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Wow! Just had a look at this....$7 Trillion?!

Does this actually mean anything? I mean, is there some point where the US has to pay this back, or could they carry on ignoring it? (I'm not from the US). If they had to pay it back at some point, I don't get how it could have grown so much....

America doesn't owe the rest of the world a damned thing.

Wrong!! America owes the rest of the world something on the order of $7,159,918,958,491.16 ... a fact that most Americans seem all too happy to forget.

Your wonderful country is ][ this close to bankcrupcy, my friend... all those wonderful American values hasn't stopped your nation from being one of the biggest deadbeats the planet has ever known ...

You are dreaming. Let's say the government caught all the cheats. And they collected and unexpected $10B. That'd be a lot, right?

If they really could catch ALL the tax cheating and fudging, the figure would probably be more like $250 billion dollars than $10 billion dollars. $250 billion dollars sounds like a lot, but it's only about $1000/person. (Yes, you may not cheat to the tune of $1000/year, but there's certainly lots of people who cheat by a lot more than that. Be it not reporting tips, fudging the books of their business, taking bogus exemptions, not paying sales tax (we never limited this to federal taxes) when they should, whatever.)

$2*10^12 is an ungodly amount of money

Yeah! You could pay off almost 30% of the US national debt with that.

I think we need another tax cut for the wealthiest 1% so that we can run it up a bit faster. Oops, did I say tax cut? I meant tax relief.

-

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

"US got to be the richest country in the world".. Huh? Am I totally wrong when I say that US has more debt than any other country in the world? If so, makes me wonder how rich US really is? "usa debt" to Google and you should find pages like this U.S. National Debt Clock.

1 Trillion is low-balling it.

You are mistaken, your government won't pay that with taxpayers's money.

It will do as usual, print new dollar bills, thus increasing the debt, so when the world decide to switch to another currency as reserve, it will be even worse for these taxpayers.

This huge national debt comes at a price.

$1 Trillion debt and counting..

According to U.S. National Debt Clock the debt is $7 Trillion.
Each citizen's share of this debt is $24,130.43.

Last I checked the deficit was around $500 Billion.

There was little media support for the war in Iraq - at least in television and print media. Ever notice how MSNBC and CNN all report on how many casualties occurred that day in Iraq? When have you heard them discuss how power and water levels in Iraq have been restored to pre-war levels. What about the great morale of the Afghanistan troops and how they are geared up to capture Osama now that Saddam has been jailed?

Oh, god, you're one of those people who thinks Fox News is a legitimate news source, huh? It exists because Rupert Murdoch is a crazy, nutball conservative (who is, ironically, not even from America) who happens to own a major media company. They routinely make shit up on air and then pretend they never said it. The Bush administration apparently learned this trick from them.

I do care about the economy. See that GDP number recently? I don't know about you, but my 401k added a huge chunk of change over the last year. The market is up 30%. The job market is soon to follow I believe. By the way, the recessionary trend started while Clinton was still in office.

Yep. See that huge trade deficit? We're basically just shipping our money overseas. And since when did the stock market determnine the health of the economy? The stock market is always doing really well before it crashes hard. And for the record, 9/11 (which had nothing to do with Bush or Clinton) was the real reason for the severity of the recession (recessions are unavoidable, but tax cuts are not the solution when you're racking up $7 trillion in deficit) as it dramatically reduced consumer confidence and thus, spending.

I'd rather it get spent on defense than some program to provide free condoms and needles to reduce HIV infections or welfare programs.

Why? Who's going to attack us? Terrorists, yes, but more Americans die from HIV and poverty every year than in terrorist attacks. A whole lot more, in fact. Or do we need a strong military to project our will on the rest of the world? Why can't we spend $700 billion helping solve the cause of these problems? Or simply by not using it to kill people? And would you feel the same way if your kid (hypothetical child, I don't know if you have one or not) had sex with an IV drug user and got AIDS? Wouldn't you have wished the government had done more? I'm not saying these programs are always well managed, but then, military projects aren't always either.

Is adultery legal? Immoral I know. I guess his version of the Ten Commandments is pick five.

