In the 60's, the world was going communist. It looks good on paper. The argument could be made we had a choice--go communist or die. We didn't, and we did better. (Note: You would have to debate if Russia or China are truly communist any more, or simply "1-party control." When you're raking in billions, have huge differences in pay, and looking for ways to out-compete others, it's hard to argue you're communist)
I agree they are not truly communist. It's a new governmental system that mixes serious socialism with totalitarism and capitalism.
Governmental systems change and evolve all the time. This new system doesn't have a name, which is really striking given how much power and popularity it has gained, but then that probably helps keep people in the dark about it.
Lenon and Stalin are probably getting serious woodies right now in hell because their brainchild has since evolved into a system that takes full advantage of the western capitalist greed, while retaining at least a good portion of their basic principles and socialism and totalitarism.
I mean what could better? Either you go to war and bankrupt yourself, destroy your country and society or you make offers to a greedy capitalist society that they can't bear to refuse and allow them to freely and willingly transfer all of their wealth, technology and manufacturing to your shores, all the while draining their own resources to point of not even being able to make war. And now to top it all off, now that they have all the wealth, and we don't..we have to borrow that wealth back, making us the slave to the lender. Like I said...Stalin and Lenon, are loving this right now. They couldn't have a done a better job destroying America if they had forever to do it the old way.
Is America losing wealth at a huge rate? (Well, aside from the recent *worldwide* collapse.) Or, for the last 20 years have other countries been raising up to match our level? I believe the latter, based on total global net economic worth.
It depends on how you measure wealth. Our GDP is better (or at least was) that any single country, but is less than the European Union. It also depends on how you measure GDP, as that's changed, like every other economic measurement, to influence the numbers.
When you run the numbers regarding government reserves, we are probably among the poorest of nations, certainly major nations, when you subtract our debt verses are miniscule reserves, compared to China which has a net wealth in the trillions.
And what's better--other countries hating us for our wealth, or developing their own and wanting to maintain stability?
I think socialism would fade as uncompetitive *if* we would get back to a an *open* and *free* competitive model. Unfortunately, we creep more socialistic every year, and our response to every issue is more government intervention, distorting the free market, and leading to more government intervention.
The world is fast gravitating to a new global economic system with global government control. It's seem surreal, but it's true. We already have a global economic government in place and as the world collaspes, this new system will fully take over which means it won't matter one lick what we do or system we have. Either we compete in the new system or we completely abstain from it. And our depedence on foreign investment, oil, debt and even goods and food, means that it's not possible for us to go into isolationism and not completely collaspe as a nation. At least not anymore.
In other words, balls out of our court now. Our chance to stop this was not to support the new global economic government and the new socialist/totalitarian/capitalist system that was taken hold in places like Asia and Russia, South America and now Europe.
Speaking of which, it took me a while but here is the status on housing breaks by the fed.
Rent: No tax breaks. No federal assistance, except for the very poor in the welfare program (Section 8). Some states give some people a state tax break. Can't pay your rent? Evicted.
Buy home: Deduct interest on mortgages up to $1 million, deduct property taxes, shield capital gains taxes on sale from federal tax. In 2008, the tax breaks cost the government $145 billion. The government funnels below-market-rate credit into housing through Fannie and Freddie, which can borrow at preferential rates at taxpayer expense, and be bailed out, also at taxpayer expense. First time home buyers can recieve a $7500 tax credit. Mortgage ceiling for Fannie/Freddie raised from $417k to $625k. Can't pay your mortgage? Government bailout programs.
None of this counts, of course, the hundreds of billions in extra tax money spent on roads and utilities, additional snow clearing, or even gas for school buses, as people are more spread out and need more roads, sewer pipe, and all the rest to connect them.
It's a very interesting point. Housing was heavily subsidized and it's partly why prices were and still are so unrealisticly high. In my opinion, housing has now become a fool's investment and probably will remain so for many years to come, probably even decades. It's a done deal now. The only people who will prosper now in the housing market are those who purchased so long ago that that might still realize a net profit when the prices finally settle at their bottom years from now or those that are able to buy years later when prices are at record lows and are able to do so with cash.
I'm not anti-home; I happen to own one and prefer it. I am just honest about it: Renting taxpayers get the shaft, and walkable neighborhood condo living is much more energy efficient. We need to remove the government from the "free" market and let people make their own, unbiased opinions. You might see a lot of 2500 sq ft condo communities popping up, especially in areas with extreme climates that require high energy costs to moderate (New England heating bills, AZ cooling bills).
Home ownership rose from 64% of households in 1994, to 69% in 2005. For that 5% raise in US home-ownership, we collapsed the world financial market and wiped out people's retirement savings. Was it worth it?
- Data from Newsweek, August 4, 2008, p37
Well, the current economic crisis is not all about home mortgages. The home mortgage crisis touched off a minor panic, which then affected and grew into a giant global credit/financial panic, but it affects all aspects of the global economy and banking system.
If was housing alone, we could solve the problem today for less than $700 billion, but it's a problem that exceeds all the wealth and all the money supply in the world, hence the greatest financial panic of at least 100 years or more.
