I know you didn’t say that, but “…I’ve never heard such a superficial, simplistic statement regarding the complexities of national or world politics than is represented in…” that statement….

I’ve never heard such a superficial, simplistic statement regarding the complexities of national or world politics than is represented in your statement outside of dumb blonde jokes and the like.

I’ve read an awful lot of conspiracy theories (on both sides). Some seem pretty ridiculous. Some are more credible. But the official story just doesn’t do it for me. With all the arguments I’ve read, I’m still up in the air about it (from a debate/evidence perspective).

To those who are absolutely convinced of powerful conspiracies operating all around us, I say

You haven’t read enough.

To those, like you, who are absolutely convinced they’re all paranoid, I say

You haven’t read enough.

Even though, to me, the evidence and logic is still up in the air, I get a reaction in my gut that says there are conspiracies all around us. But it could be the Mexican food I had for lunch.

Moroni warned us to awake to our awful situation before the secret combination “gets above us”. Well, It has gotten above us.

Paper money or electronic money has little to no real value by itself. Gold and silver coins have some intrinsic value, in that they have specific properties which are useful. They also have more limited quantities, so they tend to sustain their value. But directly their use as money is still a social contract and convention to facilitate trade. The money contract/system falls apart when a significant number of people fail to benefit from it, become disillusioned. Many people can see that its not real but buy into it because its what they know or fail to see better options.

I’m not so sure that the awareness of the fiat system is what will cause a “fall” to disaster. Most of us are already aware of it, but we keep earning and spending like the rest of the world.

Only a “crisis” will cause the fall. That will come in many forms. A drop in consumer confidence, a drastic drop in housing prices, free money to people who haven’t earned it, a drop in the stock market causing trillions of dollars to be lost, sudden drastic changes in employment rate, corrupt corporations deceiving the public, financiers absconding with hundreds of millions or putting their clients’ money into Ponzi Schemes.

You know things like that. I sure hope such things don’t happen in our life time.

• $650 million to help Americans upgrade to digital cable after the official transition to digital television on Feb. 17, 2009.
• $44 million to repair and improve the headquarters of the Department of Agriculture in Washington, D.C.
• $276 million to upgrade and modernize information technology at the State Department.
• $3.1 billion to fund “infrastructure projects” on federal land, including $1.8 billion for the National Park Service, $650 million for the U.S. Forest Service, and $300 million for the National Fish Hatcheries.
• $600 million for NASA, including $400 million for projects such as “satellite sensors that measure solar radiation critical to understanding climate change.”
• $1.9 billion for the Department of Energy for “basic research into the physical sciences,” including nuclear physics and fusion energy.
• $209 million for maintenance work at the federal Agricultural Research Service’s research facilities across the country.
• $400 million in repairs to various “national treasures,” including $200 million for revitalizing the National Mall, $150 for maintenance at the Smithsonian Institution, and $50 million to make up for a lack of philanthropic support for the arts.
• $850 million for “wildland fire management,” including $550 million to states for “volunteer fire assistance,” “city forest enhancements” and “wood to energy” projects.
• $400 million for “habitat restoration” projects to be doled out by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration.
• $2.7 billion for “rural water and waste disposal” grant programs for providing loans for digging wells or extending municipal water services in rural areas.
• $2 billion to provide day care services to 300,000 additional low-income children, ostensibly while their parents are at work.
• $1.2 billion to create an estimated 1 million summer jobs for young people.
• $2.5 billion to upgrade government-owned housing projects with new insulation, windows, and furnaces.
• $6.2 billion to weatherize the homes of low-income people to make them more energy efficient.
• $2.4 billion for projects demonstrating carbon-capture technology.
• $600 million to “prepare our country for universal healthcare” by training more doctors, dentists, and nurses.
• $1.5 billion to build new “Community Health Centers.”
• $20 billion to provide “nutrition assistance” for middle-income families and to lift restrictions on how long people can receive food stamps.
• An undisclosed amount to “provide 100 percent federal funding through 2010 for optional State Medicaid coverage of individuals (and their dependents) who are receiving unemployment benefits or have exhausted those benefits.”

Hey, at least the pockets of the wooden arrow industry aren’t being lined with our money this time, right?

Potlatching during some periods of time was made illegal in the United States and Canada.

