Nice little video about the state of the American dollar.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RhnHo3RDfg
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3RhnHo3RDfg
The Ultimate American Dollar Collapse
- Thread starter Cinelli
- Start date
It certainly does not inspire confidence. The slide relative to the Canadian dollar has been quite clear in the last couple of years. Unfortunately, our economy is so dependent on the US economy due to NAFTA that if the US economy tanks, ours cannot avoid it.
Good video.
But what he misses is that the US couldn't avoid having these trade deficits. Asians/Japanese/Arabs either can't make use of all of their savings because there just aren't that many viable investment opportunities in their regions (Middle East) or there has been a deliberate policy of suppressing domestic demand (China: whose domestic consumption is only 38% of GNP), leading to really extraordinary levels of savings that were channelled by the authorities over there into liquid US assets. Now that furriners are gaining ever more confidence in their own currencies as a medium of exchange (Brazil is just about to become an investment grade country!!), there's just less need to keep precautionary US balances.
When this dollar rout happens, the one good thing that'll come out of it is a revival of North American manufacturing, and saving money will become sexy again.
But what he misses is that the US couldn't avoid having these trade deficits. Asians/Japanese/Arabs either can't make use of all of their savings because there just aren't that many viable investment opportunities in their regions (Middle East) or there has been a deliberate policy of suppressing domestic demand (China: whose domestic consumption is only 38% of GNP), leading to really extraordinary levels of savings that were channelled by the authorities over there into liquid US assets. Now that furriners are gaining ever more confidence in their own currencies as a medium of exchange (Brazil is just about to become an investment grade country!!), there's just less need to keep precautionary US balances.
When this dollar rout happens, the one good thing that'll come out of it is a revival of North American manufacturing, and saving money will become sexy again.
bbk
Steel Mills To Slot Machine Nation
by: Guest Author
Sun Dec 16, 2007 at 15:54:50 PM EST
copyright © Judith Moriarty
Few realize that America, the America of old, is rusting away, and being sold off to transnational companies/ speculators. These mutants are loyal to no land and no people. Their sole reason for existence is profits and power. Isolated as we are, one from another, the folks in the Florida Keys for example; have no knowledge of the paper mills in northern NH closing down putting hundreds out of work or of the numerous foreclosures in Michigan and Ohio. Who has paid the slightest bit of attention. as the steel mills, textile, mills, ship yards, and manufacturing jobs disappeared?
Nightly a small blurb on the 'news' announces that another several thousand are gone! Yawn! The major part of America's news broadcasts are spent on the latest tabloid gossip. While these plant closures may be headline news in local towns, the majority of the nation is oblivious. Those running for office (with all their lofty promises) certainly aren't holding their so- called debates at the empty Maytag plant, in desolate Detroit, or in an abandoned mill!
Meantime, the joke of job retraining is touted, as the answer to men, who've spent their entire lives forging steel, cutting logs, or on an assembly line. A few weeks at some computer course, is supposed to have these scarred men, able to compete with hundreds of thousands of college graduates looking for jobs! Please. Meantime, even this ridiculous program is being cut. President Bush needs the money to build dozens of bases in Iraq, and keep the 2 billion+ a week cost of the war funded. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed men and women are the last thing on Washington's mind!
Those in office are all set with their lucrative salaries, medical care, and lobbying jobs for family members and yearly cost of living raises. We pay their wages (raises) when it took them TEN years to raise the minimum wage a measly pittance! As for medical care, we're told we can go to the ER! Meantime, the people are buying the usual hogwash that this time around (elections), a secular savior will restore and rebuild America. Tell that to the folks (an example of America) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Bethlehem Steel, was once the largest steel maker in our nation. At one time hundreds of thousands of men were employed in her numerous mills. A man could make a decent living without his wife having to leave the kids for that Wal-Mart job to help make ends meet. When my dad worked at the steel mills, we had full medical coverage. This was after the Unions came into play, protecting the rights of workers, and insisting on a livable wage. But then doctor's visits, prescriptions, and medical care, weren't run by the HMOs, Insurance Companies, and Pharmaceuticals! Today we have what's known as 'right to work for less'. People are hired on as 'contractors' (no benefits, raises, job security) or part time. A family needs two and three jobs to keep up with the daily cost of living increases . . .
Bethlehem Steel (Bethlehem, Pa) once employed 25,000 - 30,000 men. American steel (not the inferior stuff imported now) built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, restored the White House. Our steel supplied armies, built cities, and employed a generation. Now steel for our nation's projects, has to be imported from China, Korea, Japan, etc. Bethlehem Steel saw the great hulls of our Naval ships built in her bowels . . .
