In the words of dfwMUstangs, why is our economy in the toilet?

[Hobie]

Why do YOU think our economy is performing poorly?

[SMEGMA STENCH]

Its pretty simple. We owe too much. We tried to live beyond our means as a nation. We owe too much to all entitlement programs, and we owe too much to other countries. Politicians don't want to make this comparison, but its the exact same to anyone who has a lick of common sense. What happens when you as an individual, when you're far into debt, and you're struggling to pay the debt? Your finances go to hell in a hand basket. Now what happens then? You're lifestyle suffers and you have to make cuts to make it. Fact is we never had the wealth to spend all the money that we did. Now its catching up to us. If we had such disposable income, you wouldn't see anyone complaining about our debt situation.

[FastFox]

Two things we should have paid attention to.

1. There is never a cheaper way to buy anything than paying cash.
2. There is no such thing as a free lunch.

[Forever_frost]

Barrack Huessein Obama and the Democrats

[red95gts]

Career politicians and a fucked up sense of entitlement.

[Hobie]

Personally I feel that our rise to dominant super-power in the first place was partially due to dumb luck. WWII left us as the last man standing in the modern world so to speak.

We had a huge supply of labor there after which began exhausting limited domestic resources. Short-sighted government policy has been butt-fucking us since our rise to the top (well, before too, not exactly important in this context)

The rest of the world has been catching up ever since.

In the meantime the government has been increasing in size. We over spend on defense, social programs, the failed drug war, security agencies, the prison system, and general bureaucracies. (pick one or one hundred, whatev) Any group savvy enough to get a group together to lobby for subsidies and get their hand in the cookie jar too.

There has been a revolving door to major business interests and the organizations that regulate them.

The political process is bought by the highest bidder while also forced to appeal to the lowest common denominator.

Budgets, fed interventions, wars, dot-com bubble, 9/11, housing bubble related greed from top to bottom and the ensuing banking welfare.

Stupidity, greed, and entitlement from all social classes on both sides of the aisle created this complicated problem.

I'm sort of surprised we've made it this far.

I made this problem, you made this problem, we all did as Americans. It's up to us to fix it. No one else will. What are we going to do???

[Cannonball996]

we are on a 30+ year skid, and the one thing that sticks out to me is, inflation and the cost of living has gone up significantly, but wages and salaries have gone up very little.

in the 1960s a lower middle class man could pay his mortgage and all the bills for his family on just 15% of his monthly income. they say today, that anyone spending more then 36% of their income on their housing and bills is living beyond their means, would that even be possible on $10 and hour?

with the cost of living going up, that also means the cost to run a government goes up as well (and I am not talking new spending) the cost of education goes up, the cost to build and repair infrastructure is up, and the cost of defense is up. but when wages and salaries stay the same, the tax revenue stays the same, and your only hope is that a rising population will bring in more taxable incomes. and although our population is growing, most of the growth is in the low income class, and many of those do not pay taxes.

[Lason]

Barrack Huessein Obama and the Democrats

Were we running a surplus back in 2000-04? IMO, both sides of the isle are equally the problem.

Govt is too big and is too busy either scamming money with programs or trying to give it away. Boils down to pure greed.

[jakesford]

Were we running a surplus back in 2000-04? IMO, both sides of the isle are equally the problem.

Govt is too big and is too busy either scamming money with programs or trying to give it away. Boils down to pure greed.

Well the Clinton surplus was really non existent, he managed a surplus during the dot com boom, but had to "borrow funds" from social security. So public debt was decreased, but the intragovernmental debt increased by a greater margin. Also his last budget was a defecit going into the Bush years.

Regardless it is a systemic problem. There is not one person, president, congress or party to blame. The American people, in the end, are responsible, too bad most are too apathetic to give a shit.

[03mustangdude]

how about the goverments pet projects

the 100k per person to get a small town in north dakota broadband internet? Who the fuck cares about em? Let a free market telecom company invest in em if they wanted them to have broadband internet or let them stick with dialup

the 36 or so million to connect a bridge to mainland alaska from an island offshore,their weren't even any people living on that island

[BP]

I blame the Euro, and the damned EU that uses it. It's hard to manipulate our dollar's value when they have their cute little bills all over the place. Of couse fighting two wars concurrently and then getting entangled in Pakistan, now Libya and possibly Syria next sure won't help matters.

Those communist jerks in China making knockoffs of everything using slave labor also isn't helping matters. We can't compete with that. It's easy to have a strong economy when you don't have to pay the workers anything or come up with your own ideas.

The free spending congress we had, along with a president that'd sign spending bills without even glancing at them also hurt a lot.

[Broncojohnny]

Government creating an environment that is hostile to both consumers and job creation. It really is that simple.

[Forever_frost]

Were we running a surplus back in 2000-04? IMO, both sides of the isle are equally the problem.

Govt is too big and is too busy either scamming money with programs or trying to give it away. Boils down to pure greed.

No, there was no surplus despite liberal talking points. It was a PROJECTED surplus based on the dot com bubble lasting indefinately

[chevyhater01]

One of the biggest reason's IMO we've tanked financially we switched from a manufacturing country to a country of service. Union's, taxes, and corporate greed shifted our manufacturing to be outsourced to produce greater and greater profits. By not producing we're not bringing new money into our economy but :edit(our borrowed) money is being sent out to others.

[Hobie]

Well, at least one benefit of this shift, we've outsourced our unemployment to China too, lol.

One of the biggest reason's IMO we've tanked financially we switched from a manufacturing country to a country of service. Union's, taxes, and corporate greed shifted our manufacturing to be outsourced to produce greater and greater profits. By not producing we're not bringing new money into our economy but :edit(our borrowed) money is being sent out to others.