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MusicalBoredom -> RE: "Why the US is collapsing" (3/25/2008 7:29:08 AM)
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I really get tired of people blaming economic woes on welfare. It's the classic grade school game of "it wasn't me -- it was them." As has already been pointed out, welfare pays for children not adults. Please refer to this table http://aspe.hhs.gov/hsp/social-welfare-spending04/summary.htm to see what the government spends on "social programs." You will see that cash assistance accounts for very little ($21 billion). We spend more on bailing out industries such as the $130 billion just to bailout the Savings and Loan industry in the 90s, $13 billion a year just to subsidize the airline industry, or the $25 billion in farm subsidies alone. Now I'm not suggesting that the government helping out industries is bad. If the farmers quit farming we loose the ability to grow our own food and a lot of people end up unemployed. Similar problems would occur if the airline, auto or banking industries failed. The real problems exist in the people -- that's right it's you and me Joe citizen.
The problem pointed out in the (suspiciously one sided) link by the OP is that of trade deficit. We buy more than we sell and in the end global economies are basically a big goods for goods exchange. Why do we have a trade deficit? Well we seem to believe on the whole that it is our right to each own a car, computer, annually new wardrobe, big screen TV and any number of new shiny toys to play with. Since most of us have middle class incomes we can't afford for those products to be made in the US. The reason we can't afford for them to be made domestically is that we all have to have salaries to afford those same goods. It's some bad economic circle jerk. The farms are in trouble because we can't pay full price for groceries since we have to also eat out 5 times a week. The airlines are in trouble because the have to sell cheap tickets so we can all (I know "all" is an exaggeration) go to Vegas a few times a year just like we see on TV. Manufacturing is in trouble because every man woman and child in the country has to have a 42 inch flat screen TV in their bedroom and to be able to afford it they can only be made by cheap labor (from countries where they don't all have flat screen TVs). The banks are in trouble because we all had to live in houses that were too expensive for us to afford. Note that not one of those problems is caused by the poor (immigrant or not) but by Joe average citizen.
So in other words if we would quit being fat, lazy, self-entitled Americans and start putting in a hard days work for a fair pay instead of trying to live like the "rich and famous" (damn you Robin Leeach, it's all your fault) then we might be able to live within our national means.
(taking a deep breath and climbing down from my soapbox)
Hallelujah, Amen
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