Ironically, the building that once housed the employment offices at Bethlehem Steel, now has homeless people living in its abandoned rooms . . .
Life in a mill town revolved around the mill. People lived, attended church, and were buried in its shadow. There were no 500 TV channels, no computer video games, no designer clothes, cell phones, corporate agri-farms, homeless people laying in the streets, veterans living under bridges, malls, breast implants, Viagra, drugs for stress, depression, anxiety, etc. Education was important. Teaching went on instead of today's social engineering. Discipline was not a problem . . .
People enjoyed the simple things. The yearly carnival that came to town, bingo games, rides in the country, the swimming hole, baseball (without steroids) church picnics, and shopping downtown on payday . . .
With the demise of the industrial age in entered the developers and speculators. Americans were told to educate their children for the computer age. We were to become a high- tech society. Instead those jobs were outsourced to foreign lands or American citizens saw themselves replaced (voted by Congress) with 'guest workers'. Rusted mill towns saw snake oil salesmen (corporate vultures) taking advantage of impoverished regions. They brought in their incinerators, tons of garbage, malls, condos, convention centers, fast food generic restaurants, and giant box stores filled with foreign junk . . .
And Bethlehem? New York developers bought the land for a song. The plans are to open a giant casino, a mall, restaurants, and condos. The jobs? Blackjack dealers, security guards, janitors, waitresses, maids, cooks, retail clerks, doormen, cab drivers etc. What will they produce? Profits for the developers and investors. And Bethlehem? Why it'll go the way of most casino towns - with its accompanying problems of crime, prostitution, and sleazy characters. Today we see prisons, garbage, malls, casinos, and the military, as our major industries. I'm not sure where all these gamblers are coming from in a land that is fast losing its jobs? It's not only the blue-collar worker but the Wall Street brokers and top management personnel. But then I'm not a gambler. I can't imagine that I would risk one dollar of my money to enrich corporate vultures!
Few realize it but a country cannot long survive when it no longer produces or manufactures the things needed to build a nation and feed its people. When a nation is dependent on all of its goods (including food) being imported, and it has to borrow billions per day. to support global war - the music has died. The only songs in today's land are the sound of lonely taps on a distant mountain cemetery.
JM
Tags: Guest Author, Judith Moriarty, Simple Life, Plant closures, Economy, Business, Manufacturing, Bethlehem Steel, Wal-Mart, Unions, Labor, Mills, J. Moriarty Muses, (All Tags)
These are some of the overall ramifications of Dubya. Not many Americans benefit from them....other than the 'Haves' & the 'Have mores'...bbking said:
Steel Mills To Slot Machine Nation
by: Guest Author
Sun Dec 16, 2007 at 15:54:50 PM EST
copyright © Judith Moriarty
Few realize that America, the America of old, is rusting away, and being sold off to transnational companies/ speculators. These mutants are loyal to no land and no people. Their sole reason for existence is profits and power. Isolated as we are, one from another, the folks in the Florida Keys for example; have no knowledge of the paper mills in northern NH closing down putting hundreds out of work or of the numerous foreclosures in Michigan and Ohio. Who has paid the slightest bit of attention. as the steel mills, textile, mills, ship yards, and manufacturing jobs disappeared?
Nightly a small blurb on the 'news' announces that another several thousand are gone! Yawn! The major part of America's news broadcasts are spent on the latest tabloid gossip. While these plant closures may be headline news in local towns, the majority of the nation is oblivious. Those running for office (with all their lofty promises) certainly aren't holding their so- called debates at the empty Maytag plant, in desolate Detroit, or in an abandoned mill!
Meantime, the joke of job retraining is touted, as the answer to men, who've spent their entire lives forging steel, cutting logs, or on an assembly line. A few weeks at some computer course, is supposed to have these scarred men, able to compete with hundreds of thousands of college graduates looking for jobs! Please. Meantime, even this ridiculous program is being cut. President Bush needs the money to build dozens of bases in Iraq, and keep the 2 billion+ a week cost of the war funded. Hundreds of thousands of unemployed men and women are the last thing on Washington's mind!
Those in office are all set with their lucrative salaries, medical care, and lobbying jobs for family members and yearly cost of living raises. We pay their wages (raises) when it took them TEN years to raise the minimum wage a measly pittance! As for medical care, we're told we can go to the ER! Meantime, the people are buying the usual hogwash that this time around (elections), a secular savior will restore and rebuild America. Tell that to the folks (an example of America) in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania.