Yup, adultery is legal. It may be immoral, but that depends on each person and what their morals are. In some cultures in Africa, it's not immoral for a wife to cheat on her husband if he can't satisfy her. Hate to break it to you, but most of the world does not believe in Christ. Or even in your idea of God. Just because it doesn't adhere to your idea of right and wrong doesn't mean it IS right or wrong (though this is an ENTIRELY different philosophical debate which I'd rather not get into ;)

As usual, the conservatives tell the truth

Well I guess the truth is subjective then :)

If you're willing to open your wallet, than I'll think about going to the moon. Very funny that Bush will also be proposing another tax cut as the newest fashion for the political season ...

Why yes, that is the sound of my eyes rolling.

The spammers cost society more money than the US national debt -- every year.

I hate spam as much as anybody but what you're saying is absurd.
The US national debt is about 65-70% of US GDP. So you're saying that without spammers our GDP would be 65-70% higher? Ridiculous.

Hmmm, does even the US government hold such amount of money ?

At a rate of $25,000 per second the cents columns don't mean much.

Trillions ...

The Outstanding Public Debt as of 04 Dec 2003 at 05:40:09 AM GMT is: $6,920,018,770,791.33

The USA is Dying

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

Some numbers speak for themselves.

Take the top 5 years of American history in which discretionary spending increased the most (as a percentage of the previous year's spending). Two of those years were during WWII. Three of them were under a GOP-dominated Congress within the last five years. So much for Republican's lowering spending!

Even supposedly "tax-and-spend" president Bill Clinton managed to only have a 3.5% increase in discretionary spending during his administration (with a 0.7% decrease in non-defense discretionary spending). Reagan was famous for increasing discretionary spending 7%, while GWB has increased discretionary spending 15.6% and has increased non-defense spending a whopping 20.8% in merely three years of office! This has led to a whopping $450 billion dollar budget deficit for this year alone.

From the fiscally-conservative Cato Institute: here and here

This is in spite of approving huge tax-cuts to the rich in spite of the fact that we already have some of the lowest taxes in the world. This has twice required massive accounting trickery and Congressional action to avoid having our nation default on its debt. Bush is driving us into the ground with his lunatic economics! All of the recovery under the Republican "Contract with America" and under the Clinton administration has been brushed aside by Bush reckless combination of tax cuts and spending increases. Remember back when Clinton said that we were looking at an end to the national debt after paying off $600 billion and with it at a mere $5.7 billion back in 2000 instead of the $6.8 trillion that it is now?

In the mean time, Howard Dean has managed to keep a balanced budget on his state for 10 years, through two recessions all while paying for the social programs that needed support. Maybe we should compare Bush's record as a governor? It's pretty obvious who's gonna be better as President if you're looking to see the deficit taken care of. Then again, if you weren't aware of Bush's spend-thrift ways to begin with, you probably won't bother to read the links and get informed.

Yup, you're the ones with the 7 US trillion (or UK billion) dollar national debt, growing every day by $1.55 US billion (http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/)

pushing the national debt to $1 trillion dollars

Funny, I thought that the national dept was already over Six trillion dollars.

Here's a a page with the whole recent history. As recently as September 2000 we had record surplus, more than $230 billion for fiscal year 2000.

The only thing that can legitmately reduce the tax burden is a cut in spending. Trust me, you'll end up paying that Bush deficit eventually, no matter how sweet a nice fat refund check is now.

Not necessarily true. The tax burden can be minimized by a deficit. Here's how:

1) If there is no deficit, spending temptations explode, and expensive spending proposals will be pushed. If there is a deficit, it is less likely that spending programs will be passed, because there is a legitimate cover in "We can't feed the poor children, because we'll leave them with a big national debt." The GOP realized long ago that public choice theory and the federal budget process makes it impossible to cut spending directly, so by cutting taxes and creating a deficit, they have helped to curb spending in the only feasible manner.

2. What about the deficit, you say? What deficit? Sure, there is a small one right now (say $500,000,000,000.00 per year), but this is insignificant. Why? Monetization of the federal debt. With an inflation rate of approximately 2.5% and a federal debt of approximately $7,000,000,000,000.00, the ongoing devaluation of the dollar over time decreases the real value of the national debt by $175,000,000,000.00 per year.

