From Ron Paul in one direction to those who want a revolution against the rich as another direction.
One thing that hasn't been happening is concrete proposals in a lot of different directions to try to stop economic collapse, instead of just from one ideological perspective. I have several suggestions which I will make later on in this article. Come on we are like a family riding a car with bald tires with most of the family trying not to think about it. One member wanting to switch to bicycles, another to stop and stay where they are, but most of the family resigned to continue driving without anyone suggesting getting new tires.
Ron Paul wants the US to end involvement with other nations. One area to examine Paul's suggestion was when President Bush decided not to fight pirates after bin Laden's threats to join them in retaliating. This doesn't lead to a one-sided conclusion because Italy for a while took up the slack with gunboats attacking pirates.
As for a total crackdown on the rich, the rich reacted by sabotaging Obama's policies of limited efforts to control them, and poured money in the Republican direction in the last election, which is one of the reasons Obama backed down in his latest tax and economic stimulus compromises. Attempts at total crack down would lead most of the 44 millionaires who joined Warren Buffet,
click here
in supporting the end to the tax cuts for the well off to join in the sabotage.
The very worse withdraw scenario is the US trying to leave as the dollar is collapsing into junk currency with the elated al Qaeda suicide-bombing the withdrawing US troops and trying to seize US weapons. The antiwar movement claims there are no al Qaeda troops in Afghanistan, but there certainly are al Qaeda connected suicide bombers.
Some claim that Obama's skillful bailouts and negotiations with other nations, stopped financial collapse. Some of the same people claim that Obama's latest tax compromise extending unemployment benefits for 13 months saved us from depression-like conditions, but that his compromises with those who want pork, especially tax-cut pork for the well off, limited Obama's accomplishment. The problem is, even if it's true, all people see is things slowly getting worse, and Obama claiming that they are going to get better, and Obama getting in the way of people discovering that tax cuts for the well off who tend to save, not spend, might lead to a depression-like meltdown.
Manufacturing jobs are all gone, the Internet hires ever more frequently from the lowest paid parts of the world, greatly accelerating the race to the bottom where nations cut wages and working conditions to compete better. With the Internet, the race to the bottom is on automatic pilot, without revolution and worker's organizations to get in the way. So no matter how much Obama succeeds at slowing the decline down he will be blamed for not returning the US to the world we once were.
The euro and the dollar are tied together to the extent that there is no way for either the dollar or the euro to collapse into junk currency and have the other survive.
A bit of good news concerning the possible total collapse of the West is that the economies of Norway and New Zealand are soaring. Following this good news should be a good place to post positive ideas in different directions that might set the ball moving toward improving things.
Iceland is being bailed out by Europe, but it has the lowest business taxes in the world, so many companies make their corporate headquarters there. Raising the business tax could be a condition for more aid. Then the US and Europe together raise the business tax to stop capital flight to where the tax was lowest. Then the US and Europe could get together to end the loophole of offshore banking.
There were efforts with some state governments to get prescriptions filled in Canada and elsewhere. This can save a lot of money on medical costs, perhaps even individuals can get 5% kick back from say medicare, medicaid, and Obama care if they get their prescriptions cheaper on the Internet, providing there is a way of making sure what they get is quality medicine. Of course that is a big if.
The US embargo on Cuba is hurting the US economically and the more it succeeds the more Cubans in this country send foreign aid back to their relatives in Cuba. Some Americans took their Social Security check to Mexico where everything is cheaper and the US saved money on medicare and medicaid, but crime is getting in the way of new arrivals. Crime free Cuba would be a perfect place to retire and no more medicare costs, and if red tape is cut, close enough for easy visits back to the US.
If the US would grant 10% of Medicare, Medicaid, SSI and welfare benefits to those going overseas, Americans in Cuba would make money from the US whenever they got sick until Cuba changed its laws to charge that amount to foreigners seeking medical care in otherwise free health care Cuba. Then the 10% adjusted up and down to the lowest point Americans would seek and get medical care overseas. Some hospitals in the US, on an experimental effort, are trying to get robots to give bedridden patients baths and to feed them, with alarms temporarily to call a human nurse if the patient starts to resist. It would be far more humane for sick persons to seek medical nursing care where it's cheap rather than a future in the US where machines, not people, treat the convalescent. One way or another, a lot of money is being saved by having medical procedures done in other countries of the world, see medical tourism also online pharmacies Wikipedia, and
http://www.medicaldiscounts.com/employers_insurance.htm
Perhaps others could join me in suggestions to improve things that are not ideologically pure, and post them here or post my suggestions to their suggestions.
Now the US is back in the pirate fighting business. In one incident, while in telephone contact with the crew, US swooped down on the ship, grabbing the pirates, without anyone getting hurt. More such victories and the US bankrupting itself is getting ever closer. Vietnam swooped down on the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot in Cambodia, the world cheered. This was probably an unreported reason that the US expected the same results in Iraq. However, Vietnam didn't engage in "shock and awe" or nation building. But all or nothing is part of the US character whether right, left or center. Somehow other articles need to deal with the US's all or nothing syndrome.
by
Richard Kane
