The decline and eventual fall of the USA as world superpower?

[soaring crane]

Not quite "always" but for a very long time, yes.

 

well, yes, always, from day one, 1776. Or was it 1620? Same difference.

[Brian]

OK, I see your point and agree.

 

[voidisyinyang]

what is this still the global warming denial thread or the U.S. declining thread?

 

Oh well I guess when the U.S. declines it takes down the whole world with it.

 

 

Three quarters of a billion people is a lot of people.

And that's how many people, within the next 22 years, will almost certainly run low on water - a necessity of life - in just the regions whose rivers are supplied with water from the glaciers in the Himalayas.

To put that in perspective, 750 million people is more than twice the current population of United States. It's about the population of all of Europe. In the year 1900 there were only 500 million people on the entire planet. Seven hundred fifty million people is a lot of people.

The IPCC - the international body of scientists analyzing global climate change - is releasing its new report in stages over the next week and this early piece was reported on by the Financial Times on Monday. Under the headline "Climate Change Chief Sounds Alert on Himalayan Glaciers," the opening sentence of the article by Pilita Clark summarizes a very tightly:

"The glaciers of the Himalayas are melting so fast they will affect the water supplies of a population twice that of the US within 22 years, the head of the world's leading authority on climate change has warned."

And that's just the Himalayas and the rivers flow out of their glaciers toward South Asian regions including India, Pakistan, Nepal, Bhutan, and China. There are similar glaciers along the mountain ranges of western South America that supply water to other hundreds of millions of people - they are all at risk, too. We're even seen it here in the United States, with last year's drought in the West. Glaciers are changing in Europe, and the regions of Tanzania supplied by the famous "Snows Of Kilimanjaro," are drying up in ways that are creating serious drought problems for the people in those parts of Africa.

 

http://www.alternet.org/environment/global-warming-could-potentially-destroy-lives-750-million-people-next-three-decades?

[voidisyinyang]

Congress, however, has failed to address the worst excesses in the federal budget -- the bloated, highly wasteful military budget. More than half of federal discretionary spending now goes to the military budget. Many more taxpayer dollars are devoted to the Department of Defense than to the critical needs of our citizenry, including the flawed Obamacare which should be replaced with single payer -- full Medicare for all....the U.S. defense budget for 2013 is estimated to be around $716 billion (not counting defense expenses in other civilian departments.) To strike a comparison,China, the next biggest military spender, has a budget of $106 billion as reported by their government. Remarkably, you can add the military budgets of the next ten largest spending countries and still not match the U.S.'s astronomical military budget -- which is fully half of the U.S. government's entire operating budget, post Soviet Union, no less!

 

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/pentagon-budget_b_4046370.html

 

go ralph

 

 

where do all these billions of dollars go? Don't ask the Pentagon, because they can't or won't tell you. Years of poor expense managing and book balancing has led to so many documented cases of waste and fraud that it's hard to keep up. The Government Accountability Office (GAO) every year declares the Pentagon budget to be "un-auditable." The GAO website lists the DOD financial management as "High Risk", reporting that: "

 

 

yep:

 

According to a 2009 report from Mother Jones magazine, the military wasted about $296 billion in cost overruns in 2008. Imagine that--in one year, the United States blewabout two-thirds more in its poorly managed military budget then China spent on its military. The defense budget of the entire European Union in 2008 was $281 billion--still less than the Pentagon frittered away. Considering such a colossal failure in money management, where is the Tea Party? How can the self-proclaimed party of smaller government and fiscal responsibility look the other way? Talk about chronic hypocrisy!

 

[ralis]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/ralph-nader/pentagon-budget_b_4046370.html

 

go ralph

 

 

 

 

yep:

 

The tea party is doing nothing about the bloated police state. NSA, TSA, Homeland Security etc. Definite hypocrisy. Seems to me they are in love with it.

Edited October 5, 2013 by ralis

[voidisyinyang]

back to the real world:

 

 

 

Ocean acidification due to carbon emissions is highest in 300m yrs,mass extinction almost inevitable

 

http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread974470/pg1

[voidisyinyang]

[Aaron]

You know better. He didn't.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tea_bag_(sexual_act)

 

And you & I have had this same discussion before because I wanted to make sure you understood what you were saying. As you make clear, you know precisely what you are saying...

 

My God... So they can call themselves teabaggers, but he can't? So if a member of the Tea Party knows what it means can they use the term to describe themselves?

 

Aaron

 

edited- Not worth the trouble.

Edited October 5, 2013 by Aaron

[ralis]

Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Agreement. A Secret Trade Agreement Conducted By The Obama Administration.

 

I heard about this some time ago. This trade agreement will continue to erode our rights and give multinational corporations more control. Congress persons are not allowed to view this agreement except under special permission. Furthermore, anyone from Congress can only see one chapter, is not allowed to take notes, not allowed to have a lawyer present to interpret the technical details or even discuss this in public. How in the hell did Congress give away their authority to be a party to all trade agreements?