Bethlehem Steel, was once the largest steel maker in our nation. At one time hundreds of thousands of men were employed in her numerous mills. A man could make a decent living without his wife having to leave the kids for that Wal-Mart job to help make ends meet. When my dad worked at the steel mills, we had full medical coverage. This was after the Unions came into play, protecting the rights of workers, and insisting on a livable wage. But then doctor's visits, prescriptions, and medical care, weren't run by the HMOs, Insurance Companies, and Pharmaceuticals! Today we have what's known as 'right to work for less'. People are hired on as 'contractors' (no benefits, raises, job security) or part time. A family needs two and three jobs to keep up with the daily cost of living increases . . .
Bethlehem Steel (Bethlehem, Pa) once employed 25,000 - 30,000 men. American steel (not the inferior stuff imported now) built the Golden Gate Bridge, the Empire State Building, restored the White House. Our steel supplied armies, built cities, and employed a generation. Now steel for our nation's projects, has to be imported from China, Korea, Japan, etc. Bethlehem Steel saw the great hulls of our Naval ships built in her bowels . . .
Ironically, the building that once housed the employment offices at Bethlehem Steel, now has homeless people living in its abandoned rooms . . .
Life in a mill town revolved around the mill. People lived, attended church, and were buried in its shadow. There were no 500 TV channels, no computer video games, no designer clothes, cell phones, corporate agri-farms, homeless people laying in the streets, veterans living under bridges, malls, breast implants, Viagra, drugs for stress, depression, anxiety, etc. Education was important. Teaching went on instead of today's social engineering. Discipline was not a problem . . .
People enjoyed the simple things. The yearly carnival that came to town, bingo games, rides in the country, the swimming hole, baseball (without steroids) church picnics, and shopping downtown on payday . . .
With the demise of the industrial age in entered the developers and speculators. Americans were told to educate their children for the computer age. We were to become a high- tech society. Instead those jobs were outsourced to foreign lands or American citizens saw themselves replaced (voted by Congress) with 'guest workers'. Rusted mill towns saw snake oil salesmen (corporate vultures) taking advantage of impoverished regions. They brought in their incinerators, tons of garbage, malls, condos, convention centers, fast food generic restaurants, and giant box stores filled with foreign junk . . .
And Bethlehem? New York developers bought the land for a song. The plans are to open a giant casino, a mall, restaurants, and condos. The jobs? Blackjack dealers, security guards, janitors, waitresses, maids, cooks, retail clerks, doormen, cab drivers etc. What will they produce? Profits for the developers and investors. And Bethlehem? Why it'll go the way of most casino towns - with its accompanying problems of crime, prostitution, and sleazy characters. Today we see prisons, garbage, malls, casinos, and the military, as our major industries. I'm not sure where all these gamblers are coming from in a land that is fast losing its jobs? It's not only the blue-collar worker but the Wall Street brokers and top management personnel. But then I'm not a gambler. I can't imagine that I would risk one dollar of my money to enrich corporate vultures!
Few realize it but a country cannot long survive when it no longer produces or manufactures the things needed to build a nation and feed its people. When a nation is dependent on all of its goods (including food) being imported, and it has to borrow billions per day. to support global war - the music has died. The only songs in today's land are the sound of lonely taps on a distant mountain cemetery.
JM
Tags: Guest Author, Judith Moriarty, Simple Life, Plant closures, Economy, Business, Manufacturing, Bethlehem Steel, Wal-Mart, Unions, Labor, Mills, J. Moriarty Muses, (All Tags)
The Gap was widened further by GWB than all the US Presidents combined. Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) stabalized the gap for a short period, only to have Bush Jr. and Greenspan squander it with $300 survival checks as if this was some sort of bonus.bbking said:
Gyaos Baltar (Razor of Caprica)
Sorry but I am an idiot..please explain to me how a tax cut contributes to the increasing gap between rich and poor?Gyaos said:The Gap was widened further by GWB than all the US Presidents combined. Clinton (both Bill and Hillary) stabalized the gap for a short period, only to have Bush Jr. and Greenspan squander it with $300 survival checks as if this was some sort of bonus.
Gyaos Baltar (Razor of Caprica)
If you're an "idiot" you'll purposely not understand, right? Tax cut for the rich that makes 20% on holdings of $5 million, vs no tax cut to the poor making 3% on holdings of $100.00.frasier said:
Gyaos Baltar.
Stick your tongue out, leave it out and say "Mr Daddy works in the ship yard".bbking said:
Gyaos Baltar.