“Potlatching was made illegal in Canada in 1885[9] and the United States in the late nineteenth century, largely at the urging of missionaries and government agents who considered it “a worse than useless custom” that was seen as wasteful, unproductive which was not part of “civilized” values.[10]” Wikipedia

In fact, I would argue that we have no right to force our progenitors to subsidize what our generation believes to be important. That is tantamount to slavery. Just because these people are not yet born does not diminish its insidiousness.

Rather, as Gandalf tells Frodo in Lord of the Rings, it is our duty to provide the best possible opportunities for future generations. What they do with those opportunities is their business. And, at any rate, they will face their own challenges in their own time. Creating debt that future generations must pay based on the concepts of the pro-stimulus crowd is the exact opposite this principle.

@Connor (1): “News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain.” The list should have included education, since it has devolved to an entertainment form as well.

However, make no mistake. By focusing this Keynesian stimulus plan on creating jobs, in all reality most of the $775 billion will be wasted on paying for the government officials to disburse the bailout (hey more non-producing jobs!), corporate corruption, and incredible inefficiencies. In reality, the Obama-Biden plan will likely create and sustain higher levels of unemployment than right now, just like FDR’s New Deal did.

In our post-literate world, because ideas are inaccessible, there is a need for constant stimulus. News, political debate, theater, art and books are judged not on the power of their ideas but on their ability to entertain. Cultural products that force us to examine ourselves and our society are condemned as elitist and impenetrable. Hannah Arendt warned that the marketization of culture leads to its degradation, that this marketization creates a new celebrity class of intellectuals who, although well read and informed themselves, see their role in society as persuading the masses that “Hamlet” can be as entertaining as “The Lion King” and perhaps as educational. “Culture,” she wrote, “is being destroyed in order to yield entertainment.”

It is something I struggle trying to explain to others, as well as understand myself. The Government is incapable of “having” money. Any money that they do anything with either came out of the economy via taxation or it was borrowed from China with our children as collateral. So…how can the Government “grow” the economy by shrinking it thru taxation to “grow” it thru “stimulus”.

All this stimulus/bailout talk is driving me bonkers. And I’ll tell you one thing, it is like cocaine. That is what Connor was referring to when he said that each artificial high is followed by an even lower low. As a former cocaine addict, I know there are only 2 directions to go to get out of the cycle of this addiction to stimulus:
One, to hit a “bottom” and repent and reform.
Two, to go broke, OD, and die.

I don’t see our government repenting.

I see a grander fault in the whole concept of the stimulus package as applied today. Production.

Unless something is produced, we are trying to create something out of nothing. I mentioned to a co-worker that such a concept violates the first law of thermodynamics. (He’s also an engineer involved in politics and the economy).

His response was that the laws of economics and monetary policy may or may not operate under similar principles. We’ve done an experiment for the past several decades and we’re merely waiting for the results. That’s how slowly the economy responds.

I asked him how he thought we were doing. No response but an ambiguous look and shrug.

If the stimulus is used to PRODUCE a good rather than merely ACQUIRE a stimulus, then it could do some good. But in most cases, we’re trying to acquire something that has already been produced but would otherwise be considered useless.

If a stimulus package were designed to allow homeless people with the will to work a way to produce their own food, clothing, and shelter I think it would do some good. But we’re being asked to find it our patriotic duty to go to the mall.

Bush did it before, now Obama’s going to do the same thing. Dems loved using the epithet McBush to describe how McCain was no different than Bush. Is there much of a difference between Bush and Obama? Not much when it comes to the economy so far. We’ll see how he develops as time goes on.

I don’t enjoy my current job, but I am productive, in the sense that I am a cog in the organization, providing a function. I personally feel that I am not functioning at my full potential, but I don’t see any way to get out and move ‘up’, very fast at the moment. or move in a different direction which may not be ‘up’.

I find comfort in creating cards which I have sent out to friends and family, and a few people have bought some, but I certainly can’t say its an economic success so far. But it has managed to provide me joy and happiness that I never knew was possible. It also has helped me quite a bit to try and figure out what other people might want in a card. Money is important if it helps you meet physical and emotional needs, but its not the end all. Certainly I believe that one needs to fulfill basic needs before you can advance ethically and emotionally.

Meanwhile, didn’t my government give Citigroup a bunch of money – I’m giving Citigroup a bunch of money, too – seems like the only ones benefiting are the mega rich. Is Congress invested in Citigroup?

I don’t know how to stop it. I think we are in over our heads and I would rather do whatever it takes and face the tough times NOW than make my kids and grandchildren suffer – is that a minority opinion or is everyone else just more interested in spending their “free” money?

What can be done?