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And, yes, I DO take it personally: What the heck... How about a little overview on the state of the U.S. economy...
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Friday, October 02, 2009

What the heck... How about a little overview on the state of the U.S. economy...

let's pause for just a moment and reflect on how badly we're being screwed by our super-rich elites, a/k/a our "fellow americans"...

i remember the "what if the russians invaded" discussions from my teenage years... many years later, i had conversations with folks from the former soviet/socialist countries where they talked about their "what if the americans invaded" conversations...

It's not so far-fetched an idea, you know. We spent half a century and trillions of dollars to make sure that it would never happen, so it's really not such a strange notion.

So what if the Russians invaded?

What if they came and stole all of our money?

What if the Russians invaded and enslaved our children as cheap worker bee drones locked in dismal dead-end jobs?

What if the Russians invaded and excavated all of our natural resources, leaving only mountains of toxic debris in their wake?

What if the Russians invaded and they ruined our infrastructure, thrashed our educational institutions, and stuck us with a grossly inadequate healthcare system?

What if the Russians invaded and incarcerated a huge percentage of our people in for-profit jails? What if they ruined our military by sending it off on big-money colonial expeditions? What if they cut the legs out from under the middle class?

What if the Russians invaded and turned us against each other, tricking this tribe of Americans into hating that tribe, in order to keep any of us from realizing that they were looting our country?

If the Russians did any of these things, we’d kill ‘em. Dead.

If the Russians invaded, we'd send our army to crush them in defense of our country (or, at least, we hire somebody to do it).

If the Russians invaded, we'd be furious and raging and hateful and destructive – for good reason, too – and we would bring to them the full measure of American organized violence in order to take back our country from their plundering rampages.

Of course, the Russians haven’t invaded. But what's astonishing about the moment we live in is that America has in fact been subjected to all these travails. We have essentially been invaded by those who wish us ill, and our national and private resources are being stripped bare. This country is being looted, and everything in it that isn't nailed down is being carted away and sold off.

Our children are being saddled with enormous financial burdens. Our educational and healthcare systems, sucked dry as mere revenues sources, are falling to pieces. Our infrastructure is approaching ruin.

Our jobs, our industries and our community resources have been bundled up and exported to where the work can be done far cheaper, and the workers are compliant. Increasingly we are scrambling just to survive. Admittedly, our government remains absolutely dedicated to making sure that some of us do extremely well. It's just that that ‘some’ doesn’t include anyone you know.

What is absolutely astonishing about the moment that we live in is that we have been essentially invaded, we have been absolutely looted, and yet we don't seem to be the slightest bit angry about that.

If the Russians had done it, we would be absolutely furious. But in fact, it was our own overclass that did it, and not only are we not furious at them, we don't even notice the crime. Or, if we do notice, we’re furious at some ridiculously inappropriate target, like a ‘liberal’ president who isn't even remotely liberal.

now, let's absorb some reality perspective on the economy from marc faber and nouriel roubini...



both faber and roubini spoke of the very real possibility of the "next crisis" and the advisability of revealing ALL of the losses and just letting them collapse...

here's what the imf is saying...

Banks around the world still have to reveal about half their likely losses resulting from the financial and economic crisis, the International Monetary Fund said yesterday, warning there was still a "significant" risk of another downward lurch in the global recession.

A failure to reveal the true scale of the losses they are likely to face and to boost capital held in the banks would undermine the economies of the US, the UK and the euro zone and could generate a renewed vicious spiral where weak banks damage economic prospects, raising default rates and further threatening the health of banks, the IMF said.

sigh... c'mon... let's get the damn collapse over with already...

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