Hi Clarke -
Re: "Ultimately, that could make the U.S. even more vulnerable than Europe."
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I think most who read this thread are aware that the keystone in the tottering arch of global economics is the United States: its economy, and its finances. If the keystone crumbles, everything falls. If the stone next to the keystone fails, the structure is in peril. We know the whole rotten edifice is unstable, wavering in the wind, held together only by the realization - as noted by Hawk and many others - that the cure is as bad as the disease.
So either way, the future is bleak. Since 2008, the global economy has engaged in a protracted bout of "extend and pretend" where Keynesian stimulus - and increased debt - was invoked to to get us to stability and growth. To get us past the destruction caused by neoliberal economics. But this time, particularly in the US - it isn't working. And guess what? The same economics, the same ideology that drove the world to the edge of disaster is STILL at work in corporations, in the financial sector, in governments.
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For the moment, let's disregard those who have their carpeted shelters stocked with food, their machine guns loaded and their gold stashed. Let's talk about ordinary people. You know, cab drivers, computer programmers, auto workers, welders, teachers, loggers, mechanics, farmers and nurses. What are they supposed to do?
The answer is that they're helpless. They've been robbed. Their future has been placed in grave danger; they, and their children have been saddled with crushing debt. If it all falls apart, their predicament is even worse. And let's face it: as the world approaches the limits of sustainability, as population continues to grow, as resources peter out while the climate turns hostile, and as the cost of energy - if in future you can get it and pay for it - rises, "growth" in the economic sense will be minimal as presently, we are seeing. A world economy based on expansion and consumerism fueled by almost unlimited access to cheap energy is passé. However, political and economic elites still propagate the Big Lie: that we will grow our way out of debt. Happy days will be here again.
No, they won't. The political, financial and corporate elites that got us here, and those whose misdeeds increased the damage and injustice are sponsoring a delusion, at best.
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Is there any hope? For social justice? To see the beneficiaries of fraud, financial predation and theft locked up? To be free of massive sovereign debt? Four years ago, I posted a wish that people would hit the streets. But the sad fact is that they really didn't understand what happened. And even if they did, they were afraid to lose their jobs. They were trapped.
They're still trapped. There's nowhere to go, no place to hide, and no way to escape the consequences whether it hangs together or falls apart. If there's another crash, it will be worse, far worse than The Dirty Thirties, because we live in a more complex and interdependent world.
In my opinion, that's the ugly truth.
Jim |