If you look at the difference ($500 - 175, or $325/year), you have a deficit that is minimal as a percentage of GDP and one that is much smaller in real terms than anything that happened in the late eighties or early nineties. No, I won't end up paying the "Bush deficit". And no, you do not need to cut spending to reduce the tax burden. You can reduce it over time by applying downward pressure on spending by keeping a nice little pet deficit bogeyman in the closet to scare the public.

GF.

We've had a national debt for well over a half century; sure, it's grown considerably during the past twenty years, but it was there when Armstrong was on the moon. National bankruptcy isn't a limiting factor: take a look at the current amount of money the US is in the hole; we're still capable of deficit spending. That doesn't mean we should, mind you; it just means that we can.

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again, now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to India only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American is $22,212.42 in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed ,it can clearly be seen that the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did.

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, a Capitalist Gorvernment and so on, South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy. America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

This is untrue. Only 22% of the US national debt is foreign-owned and China doesn't even hold 1/3rd of that. Japan, Europe, and many, many other countries rank higher up on that list.

It is also untrue that China makes "most" of the products used in the US. This FUD is worse than the FUD in the original article.

This is a lesson they haven't learned yet in Japan where the national debt is HUGE and their economy is just barely staying afloat.

Current US national debt: (as of 15 July) $6.67 trillion

Current Japanese national debt is claimed to be in excess of 140% of their GDP, which the CIA World Factbook lists as $3.55 trillion, making their estimated debt about $4.97 trillion.

So, yeah, their economy is in bad shape, but ours is fast approaching similar straits and we *aren't* seeing the same kind of innovation the Japanese experience. While I agree that government regulation isn't necessarily the answer to this, I'm not sure if we can always trust free enterprise either. It certainly seems like Japanese companies are more interested in pushing the envelope than American companies are.

And I hardly think these technologies are being "forced down people's throats," either, since I would assume you have a choice whether or not you want to subscribe to broadband -- it's not like the cost is inextricably included with the cost of an apartment or something. Aren't a lot of Slashdotters (myself included) pining for the opportunity to vote with our hard-earned dollars *for* 12MB/s broadband? Since when have corporations listened to us?

Bush might just get to see the Laffer curve in action.

Of course, to put things into perspective, the debt increases by $1.59 billion every day, on average.

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

American economy has been hit hard. Enron, etc, and september 11 couldn't have come at a worse time. Not trying to be flamebait, but the usual 'let's start a war or 2 to fix up the economy' hasn't worked :-(

According to the Debt clock, each Citizen's share of this debt is $22,684.87.

he National Debt has continued to increase an average of $1.47 billion per day since September 30, 2002!

The Fix? I don't know. Welcome to Globaliziation.

Let's see:

GPS Unit $250
Flight to LA $500
Car Rental $150

Downloading from Webshots: Priceless :-)

Actually these are a lot closer.

At the risk of being accused of simply promoting my own web site... (Okay, okay. I'm shamelessly promoting my own web site, but it is germane to the discussion) ...here is a map showing all 414 geocaches in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area:

http://www.brillig.com/geocaching/minneapolis-sain t_paul.shtml

I have noticed that quite a few geocaches in the Minnesota area have been lost or otherwise removed over the past few weeks. Some of this is no doubt due to the usual loss of caches during the summer months, but I wonder if some of the loss is due to this new crackdown.

BTW, the National Park Service has for the past two years or so had a policy banning all physical (i.e. non-virtual) geocaches from their lands. Their position is that geocaches come under the heading of "abandoned property" and, as such, they confiscate caches as they find them.

-Buxley
Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint (geocaching's other website =)

At the risk of being accused of simply promoting my own web site... (Okay, okay. I'm shamelessly promoting my own web site, but it is germane to the discussion) ...here is a map showing all 414 geocaches in the Minneapolis - St. Paul area:

http://www.brillig.com/geocaching/minneapolis-sain t_paul.shtml

I have noticed that quite a few geocaches in the Minnesota area have been lost or otherwise removed over the past few weeks. Some of this is no doubt due to the usual loss of caches during the summer months, but I wonder if some of the loss is due to this new crackdown.

