Originally Posted by Tchocky

SUBMAN, just back this one up and I'll stop

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

Its alright. Such things happen on the Internet, especially when one makes broad sweeping statements such as I did. To clarify, my remark was aimed at Fish because of his smug "The game is not over yet" remark. He seems pretty happy with the prophecized impending downfall of the United States.

Originally Posted by Iceman

Where is your hope?
Where is your faith?
What is your reason for living?
Skybird just comes off as a severely depressed and lonely individual in his posts.

Originally Posted by P_Funk

You are committing one of the oldest and most pathetic argumentative sins. You are attacking the man and not his opinions and words. I see no googled links, no "well I read this in a book that says different...". I see no personal experience with economics or business to counter his remarks about the American Economy. And you accuse him of making baseless prophecies.

Being critical is not wishing the worst, its fearing it. Its what politicians are elected to do, and what economists are paid to do. So please at the very least enough of this Oprah BS where you want everyone to put out positive energy to the universe about the US. Be an intellectual.

Originally Posted by Iceman

Never said he was wrong Fishy it will get worse than that I'm sure...just the doom and gloom sermon gets old....with the fortunes Skybirds predicts I don't know why anyone would want to continue with life at all.

Where is your hope?
Where is your faith?
What is your reason for living?
Skybird just comes off as a severely depressed and lonely individual in his posts.

Originally Posted by PeriscopeDepth

He seems pretty happy with the prophecized impending downfall of the United States.

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

The links, magazine articles, and such have been painting disaster as long as I've been alive. How about actually living the experience? Where there are downturns, there are upswings on the flip side. Some people read Chalmers Johnson, and buy it hook, line, and sinker. And the "prophecies" of doom never come true. The only doom that seems to come is the trash these so-called intellectuals produce. I'm not saying there are no troubles and everything's fine and dandy. I'm not saying that things don't need improvement. But I assure you, the USA is not in imminent danger of economic collapse. :rotfl: There is more economic output from the single state of California than most nations in the world.

Originally Posted by P_Funk

I don't want the world to collapse, but you can't sit back and assume that your dutiful leaders are only doing whats best for you. And thats what we're talking about. Its not a prophecy of doom, its a critical analysis of whats happening and a duscussion of why it might be bad, ie. what will happen if things don't change.

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

Oh, no. I think our dutiful leaders are doing a bang up job screwing things up. If you reread what I actually said here, I don't think everythings hunky dory. We do have problems. But you're talking economic collapse that drags the entire world down some unrecoverable hell-hole. It's more likely we'll see a financial realignment of sorts. The world wasn't as financially linked decades ago as it is today. And right now, the economic output of individual US states exceeds most of the world including developed nations. California alone would be the 7th largest economy in the world if it was a nation unto itself. Texas is growing at a phenomenal rate of economic output as well. I see trouble in the currency. Their will be further erosions in the dollar as a reserve currency, and potential future recessions. But I don't see an impending doomsday scenario waiting to drag every nation into the dark ages. And no, I don't see China doing anything in the near or far term to destroy it's source of major growth. If they do, they go down the tubes as well. And I'm not sure they have the ability to realign as well as Western nations can at this point in time. If their economy dies, their whole system likely goes with it. The Chinese leadership fears this more than anything. They're screwed if their power evaporates. And they know it.

Originally Posted by P_Funk

What does hope have to do with anything? Hope is an emotion. And faith, well faith is for people that don't want the responsibility of facing reality with fact and critical thought.

You can't attack a man just on the basis that he's critical. Optimism isn't a panacea for grim situations. And I don't believe that Skybird is being negative for his own depressive satisfaction. He made specific reference to a number of economic and social trends in the American economy which cannot be characterized as being good things for anyone that likes the Red White and Blue and you attack him because he doesn't buy into Manifest Destiny.

You are committing one of the oldest and most pathetic argumentative sins. You are attacking the man and not his opinions and words. I see no googled links, no "well I read this in a book that says different...". I see no personal experience with economics or business to counter his remarks about the American Economy. And you accuse him of making baseless prophecies.

You aren't arguing, you're decrying. But I suspect that you don't argue because you either have no respect for the conventions of argument or that you have no means to tell him he's wrong because you can't fathom any other concept than your own rah rah patriotism.

Being critical is not wishing the worst, its fearing it. Its what politicians are elected to do, and what economists are paid to do. So please at the very least enough of this Oprah BS where you want everyone to put out positive energy to the universe about the US. Be an intellectual.

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Where did anyone say that the failure of the American economy would spell the end of civilization? Economies fall and new ones rise. It just wont be nice for anyone living on this particular rock. And nobody is predicting the collapse topmorrow. But in economics down the road what ahppens to day and continues to happen will have long term effects. Its like smoking. If you don't stop you'll have problems, even if you're 25 and can still run a mile a minute. Long term. Probably the end of my lifetime. Thats where economics leads. But the short term is imortant for long term outcomes. Thats the flaw in american economic policy.

Originally Posted by Sea Demon

Well, you certainly cover your bases, don't you. Even if America does not collapse in 100 years... it still might in 200. So you can't be wrong. I guess we're doomed folks. :D Like I've sadi, America's doom has been predicted my whole life. The dollar has been in jeapardy for as long as I could remember. And it was predicted long ago (in the early 80's)that Japan was going to own me, my house, and my first-born child.

Originally Posted by P_Funk

Well I'm sorry that creating a realistic informed view of the potential future of our civilization isn't a simplistic process that can be summed up in a basic subject-predicate clause.;)

Its true that our economic dominance of the world will end some day. However its like knowing that you're going to die: I can still control how I die for the most part. The kind of short term economic brilliance that the US is playing at is something that is beneficial over the short and detrimental over the long. Its like getting really high today, and finding out that I've destroyed my liver and I'm gonna die at 43. See this is where my excessive lazy and useless left wing politics come into play. Capitalism is a self defeating beast. Capitalism goes on these long weekend economic benders and like all of them they crash. I believe one popular expression is the boom-bust economy. And of course you have to take into account the people who are benefitting over the short and the long term with how things are going. And the truly wealthy don't really care about the USA. They'll just live in a penthouse in Beijing instead.

The point here is that every economy dies or at least every economy loses its dominance. But how all of that comes about is a matter of variables. How we comport ourselves today as an economic region tells us how we'll end up by the time our kids or our kid's kids are on subsim having this same unending discussion.

@ Iceman
I never said you were a hick with no brain. If you really were an idiot I wouldn't answer you because theres no point really in arguing with people that don't understand anything. So I don't feel superior to you. But I am confused by what you mean. You agree with most of what Skybird says but also decry him for saying it? Are you just slamming him for not being an optimist?