 

For further info.

 

http://www.citizen.org/Page.aspx?pid=3129

 

https://www.eff.org/issues/tpp

 

http://www.exposethetpp.org/

 

Edited October 5, 2013 by ralis

[ralis]

To follow up on a previous post of mine in regards to markets not being rational. Furthermore, there is much evidence that neoliberal policies are harmful to the economy.

 

 

http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Rational-Market-Delusion/dp/0060599030

 

http://www.amazon.com/Reality-Ignored-Undermined-Institutions-ebook/dp/B004TH0SF2/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380994214&sr=8-1&keywords=Reality+Ignored%3A+How+Milton+Friedman+and+Chicago+Economics+Undermined+American+Institutions+and+Endangered+the+Global+Economy

 

http://www.amazon.com/Predictably-Irrational-Revised-Expanded-ebook/dp/B002C949KE/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380994299&sr=8-1&keywords=Dan+Ariely%2C%27s+Predictably+Irrational

 

http://www.amazon.com/Basic-Instincts-Peter-Lunn/dp/0462099636/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1380994395&sr=8-1&keywords=Pete+Lunn%27s+Basic+Instincts

 

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/jan/14/neoliberal-theory-economic-failure

 

 

http://www.corpwatch.org/article.php?id=376

 

What is Neoliberalism?

A Brief Definition for Activists
by Elizabeth Martinez and Arnoldo Garcia, National Network for Immigrant and Refugee Rights

 

"Neo-liberalism" is a set of economic policies that have become widespread during the last 25 years or so. Although the word is rarely heard in the United States, you can clearly see the effects of neo-liberalism here as the rich grow richer and the poor grow poorer.

"Liberalism" can refer to political, economic, or even religious ideas. In the U.S. political liberalism has been a strategy to prevent social conflict. It is presented to poor and working people as progressive compared to conservative or Rightwing. Economic liberalism is different. Conservative politicians who say they hate "liberals" -- meaning the political type -- have no real problem with economic liberalism, including neoliberalism.

"Neo" means we are talking about a new kind of liberalism. So what was the old kind? The liberal school of economics became famous in Europe when Adam Smith, an Scottish economist, published a book in 1776 called THE WEALTH OF NATIONS. He and others advocated the abolition of government intervention in economic matters. No restrictions on manufacturing, no barriers to commerce, no tariffs, he said; free trade was the best way for a nation's economy to develop. Such ideas were "liberal" in the sense of no controls. This application of individualism encouraged "free" enterprise," "free" competition -- which came to mean, free for the capitalists to make huge profits as they wished.

Economic liberalism prevailed in the United States through the 1800s and early 1900s. Then the Great Depression of the 1930s led an economist named John Maynard Keynes to a theory that challenged liberalism as the best policy for capitalists. He said, in essence, that full employment is necessary for capitalism to grow and it can be achieved only if governments and central banks intervene to increase employment. These ideas had much influence on President Roosevelt's New Deal -- which did improve life for many people. The belief that government should advance the common good became widely accepted.

But the capitalist crisis over the last 25 years, with its shrinking profit rates, inspired the corporate elite to revive economic liberalism. That's what makes it "neo" or new. Now, with the rapid globalization of the capitalist economy, we are seeing neo-liberalism on a global scale.

A memorable definition of this process came from Subcomandante Marcos at the Zapatista-sponsored Encuentro Intercontinental por la Humanidad y contra el Neo-liberalismo (Inter-continental Encounter for Humanity and Against Neo-liberalism) of August 1996 in Chiapas when he said: "what the Right offers is to turn the world into one big mall where they can buy Indians here, women there ...." and he might have added, children, immigrants, workers or even a whole country like Mexico."

The main points of neo-liberalism include:

1. THE RULE OF THE MARKET. Liberating "free" enterprise or private enterprise from any bonds imposed by the government (the state) no matter how much social damage this causes. Greater openness to international trade and investment, as in NAFTA. Reduce wages by de-unionizing workers and eliminating workers' rights that had been won over many years of struggle. No more price controls. All in all, total freedom of movement for capital, goods and services. To convince us this is good for us, they say "an unregulated market is the best way to increase economic growth, which will ultimately benefit everyone." It's like Reagan's "supply-side" and "trickle-down" economics -- but somehow the wealth didn't trickle down very much.

2. CUTTING PUBLIC EXPENDITURE FOR SOCIAL SERVICES like education and health care. REDUCING THE SAFETY-NET FOR THE POOR, and even maintenance of roads, bridges, water supply -- again in the name of reducing government's role. Of course, they don't oppose government subsidies and tax benefits for business.

3. DEREGULATION. Reduce government regulation of everything that could diminsh profits, including protecting the environmentand safety on the job.

4. PRIVATIZATION. Sell state-owned enterprises, goods and services to private investors. This includes banks, key industries, railroads, toll highways, electricity, schools, hospitals and even fresh water. Although usually done in the name of greater efficiency, which is often needed, privatization has mainly had the effect of concentrating wealth even more in a few hands and making the public pay even more for its needs.