BTW, the National Park Service has for the past two years or so had a policy banning all physical (i.e. non-virtual) geocaches from their lands. Their position is that geocaches come under the heading of "abandoned property" and, as such, they confiscate caches as they find them.

-Buxley
Buxley's Geocaching Waypoint (geocaching's other website =)

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again,
now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to
reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American
is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to
increase an average of $992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed,
it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on,
South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another
a more compassionate government. Now Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over
to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy.
America is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If
the USA is to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring
factions. America continues to decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save
it at this point in time. For all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

It is official -- The UN is now confirming: The USA is dying

One more crippling bombshell crushed the already beleaguered American economy
when x-rates.com confirmed that the American Dollar has dropped yet again, now down to .9 of a Euro. Coming on the heels of a recent Usenet survey which plainly states that The American Economy is in a recession, this news serves to reinforce what we've known all along. The USA is collapsing in complete disarray, as fittingly exemplified by failing dead
last [samag.com] in the recent Sys Admin comprehensive networking test.

You don't need to be a Kreskin to predict the USA's future. The hand writing is on the wall: The USA faces a bleak future. In fact there won't
be any future at all for the USA because it is dying. Things are looking very bad for America. As many of us are already aware, the US continues to lose relevence. Red ink flows like a river of blood.

The IT industry is the most endangered of them all, having lost 93% of its core
developers. The sudden and unpleasant departures of long time IT jobs to india only serve to underscore the point more clearly. There can no longer be any doubt: The American IT Industry is dying.

Let's keep to the facts and look at the numbers.

Microsoft Encarta states that there are 291,065,636 people in America. What is the US's national debt? Let's see. According to the The Debt clock the USA's National Debt is 6,465,271,811,559.14. Therefore each American is $22,212.42. in debt. In fact, the USA's national debt has continued to increase an average of
$992 million per day since September 30, 2002. Indeed, it can clearly be seen the the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did

Due to the troubles of American Meddling, An Capitalist Gorvernment and so on, South Vietnam was attacked was taken over by North Vietnam who sell another a more compassionate government. Now
Iraq is also dead, its corpse turned over to feed the US media.

All major surveys show that the USA has steadily declined in the world economy. America
is very sick and its long term survival prospects are very dim. If the USA is
to survive at all it will be among a broken collection of warring factions. America continues to
decay. Nothing short of a miracle could save it at this point in time. For
all practical purposes, the United States of America is dead.

Fact: The USA is dying

I try not to, but I can't resist this time.

It seems that out dollar has been gaining value for quite some time, while the US is going broke faster then the Soviet Union did.

You'd think that someone with the ability to print money, plus the ability to require anybody in the country to give them money on demand...

You'd think they'd manage to stay out of debt?

The dividend tax cut is designed to make investment in corporations more attractive to everyone (not to save you $600). This will lower companies' cost of capital and allow them to take on more projects (and hence hire more people).

Sounds like Reagan's trickle-down economics, which increased the federal debt immensely, thereby pushing the economic problems of the 80's to the future generations. I fear that Bush's policies will do the same.

While I think that removing the dividend tax is a good thing in the long run, it does not address our immediate economic problems.

investment in corporations

Only the corporations who pay dividends. Right now, most corporations don't pay dividends to their investors.

The day after the dividend tax cut passes, every-man isn't going to hop out and purchase stock in Blue Chip companies. No, they'll slowly build their portfolio over time. It will take years for 'everyone' to benefit from this, and years more for them to see any signifigant benefit.

While the dividend tax cut may be a good thing in a few years, we need a solution now.

But if Bush wants a tax cut, why push so hard for a cut where only a small group of investors will see any immediate benefit?

Why not lower taxes for everyone?

I assume you refer to the National debt. Right. By far the largest portion of the debt is owed by the government to the Federal Reserve; that is, to itself. There is a significant portion owed outside the US, but the US is not "kept afloat" by this. The main problem is that the government spends far too much. Check out come facts and links here.

Like 15x more than the US National Debt.

