I think what scares me the most about these historic scenarios is not the economic crisis but how vulnerable it leaves its people - vulnerable to invasion, to disease, and in our timeline, catastrophic climate events. When the Republicans wake up it may be too late. Widespread dangerous hurricanes, floods and fire wipe out communities and we’ve all seen it. It takes billions of dollars to rebuild, loss of life, and manpower. Rump needs to be stopped on so many levels.
I agree. But it’s not just Trump. It’s Miller, Johnson, Vought, Thiel, etc. I know but there’s a couple of more of those son of a bitches in there, but I can’t think of their name but I do know that there’s at least a half a dozen that are doing all this shit behind Trump Trump‘s just the mouthpiece I mean he deserves to go to, but he’s not the one instigating this or thinking that it’s that other shit that’s doing all this. Oh and Hegseth, too that rotten asshole how embarrassing to the military those of us who spent our lives in the military are just so embarrassed !!Hegseth a second lieutenant??? are you joking?
Republicans will never wake up. There’s a fine weave of Dominionism in their ethics. Also a pinch of apocalyptic thought. It goes against their values to act as if the end is NOT near.
The “peace” deal Witkoff, Kushner, and the Russians are submitting has the potential to implode the entire American economy if Trump gets on board with it. EU leaders, Canada, Japan and others have decided the US is no longer trustworthy when it comes to Russia, and they’re ready to teach us a very painful lesson.
They will crash our economy through the sale of US Treasuries, using the funds to counter Putin and free Ukraine.
trump did this. Putin did this. And the EU and other countries have decided World War III is not an option.
Yes, it's interesting to look at the big picture, which I think about a lot; however, just to add, Rome was already a welfare state when it changed from Republic to Empire due to the corrupt senators who had basically stolen land from the farmers that had been in their families for generations going back to the Etruscans. In fact, they probably were mostly of Etruscan descent, considering that the genocide of Etruscans and eradication of the last lineages of the Etruscan leadership was finally carried out by Sulla a few decades before Caesar's power grab, the final nail in the representative government "by the people." The 80 percent or so of the homeless poor went to the cities, like Rome, to find work, but there was no work for them because it was all being done by slaves. This is one reason why Christianity took hold the way that it did with the poor, not the elite, because if was a religion of hope of a better afterlife.
I get your point and our debt is certainly huge, but it should be possible to recover economically if we adjust our priorities. We were doing pretty well under Biden. Inflation was down, jobs were being created, we were investing in people, research, education, and green infrastructure.
We had safeguards in place. They have been eroded by a corrupt and partisan Supreme Court that delayed prosecutions on felonies, allowed an insurrectionist on the ballot and then gave him the powers of a monarch, and has allowed big money to dominate our politics and media. They have been eroded by a Congress that has repeatedly failed to follow the will of the people and has allowed the president to usurp their Constitutional authority. The partisan Senate has failed to exercise its responsibility of advice and consent and approved nominees that would not have even been put forward in the past due to their extreme incompetence and demonstrable corruption.
We don’t need new safeguards as much as to repair the erosion and destruction of the ones we already had. Get rid of the perversion of Citizens United, end election subversion, and enforce the Constitutional separation of powers and we will be 90% of the way there.
Then add reform of the Supreme Court and ending the undemocratic Electoral College. From there we can move on to a social democracy that works for all rather than continuing the upward flow of wealth and power to the billionaire class oligarchs.
We have no lack of resources. We have a problem of income distribution and wealth inequality. The thriving billionaire class has more than they could spend on necessities in hundreds or thousands of lifetimes while many working people struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table for families. Our medical care costs more per person than in any other developed democracy while delivering poorer results. The US is unique in having the vast majority of the world’s medical bankruptcies. We spend many trillions on subsidies for fossil fuels and profits for global corporations.
If Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is correct, as I think it is, we don’t need revenue, we just need to prioritize our spending appropriately. Federal taxes pay for nothing. They effectively disappear when tax payments are accepted and enter the infinite pool that is the US Treasury. All federal spending is money that is created when appropriated by Congress. Money is also created when it is doled out to banks by the FED.