5. ELIMINATING THE CONCEPT OF "THE PUBLIC GOOD" or "COMMUNITY" and replacing it with "individual responsibility." Pressuring the poorest people in a society to find solutions to their lack of health care, education and social security all by themselves -- then blaming them, if they fail, as "lazy."

Around the world, neo-liberalism has been imposed by powerful financial institutions like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), the World Bank and the Inter-American Development Bank. It is raging all over Latin America. The first clear example of neo-liberalism at work came in Chile (with thanks to University of Chicago economist Milton Friedman), after the CIA-supported coup against the popularly elected Allende regime in 1973. Other countries followed, with some of the worst effects in Mexico where wages declined 40 to 50% in the first year of NAFTA while the cost of living rose by 80%. Over 20,000 small and medium businesses have failed and more than 1,000 state-owned enterprises have been privatized in Mexico. As one scholar said, "Neoliberalism means the neo-colonization of Latin America."

In the United States neo-liberalism is destroying welfare programs; attacking the rights of labor (including all immigrant workers); and cutbacking social programs. The Republican "Contract" on America is pure neo-liberalism. Its supporters are working hard to deny protection to children, youth, women, the planet itself -- and trying to trick us into acceptance by saying this will "get government off my back." The beneficiaries of neo-liberalism are a minority of the world's people. For the vast majority it brings even more suffering than before: suffering without the small, hard-won gains of the last 60 years, suffering without end.

Elizabeth Martinez is a longtime civil rights activist and author of several books, including "500 Years of Chicano History in Photographs."

13101310Arnoldo Garcia is a member of the Oakland-based Comite Emiliano Zapata, affiliated to the National Commission for Democracy in Mexico.

13101310Both writers attended the Intercontinental Encounter for Humanity and against Neoliberalism, held July 27 - August 3,1996, in La Realidad, Chiapas.

Edited October 5, 2013 by ralis

[voidisyinyang]

rape and plunder = nafta, etc. wto = neonazis

[ralis]

rape and plunder = nafta, etc. wto = neonazis

 

That is what the Trans Pacific Partnership is all about.

[voidisyinyang]

yep

i was in the streets against nafta 92, wto -- dodging bullets when we shutdown wto seattle in 99. tpp is even worse

[zerostao]

"The higher the ascension, the deeper the fall."

still it is relative, living in a fallen north america with its abundance of resources wont be that bad imo,

if the corrupt politicians fall deeper, it is better for the rest of us

 

"Oh well I guess when the U.S. declines it takes down the whole world with it."

depends

 

"The tea party is doing nothing about the bloated police state. NSA, TSA, Homeland Security etc. Definite hypocrisy. Seems to me they are in love with it."

rand paul and the tsa have that ongoing love affair, he also has affairs with homeland security and the bloated police forces, he also loves the use of drones against our own citizens,,,, NOT

 

"i was in the streets against nafta 92,"

you are older than i thought you are--but imo this was a defining moment in policy that took everything on a new course, and how has that been working out?

[ralis]

Boehner is blaming the impending government default on Obama not negotiating. I thought it was the right wing that were making ridiculous demands that is holding this country hostage. If the government defaults, the economy will be ruined.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/06/john-boehner-default-debt-ceiling_n_4053537.html

Edited October 6, 2013 by ralis

[voidisyinyang]

nafta protest yeah undergrad at the time.

 

[voidisyinyang]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D3JCekPhCZ8

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4967366912/hE7EA764A/

https://i.chzbgr.com/maxW500/4967366912/hE7EA764A/

[voidisyinyang]

[zerostao]

speaking of tsa and minnesota and kids,,,,

http://gma.yahoo.com/street-smart-boy-hops-flight-las-vegas-alone-182450764--abc-news-topstories.html

 

""If it hadn't been for alert airline employees on our end, he probably never would have been discovered.""

this is spinning(absurd) at its highest or lowest (depending on pov)

they let him board a flight without an adult or a boarding pass.

[voidisyinyang]

[voidisyinyang]

The US Remains Guilty in Guatemala

 

http://truth-out.org/opinion/item/16801-the-us-remains-guilty-in-guatemala

[Thunder_Gooch]

[zerostao]

[ralis]

[joeblast]

If you dont want your tax dollars supporting a financial oligarchy,

 

then stop saying you support republicans or democrats.

 

 

 

If you dont want your government spending 166% of what it can afford,

 

 

you cant support things like Obamacare or a super welfare state.

 

 

 

If you actually want some class mobility,

 

you cant say centralized command and control is a good thing

 

 

 

If you want an actual price discovery mechanism,

 

you cant have the government distort every single piece of data that one would rely upon to make good choices.

 

 

If you want clean air and water,

 

best to realize carbon dioxide has absolutely nothing to do with it.

 

 

 

and if you did want to help the poor,

 

"outsourcing the problem" to the government and expecting the job to be even be partially completed is an utter waste of time.