’d bet on the latter myself.
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Mad Debt - Mark Steyn - National Review Online
Problem is that isn't the really bad news. The bad news is the % of GDP that the current entitlement system will cost (not including welfare and food stamps).
Quote:
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Beers called the U.S. Treasury Department’s criticism of the credit rating agency’s analysis a “complete misrepresentation.” Even with the debt limit agreement passed by Congress, he said, “the underlying debt burden of the U.S. is rising and will continue to rise over the next decade.”
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Remember We have a already passed out debt being >100% of GDP.
From across the pond, the Europeans are in even worse condition, however like the President and defenders of the status quo in America they are denial about the problem.
Quote:
The truly fundamental question that is at the heart of the disaster toward which we are racing is being debated only in America: is it possible for a free market economy to support a democratic socialist society? On this side of the Atlantic, the model of a national welfare system with comprehensive entitlements, which is paid for by the wealth created through capitalist endeavour, has been accepted (even by parties of the centre-Right) as the essence of post-war political enlightenment.
The Tea Party faction within the Republican party was demanding that, before any further steps were taken, there must be a debate about where all this was going. They had seen the future toward which they were being pushed, and it didn’t work. They were convinced that the entitlement culture and benefits programmes which the Democrats were determined to preserve and extend with tax rises could only lead to the diminution of that robust economic freedom that had created the American historical miracle.
And, again contrary to prevailing wisdom, their view is not naive and parochial: it is corroborated by the European experience. By rights, it should be Europe that is immersed in this debate, but its leaders are so steeped in the sacred texts of social democracy that they cannot admit the force of the contradictions which they are now hopelessly trying to evade.
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If we are to survive the looming catastrophe, we need to face the truth - Telegraph
The people who cling to the status quo and outmoded class warfare rhetoric while ignoring the numbers we are facing economically are being totally irresponsible.
The Tea Party supporters are the only ones who understand the problem and proposing solutions instead of hoping the numbers crushing us magically go away.
This is why the Tea Party is relentlessly attacked (and pols assocaited with it like Palin). They understand the Tea Party are the only politicans who are willing to change the status quo.
Funny how the people who view themselves as progressive are the reactionaries now.
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