Yeah, and as soon as Reagan lowered the taxes for the rich, he raised the taxes on the working class, not to mention more of the jobs went to mexico. Oh, it boosted the economy all right, for the rich, a lot of small companies closed down in the 80s because of Reaganomics. Oh, what do you mean by "Smaller Government", if you mean less programs for the poor "Education, Social Security, etc" then yes, he, cut those as well.

IMO, the Conservative Republicans want to get rid of programs for the poor and give everything to the rich. If the Tax Cuts that Dubya's proposing is a guaranteed success, then why is Greenspan, the democrats, and even the moderate Republicans are against the Tax Cut? Most of the Rich are, as I said before, are very stingy when it comes to money. They hold onto it as if they only have a few dollars, that is, IMHO, why the Tax Cut will just put us into a deeper debt, just like the Reagan/Bush Era. The National Debt wasn't even $1 Trillion until Reagan got into office, and when bush Left Office, it was around $4.5 Trillion.

Went up $1 Trillion to $5.5 Tillion under Clinton, just 1/3 compared Reagan. But now under Dubya, in just 2 years, the national debt went up by $1 Trillion. Like I said in my previous post, in order to keep the deficit down, he will raise taxes to the working class & to small businesses, he will also cut funding to Public Education.

Also, if you would have read my previous post, I said that Bush gave several corporations Billions of dollars, none of which were in silicon Valley, the only "Tech" company that Dubya has been interested in is Microsoft, and that is to have the Anti-trust ruling in their favor, also, deregulations left and right isn't helping either. And when we go to war, that's going to have fuel prices Skyrocket, and will have the following effects
1. Not as many Americans will go on trips this summer, thus, more people will be laid off and there will be less jobs
2. Price of goods will skyrocket, thus, people will spend less, and again, more layoffs

And of course more layoffs mean Less money going into the economy, and of course, that leads to more layoffs & makes it harder for new businesses to start up. No new businesses in Silicon Valley, like I said in my previous post, Silicon Valley will continue to decay. States will have less money in their budget, so they will have no choice but to cut social services, including education. IMO, if Bush get re-elected in 2004, then He will get us out of the recession all right, right into a Depression, and once we're there, there is no way of getting out. Just my $0.02 Worth.

John Wilcox

P.S. To the moderators, If you disagrees with me, Don't just simply mod me down, tell me why you disagree with me.

There was an excellent article on this same topic in Discover recently. The possibilities are nice... leaving "personal notes" for your friends at a specific spot in the world. I think the best quote from the article was this one: "When you can stand where others have stood and learn how it affected them, and then share your own impressions in return, public space becomes more deeply public than it was before." It reminds me of a nice book on Native American religious tradition by Vine Deloria, Jr. The idea of bringing technology back to the "primitive" notion of public spaces is appealing to the hippie inside me.

Also of note in the Discover article is a brief introduction to geo-caching. Unrelated, but sounds like fun. :)

--madgeorge

A quick check of Kazaa on Friday afternoon showed that there were 4.1 million users online

4.1 million * $250,000 ~= 1 trillion

Cool, now we can pay off the national debt and pay for the tax cut. Oh wait, the national debt is 6.4 trillon. Better raise the fine to a couple million!

Send him here, here, here, or here.

To make a real gift basket out of it, add sunscreen, insect repellant, calamine lotion, and bottled water.
If he really takes to it, next year get him an 8-pack of travel bugs.

The US isn't poor. But the Federal US Government is... kind of. Budget deficit comes to mind.
Have a look at a debt clock.

Oh, another one in Java and ticking!.

I don't consider a debt of $20.000 (pp) as very wealthy.

(What do I hear, my country's deficit is more than twice as high? Well, I'd better shut up now and consider moving to Singapore, Monaco or Norway.)

we now have the FDIC, which means that up to $100,000 of the money you have in the bank is insured by the full faith and credit of the US Government

So, then, how much of what you say will really make a difference? Why in the world should I trust I'll get my $100,000 back when the Fed screwed things up so much last time? Because I know we all trust the government to do the right thing, right? *cough* Social Security *cough*

Even going to www.brillig.com gives you a 500 Server Error
Hmm...Even with Verio's bronze package (where the site looks like it's hosted on), you get 5 gig's of monthly data transfer...burning the bandwidth fast...
- grunby