lol @ made up numbers. 3.5 million homeless, bahahahahahahahahha! Don't buy everything some tool on the internet with a strong agenda is selling. Such claims throw into doubt all of the other numbers cited.

And banks closing branches is a wonderful thing because their brick and mortar locations were their highest source of overhead. With the increasing popularity of online banking, far more customers can be serviced with far fewer locations.

And businesses that are weak should fail. If they don't then our free market ceases to function properly. Without strife and failure, there is no improvement.

I thought it was get a manicure and take the kids shopping -Lynzee Stauss

Federal minimum wage is a price fix on the labor market.

+1 I see stupid people...(6th sense)

To the rest of you, these are not my thoughts. Just reposted because they were interesting.

The real cause of the coming end of the Fed Gov as we know it is the debt bomb.
Many empires ended when the cost of servicing the debt (paying interest on it), approached the cost of maintaining the military. And no, just slashing the military budget won't be enough. The biggest elephant in the room is Medicare. The politicians kept promising entitlements that cannot be delivered. They are unsustainable. And this is true of almost all welfare governments of the west:

US DEBT CLOCK
http://www.usdebtclock.org/

WORLD DEBT CLOCK
http://www.usdebtclock.org/world-debt-clock.html

The sounding board of the Establishment (the hidden political class), now are truly worried too:
http://www.lewrockwell.com/north/north916.html

Here are historical parallels to other empires:
http://www.niallferguson.com/site/FE...aspx?pageid=52

What will happen? Civil war? No. This is what I think:
- the other central banks of the world will cease to buy Treasury Debt, causing interest rates to rise, increasing the cost of servicing the debt
- the FED will buy the debt using money created out of nothing, creating price inflation
- the USD will cease to be the reserve currency of the world
- the deficit will grow tremendously, and the first thing to be cut will be the military budget
- the Fed Gov will stiff the oldsters
- the States will "revolt", invoke the 10th, and hold the tax collections that go to the Fed Gov that just come back with strings attached
- the Fed Gov will cede power to the State Govs
- there will be a long belt-tightening period as the USD erodes and the standard of living drops
- manufacturing jobs that had been outsourced will come back

This de-centralization of power in the long term, will be a good thing. People will realize that the welfare state is unsustainable, and was simply a means to power by the elite.

This doesn't sound half bad...

This is an interesting hypothesis, when do you see all this happening? Within our lifetimes?

Next Thursday.

Brb - going to Walmart for ammunition.

Wal mart? F those jerk offs too. That's the biggest unamerican place to shop in this country.

If you're calling me un-American by where I shop, then fuck you. I'm assuming that, in your glass house, you are self-sustaining and by your definition, a pure American? Yeah, shut the fuck up.

Not saying it applies to you directly, but seeing this on a board where we are in love with the chinacooler and the shanghai churbo, it is humorous.

Wal-mart may be, by and far, the one reason we haven't failed yet. Have you ever noticed how tremendously fast Wal-Mart has grown? It is an example of what America could be if the government stopped pretending that everyone in America was entitled:

• Entitled to a big screen TV
• Entitled to live for years after being diagnosed with and expensive, life-ending, chronic illnesses
• Entitled to own their own home
• Entitled to own a business
• Entitled to a retirement
• Entitled to eat
• Entitled to go to college
• Entitled to own a car
• Entitled to a paycheck

The reality is: no one is entitled to shit for living in America - with three exceptions - which aren't actually entitlements - they are "rights".

Life - We entitle that the government will take no action to end your life, unless you have ended the life of another.

Liberty - The government will not force you to do anything, you are free to do as you will, with one exception. Since you theoretically are self-governing, you must financially support the government, which effectively means you "provide for yourself"

The pursuit of Happiness - Do NOT confuse this with "happiness". The government is not here to provide you with a means to be happy. The right being provided here is "the pursuit", "of happiness" merely defines what it is that you are being provided the opportunity to pursue. You are allowed to act and make decisions which contribute to your own personal happiness.

You are granted these rights, and are able to act on any of them as long as they do not violate the rights of another person. The current government has confused the third liberty "the pursuit of happiness" with "happiness". To provide people with "happiness" they have continued to improve the economic situation of people who have not earned those economic improvements in order to make those people happy. Instead of earning it themselves, the "wealthy" are forced to improve the "poor" economic situation. In addition, to make up for what they can't rob from the "wealthy", we have, for years, asked other countries to work hard for us so that we can live well. Right now, as I type this, there is some old man working his ass off in a factory in China so that a lazy SOB in the United States can pay his cell phone bill instead of helping his baby's momma out with food bills.

The people in China work for low wages and get by as well as those who get paid government paychecks - why doesn't our government allow us to do the same? Nobody needs a 46" 1080p LCD TV. Nobody needs to be able to afford to live in their very own home. Nobody needs to own a car. Nobody needs to be able to retire. Nobody needs to earn more money because they've worked over 40 hours a week. People that I know who work their asses off 50,60,80,100 hours/week for minimum wage make MUCH SMARTER decisions about what they do with their money than those who recieve a paycheck from the government.

I don't care where anybody shops in America. We are free to support anything we want whether it be American or not. I just tried to stir the pot, and it looks like I shook it up. Fuck me? Whatever. I'll drive my import car and buy my underwear at wal mart knowing that a 6 year old prostitute sewed it together in hong kong, and not care. Why? Cause I can shoot my AR 15 off of my deck without a communist government telling me what to do.

What are you talking about? everything about walmart is american.

If you're younger than 40, I would say, almost certainly. And what a lot of people don't get is that almost all of the welfare governments of Europe have the same long-term financial problems.

Historically the turning point of empires' collapses have been when the cost of paying the interest on the debt passes the cost of maintaining the empire's military. This can happen very, very suddenly, when foreign central banks decide not to buy US Debt, raising interest rates. I will guess it is likely within the next 10 years, possibly within the next 4.

While there are few breaks I don't like, the recent talk of extending the Bush tax cuts, *without* any talk of spending cuts, just proves my point that meaningful tax cuts are politically impossible. This will grow the deficit, and hasten the coming insolvency of the Fed Gov.

The debt is essentially unpayable. The Fed Gov *will* default. It is just a question of when and how. I think it will progressively stiff various voting blocs, such as the oldsters and the gov't unions.

Do you think you can cough up $1.011 Million over the next 30 year to pay your share of the public debt?

LOL, Hong Kong is #1 in economic freedom (The USA is #8):
http://www.heritage.org/index/

Taxes are way, way lower, they have far, far fewer regulations that hamper small business, they have the highest # of millionaires per square mile, and are one of the top buyers of luxury items such as Rolex, Fendi, and designer jewelry. They also have a kickass night skyline. Perhaps you are thinking about Bangladesh or Myanmar.

China is the new financial super power.

Yes, but do I get a t-shirt or anything?

No, but if you become a site supporter rick will send you MT.net stickers.