Read other letters about this article

• Wednesday, April 2, 2008 03:32 PM

  Still waiting.

  I'm still waiting for answers to a number of questions:

  - How is that $9 trillion national debt ever going to get paid off? If it doubles during so-called 'good years' what's it going to do during this recession? Why should anybody lend money to the US if they'll never get their money back?

  - How can increased exports due to inflation help the US much when imports are 14% of the economy and manufacturing is only 12%?

  - When are we going to get serious about getting meaningful economic statistics? The statistics are obviously managed for political purposes, and those from the last seven years are increasingly less comparable to those of previous years because Dubya keeps changing the rules - a lot of them without external review or even proper notification.

  - How does one sustain a consumer economy (70% of GDP) while stiffing workers (consumers)? Median pay is stagnant, the wives have been put to work, and borrowing limits have been reached. Where's the new spending money going to come from?

  - What economic driver is going to lift the US economy out of recession this time? For the Great Depression there was WWII. For the 1990's there was information technology. Looking at the US economy these days there just don't seem to be any good candidates.

  - How many trillions have the rich offshored in the last two years? They offshored $12 trillion between 2001 and 2005. If it's not invested in the US it's just a drain on the economy. Anybody feeling drained out there?

  - What will be the effect of the shortages to the SS and Medicare systems, starting in 20 years or less? Old people dying in the streets?

  - What will be the effect of losing the hot air in the financial system? The international financial derivatives market is over $500 trillion and counting. The entire annual economic product of the planet is only a tenth of that, so an amazing amount of inflation and asset devaluation is needed to bring derivative valuations in line with actual economic product. How many people will be going under when it happens?

  - How much worse is the financial system than the Powers That Be are telling us? We know they're panicking - but they're not telling us why.

  Things haven't even gotten ugly yet, but the lack of answers to these questions pretty much ensures that they have to.

  After that it gets weird ugly, mostly because there doesn't seem to be anything to prevent it.

  —walter_map Read walter_map's other letters
  Permalink
  Flag
  Click "Submit Flag" if you feel this post is inappropriate. Explain why below if you wish.

  Cancel