As far as how we pay for programs, let’s stop the empty “pay-for” arguments. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. That is limited only by the capacity of the economy and the threat of inflation.
A sovereign currency nation literally cannot go involuntarily bankrupt. The debt ceiling is an arbitrary and ultimately meaningless number. Federal government debts are private assets. They add to the money supply.
MMT illuminates the workings of the economies of monopoly issuers of fiat currencies. The mint could create a trillion dollar coin or three and deposit them in the treasury tomorrow and balance the fictitious budget. The only real problem is inflation and that can be managed by fiscal and monetary policy including taxation, interest rates, and a jobs guarantee of public sector employment to achieve full employment while effectively setting a thriving minimum wage with full benefits. MMT explains the workings of economics for sovereign currency nations like ours.
We should and must have universal healthcare, the current system is unsustainable and not cost effective. We should have low cost or free higher education, support for child and elder care, thriving minimum wages that track productivity, and sensible regulations to protect health, safety, the environment, and the financial system. We should fund world class basic research in medicine, the sciences, and technology. We should build up our infrastructure to support people and business. We can afford our priorities. We must demand them and not be distracted by arguments about how to fund them.
Please throw your hat in the ring. Getting rid of the gerrymandered electoral college because we have the ability to count every single vote makes more sense than the corruption in play. We the people should matter a whole lot more than the elite that our only concern with their own wealth. Obviously people that are so easily influenced without any regard to facts and history and science are unaware of the damaging effects of this administration. The behind the curtain control is detrimental to a decent future for the majority of Americans. I believe the forces behind this agenda are hostile to everyone except the white, wealthy, so called Christians that hate more than 1/2 of the population.
Those empires, like all complex civilizations in recorded history, collapsed because of resource depletion that went in the opposite direction of exponential expansion that required more and more resources. That is sustainable in any era and exponential growth must come to collapse as a matter of physics. All complexity requires energy. That is a law of nature. By ignoring that reality, we like all prior empires always reach a breaking point. Ours is mostly caused by our high energy and high natural resource consumption rather than political failure. The single greatest institution causing green house gases is the us military. Preventing near term mass extinction requires a collapse of the global industrial civilization in order to stop destroying the biological world that we depend on at the most basic level.
Yo, Dude, if we actually teach history after Ronnie Raygun cut the shit out of edukatin back in the 1960s, this would not be wut we tawkin bout right now. I'm free after losing everything in the Eaton/Altadena fire. All the papers, documents and books and whatever I could refere to are more than toast, ashes that the 90 MPH winds blew out over the ocean.
I was skeptical of you months ago. You started to sound like you actually had a handle on history. Perhaps if we survive this shit, you, Rick Wilson and MAYBE Steve Schmidt, can sit down and talk. Maybe. Heather, Joyce and some others give all of us the details we need, but on the in your face level the three of us might hit some serious points, capisce?
Invoke 14th amendment section 3 against trump and vance deport musk and ramaswamy! force the entire republican party gop all of Project 2025 architects oligarchs centrist democrats to all resign even more under super hard pressure every single day week month and year!! it's time for a real change in Washington D.C. permanently!!! elect The Progressive Party and The Green Party two brand new anti-trump anti-fascists political parties.
Putin's economy is cratering. Taco Loco's polls are cratering. I think EU and Canada hold the cards, our debt, and if necessary they can lash our economy like a bull whip. Maybe that's Trump and his evil advisers' plan, to blow up our economy and be the strong man to restore order. RESISTANCE BUYS TIME!
Let me stop you right there. The British Empire collapsed for two reasons, debt accumulated from two world wars and the age of empire was over, the British, French and Dutch empires faded away after World War Two. The U.S. did not demand Britain give up its empire, the empire demanded independence, and got it. Am surprised you didn’t use a better example to fit your assertion, the Soviet Union.
I think what scares me the most about these historic scenarios is not the economic crisis but how vulnerable it leaves its people - vulnerable to invasion, to disease, and in our timeline, catastrophic climate events. When the Republicans wake up it may be too late. Widespread dangerous hurricanes, floods and fire wipe out communities and we’ve all seen it. It takes billions of dollars to rebuild, loss of life, and manpower. Rump needs to be stopped on so many levels.
