You must be registered for see links
this^ is scary, good thing i don't live in usa...
It won't really matter.
When the U.S. collapses - most of the 'developed' and 'developing' world will go with it.
Even if we miraculously fix the problem we're in now (highly improbable - we are in the twilight years of our civilization; we've become too complacent to do what is necessary) - the best it will accomplish is to shift the 'burden' over to another power (much as the second World War saw the dissolution of the British Empire and saw the U.S. and the Soviet Union rise in her place) - and then that power will breed complacency within that society until they face similar problems.
Eventually, someone fails at resolving the problem before power can shift, and the result is a dark age.
I would say that the U.S. has something in the neighborhood of a 2-5% chance of recovering from this problem. But the reality is that over 50% of our population receive some kind of direct subsidy from government spending programs. That creates an inherent conflict of interest in the voting booth. People have grown up on these programs and entire segments of our society would -die- if we were to end them.
Few people are honestly going to vote for suicide; and too few people are willing to let nature run its course on people who require a government system to survive. They'll vote to continue those systems because they can't stand to see someone die.
It's this idea that you can make the system of taxation work out to be 'nice' and 'kind hearted' that will destroy us. Taxation is a necessary evil. No one should ever support more government spending without subjecting it to the highest degree of scrutiny.
Government exists fundamentally to limit people. It's a system of rules and restrictions that people agree to live by in order to standardize and deconflict procedure. It's not meant to increase freedom, merely to provide fence-rows within a featureless pasture of conduct.
Its ability to benefit society is inherently limited.
People just don't understand how dire the problem is.
But, in the end, nature wins. You can bend the rules for a time - but it eventually catches up. The law of math dictates that public debt increase inflation. Increasing federal spending into a deficit eventually guarantees geometric increases in monetary supply for the same economic activity (hyper-inflation).
There are ways to hide it, 'sink' it, and obscure it. The housing market is one such way. Increasing minimum wage is another (though this drives service and retail inflation directly - so it's a double-edged sword... and higher-paying industries cannot be cost-competitive while raising their wages for employees previously making, say, 50% more than minimum wage, who are now only making 5% more than minimum wage and experiencing cost inflations driven by minimum wage hikes).
More people go onto support programs in order to survive (it's available... and you have children who need to be fed... can you really sit and let them starve because of problems created by other groups of people?), more people grow up under the system, general acceptance of the system as a good and necessary thing grows. Politicians demonize employers who cannot afford to keep up with growing regulatory pressures, union demands, and minimum wage increases (which prompt unions to demand even higher wages for employees to make the same percentage over minimum wage... while those unions also lobby for higher minimum wage). People remember how the government programs allowed them to survive despite the evil employers who wouldn't pay them a 'living wage.'
When the debt issue begins to become more obvious, politicians begin blaming those people who are wealthy. Obviously, they must be doing something unfair. Half the country is on subsidies, and they aren't... why aren't they paying their fair share?
The reality of figures elude the average individual, who is now barely literate. The fact that over half of all tax revenues come from the top 20% of income earners doesn't factor into their perspective (it's actually closer to 75% provided by the top 20%). Cunning political campaign workers use deceptive statistics to try and paint a picture that doesn't exist. A CEO cashes out on stock options one year, and his net earnings get quoted as if it were his salary (even though those stock options were built up over his career).
If I were an optimistic person - I'd say it was all an organized conspiracy to destroy us.
However, my experiences have shown pessimism to be more accurate than optimism when it comes to the motives and abilities of others.
It's simply short-sighted people looking for ways to gain power. Once a society is no longer hungry for competition; their lust for development sated... they begin to try and bring about various ideal philosophical concepts and to live according to them. They are no longer concerned with the practical; with what generates results. They're concerned with whether or not something is 'fair' - and start trying to structure their government and society to make things 'fair.'
Like all of the goodness in the human heart - it is exploited by people concerned with only their own advancement. On one end - you have people who use these systems to avoid having to work or become productive. On the other hand, you have politicians who will support these programs because they are what people believe to be 'fair' and 'just.'
The truly good hearted people are taken from both ends because of their foolishness.
And, just like all good things, it will be raped and exploited until there is nothing left but selfish people to rape and exploit each other.
That is the course of society. That is what humans are.
Kindness - goodness.... is something to be guarded very carefully. It's what distinguishes people from humans. You cannot love a human into being a person. You will, ultimately, be exploited. If you ever extend kindness to someone you do not know, do so fully prepared to accept that it will be exploited and that you will come out worse off for it.
I, for one, welcome the dawn of this coming dark age. Darkness, after all, is just an opportunity for new light. Not that humans will change - but perhaps people will be able to create something to liberate them from the fate of humans.
