COUNTRY GONE WILD

Please see this video (it will ruin your day and make you worry about our Country and your kids/grandkids futures)

YouTube - Brother, Can You Spare A Trillion?: Government Gone Wild! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VtVbUmcQSuk)

Obviously the #1 main problem is spending……..
What do we do? The problem doesn’t get solved unless we drastically cut spending. Realistically, we are so far in the hole, everyone will have to pay more in taxes to get us out of this mess. Right now the top 3% pays most of the taxes and they want to hit them even harder. Can this top 3% have their taxes increased even more to cover the other 97% already? Maybe we can lean on them more but everyone needs to man up, including the likes of GE etc, etc. (as long as we pledge as a Country to drastically cut spending).

In addition, 47% of working Americans will not have to pay taxes this year. They need some skin in the game too. We can’t get out of this mess by relying on 3% of our citizens, can we?

Looks like it will get a lot worse before it gets better. Interest rates are at all time lows and the only place for interest rates to go is up. That will put the hurt on big time. We are printing so much money we are running out of ink driving the value on the $ down. In addition, raw materials across the world are soaring which will continue to drive up the cost of goods. Not a good situation.

China is a whole different animal and will effect us, they are a country on the move. They have a plan (through hyper growth) to increase their middle class by 400 million people in the next 5-10 years (1 ½ times the where the US is today). This will increase worldwide demand that will outstrip supply and prices on everything will continue to rise.

We are big trouble already but if we stay the current course, we are all screwed for sure. Country needs a BIG shakeup.

Good post.

"47% of working Americans will not have to pay taxes this year."

That is insane. AT least half of those folks can reasonably be asked to have some skin in the game. When I was in the USMC, I fought for them too, so they can pay their share.

'the only place for interest rates to go is up. That will put the hurt on big time. "

That is really going to hurt, you are correct. It will cost us more to servise our debt. Furthermore, it means mortgage rates go up, which means housing prices go down...

You also didn't mention INFLATION, which (like interest rates) has been absurdly low, and (like interest rates) has nowhere to go but up. That will also put the brakes on any growth.

I don't see how we avoid "stagflation", which is the God-awful scenario where inflation is raising, byt GDP is shrinking. It's the combination of inflation and recession, which is very bad.

And, at the same time, states/towns are facing the same troubles, and will be raising income taxes and property taxes.

It's going to get really, really ugly, no 2 ways about it. The first thing we need to do is elect politicians who recognize the urgency of the situation, and who will not kick the can down the road.

Even still, as recently as a few weeks ago, Obama was adamantly opposed to any menaingful cuts. Any cut amount that starts with a "B", as in billions, is meaningless. We need to start talking about cuts measured in trillions, not billions.