I agree. But it’s not just Trump. It’s Miller, Johnson, Vought, Thiel, etc. I know but there’s a couple of more of those son of a bitches in there, but I can’t think of their name but I do know that there’s at least a half a dozen that are doing all this shit behind Trump Trump‘s just the mouthpiece I mean he deserves to go to, but he’s not the one instigating this or thinking that it’s that other shit that’s doing all this. Oh and Hegseth, too that rotten asshole how embarrassing to the military those of us who spent our lives in the military are just so embarrassed !!Hegseth a second lieutenant??? are you joking?
In agreement! The whole clown car has got to go.
Republicans will never wake up. There’s a fine weave of Dominionism in their ethics. Also a pinch of apocalyptic thought. It goes against their values to act as if the end is NOT near.
The “peace” deal Witkoff, Kushner, and the Russians are submitting has the potential to implode the entire American economy if Trump gets on board with it. EU leaders, Canada, Japan and others have decided the US is no longer trustworthy when it comes to Russia, and they’re ready to teach us a very painful lesson.
They will crash our economy through the sale of US Treasuries, using the funds to counter Putin and free Ukraine.
trump did this. Putin did this. And the EU and other countries have decided World War III is not an option.
Yes, it's interesting to look at the big picture, which I think about a lot; however, just to add, Rome was already a welfare state when it changed from Republic to Empire due to the corrupt senators who had basically stolen land from the farmers that had been in their families for generations going back to the Etruscans. In fact, they probably were mostly of Etruscan descent, considering that the genocide of Etruscans and eradication of the last lineages of the Etruscan leadership was finally carried out by Sulla a few decades before Caesar's power grab, the final nail in the representative government "by the people." The 80 percent or so of the homeless poor went to the cities, like Rome, to find work, but there was no work for them because it was all being done by slaves. This is one reason why Christianity took hold the way that it did with the poor, not the elite, because if was a religion of hope of a better afterlife.
Spot on 🎯
I get your point and our debt is certainly huge, but it should be possible to recover economically if we adjust our priorities. We were doing pretty well under Biden. Inflation was down, jobs were being created, we were investing in people, research, education, and green infrastructure.
We had safeguards in place. They have been eroded by a corrupt and partisan Supreme Court that delayed prosecutions on felonies, allowed an insurrectionist on the ballot and then gave him the powers of a monarch, and has allowed big money to dominate our politics and media. They have been eroded by a Congress that has repeatedly failed to follow the will of the people and has allowed the president to usurp their Constitutional authority. The partisan Senate has failed to exercise its responsibility of advice and consent and approved nominees that would not have even been put forward in the past due to their extreme incompetence and demonstrable corruption.
We don’t need new safeguards as much as to repair the erosion and destruction of the ones we already had. Get rid of the perversion of Citizens United, end election subversion, and enforce the Constitutional separation of powers and we will be 90% of the way there.
Then add reform of the Supreme Court and ending the undemocratic Electoral College. From there we can move on to a social democracy that works for all rather than continuing the upward flow of wealth and power to the billionaire class oligarchs.
We have no lack of resources. We have a problem of income distribution and wealth inequality. The thriving billionaire class has more than they could spend on necessities in hundreds or thousands of lifetimes while many working people struggle to pay the rent and put food on the table for families. Our medical care costs more per person than in any other developed democracy while delivering poorer results. The US is unique in having the vast majority of the world’s medical bankruptcies. We spend many trillions on subsidies for fossil fuels and profits for global corporations.
If Modern Monetary Theory (MMT) is correct, as I think it is, we don’t need revenue, we just need to prioritize our spending appropriately. Federal taxes pay for nothing. They effectively disappear when tax payments are accepted and enter the infinite pool that is the US Treasury. All federal spending is money that is created when appropriated by Congress. Money is also created when it is doled out to banks by the FED.
As far as how we pay for programs, let’s stop the empty “pay-for” arguments. Federal taxes do not fund federal spending. That is limited only by the capacity of the economy and the threat of inflation.
A sovereign currency nation literally cannot go involuntarily bankrupt. The debt ceiling is an arbitrary and ultimately meaningless number. Federal government debts are private assets. They add to the money supply.
MMT illuminates the workings of the economies of monopoly issuers of fiat currencies. The mint could create a trillion dollar coin or three and deposit them in the treasury tomorrow and balance the fictitious budget. The only real problem is inflation and that can be managed by fiscal and monetary policy including taxation, interest rates, and a jobs guarantee of public sector employment to achieve full employment while effectively setting a thriving minimum wage with full benefits. MMT explains the workings of economics for sovereign currency nations like ours.
We should and must have universal healthcare, the current system is unsustainable and not cost effective. We should have low cost or free higher education, support for child and elder care, thriving minimum wages that track productivity, and sensible regulations to protect health, safety, the environment, and the financial system. We should fund world class basic research in medicine, the sciences, and technology. We should build up our infrastructure to support people and business. We can afford our priorities. We must demand them and not be distracted by arguments about how to fund them.
https://modernmoneybasics.com/
All terrific. But it ain’t gonna go. America is still too stupid.
Please throw your hat in the ring. Getting rid of the gerrymandered electoral college because we have the ability to count every single vote makes more sense than the corruption in play. We the people should matter a whole lot more than the elite that our only concern with their own wealth. Obviously people that are so easily influenced without any regard to facts and history and science are unaware of the damaging effects of this administration. The behind the curtain control is detrimental to a decent future for the majority of Americans. I believe the forces behind this agenda are hostile to everyone except the white, wealthy, so called Christians that hate more than 1/2 of the population.
excellent synopsis...now if only the Democratic party had some guts...
Those empires, like all complex civilizations in recorded history, collapsed because of resource depletion that went in the opposite direction of exponential expansion that required more and more resources. That is sustainable in any era and exponential growth must come to collapse as a matter of physics. All complexity requires energy. That is a law of nature. By ignoring that reality, we like all prior empires always reach a breaking point. Ours is mostly caused by our high energy and high natural resource consumption rather than political failure. The single greatest institution causing green house gases is the us military. Preventing near term mass extinction requires a collapse of the global industrial civilization in order to stop destroying the biological world that we depend on at the most basic level.
Yo, Dude, if we actually teach history after Ronnie Raygun cut the shit out of edukatin back in the 1960s, this would not be wut we tawkin bout right now. I'm free after losing everything in the Eaton/Altadena fire. All the papers, documents and books and whatever I could refere to are more than toast, ashes that the 90 MPH winds blew out over the ocean.
I was skeptical of you months ago. You started to sound like you actually had a handle on history. Perhaps if we survive this shit, you, Rick Wilson and MAYBE Steve Schmidt, can sit down and talk. Maybe. Heather, Joyce and some others give all of us the details we need, but on the in your face level the three of us might hit some serious points, capisce?
Lol sounds like a plan! 😉
What is the impact of bitcoin - is that our final currency debasement?
And I don’t feel good about investing in it as protection for the future.
Well now you will be here when it ends and only after 249 years. Not long at all.
Invoke 14th amendment section 3 against trump and vance deport musk and ramaswamy! force the entire republican party gop all of Project 2025 architects oligarchs centrist democrats to all resign even more under super hard pressure every single day week month and year!! it's time for a real change in Washington D.C. permanently!!! elect The Progressive Party and The Green Party two brand new anti-trump anti-fascists political parties.
Putin's economy is cratering. Taco Loco's polls are cratering. I think EU and Canada hold the cards, our debt, and if necessary they can lash our economy like a bull whip. Maybe that's Trump and his evil advisers' plan, to blow up our economy and be the strong man to restore order. RESISTANCE BUYS TIME!
Let me stop you right there. The British Empire collapsed for two reasons, debt accumulated from two world wars and the age of empire was over, the British, French and Dutch empires faded away after World War Two. The U.S. did not demand Britain give up its empire, the empire demanded independence, and got it. Am surprised you didn’t use a better example to fit your assertion, the Soviet Union.
I did mention the Soviet Union. Did you actually read the article?
After WW2, America and the Soviet Union became the new global empires.
Funny that….they all ceased to be.
The United States corporation has been bankrupt since 1933! It has a debt based economy.