Forums

This forum is not active, and new posts may not be made in it.

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 7/27/2011 9:52:38 PM
	Could it be because all mammals exhale the dreaded CO2 that is the cause of all the dreaded global warming? Even the earths fauna would not exist without it, though. Unless the reason for the fauna was to produce O2 for the mammals. Can we really be wrong using the resources the earth gave us? Which if you believe in creationism, Means we were given the means and knowledge to utilize these generous resources? All of them. Sometimes you have to use reason instead science. Thanks for your comment, Jim. I must say that I agree with you in general terms on this matter. However, there is so much more to this aspect of the problem than meets the eye or can be said in a few lines. Now I am in a rush, but promise to be back in a couple of days with more. Thanks again, Luis Miguel G.
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+0

Luis Miguel

1162

61587

Lima

RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

8/2/2011 9:11:16 PM

Debt deal set to pass but what were the costs?

Debt deal set to pass, but at what cost?

Troubling questions remain about the political and economic implications of the agreement. Senate passage likely

WASHINGTON/SINGAPORE (Reuters) - While the immediate crisis over a threatened default seems to have been averted by the eleventh-hour deal between the White House and Congress, the debt-limit drama has left behind crucial questions about the American political process, the viability of economic policy options and implications for the rest of the world.

The long, tortured debate exposed toxic partisanship and legislative dysfunction in Washington just when judicious efforts at reform were most needed, shaking the faith of international investors and ordinary Americans alike.

The most palpable concern was that gridlock had deprived policymakers of the monetary and fiscal tools they needed to shore up one of the world's bedrock economies, which some feared was already close to stalling.

"Because of the very public and intense squabbles in D.C., already-anemic economic growth will be weaker, the unemployment crisis will worsen, income and wealth inequality will deteriorate further and, ironically, the fiscal dynamics will be more challenging," said Mohamed El-Erian, co-chief investment officer of the international bond fund giant Pacific Investment Management Co., or PIMCO.

China, Washington's largest foreign creditor, has been particularly blunt about other countries' exposure to Washington's partisan warfare. "The ugliest part of the saga is that the well-being of many other countries is also in the impact zone when the donkey and the elephant fight," China's state-run news agency Xinhua wrote in a commentary, referring to the symbols of the Democratic and Republican parties.

Reuters posed several key questions to dozens of investors, policymakers, strategists and economists to gauge the implications of what the debt ceiling fight means for America and the world. While their judgment was almost uniformly dismissive to dire, their collective judgment was not entirely bleak: Republicans and Democrats were at least united on the fact that America must get its fiscal house in order.

WHAT DOES IT SAY ABOUT AMERICA'S ABILITY TO REMAIN THE WORLD'S SUPERPOWER?

Virtually everyone agreed that America's fiscal path is unsustainable: With a national debt of more than $14.3 trillion, the U.S. borrows forty cents of every dollar it spends.

Yet there is intense, fundamental disagreement on how to solve the problem, with Tea Party Republicans as passionately opposed to increasing taxes as progressive Democrats are to making deep cuts in the Social Security pension system and other so-called entitlement programs.

In the marginalization of the political center and dismal prospect for expedient reform, experts saw a threat to America's geopolitical strength.

"It's hard to maintain your influence globally when you can't manage your own country," said Barry Bosworth, a veteran fiscal and monetary policy expert at the Brookings Institution.

The former chair of President Barack Obama's Council of Economic Advisers tacitly agreed. "There is no way we can have persistent deficits of the size the Congressional Budget Office is predicting over the next 25 years and hope to remain the world's preeminent economic superpower," said Christina Romer, who left the CEA in September 2010. "If we don't deal with these deficits there is no way we won't eventually default and become a much weaker country."

Many Republicans and some Democrats fear that defense cuts could have the same effect. At least $350 billion of the initial $917 billion in spending cuts over 10 years are to come from defense and other security programs, which now account for more than half of discretionary spending.

The Pentagon budget for fiscal year 2010 was $680 billion, a reminder of the vast size and reach of America's global military power.

Many, including Pentagon experts, worried that another $500 billion of cuts over the next decade, which could be triggered by a failure of the second phase of the compromise plan, would gravely undercut the United States' international influence and its ability to execute a muscular foreign policy.

Pressure on the dollar as the world's reserve currency would also have geopolitical repercussions.

In the short-term, the United States' and the dollar's world standing is safe, because no other country is able or willing to take its place. Europe's own deep crisis with indebted nations such as Greece, Ireland and Portugal means that the euro is not quite the stable bet it once seemed to be, and China has no clear alternative to buying U.S. bonds to prevent its huge trade surplus from driving up the value of its tightly managed yuan.

But China's economy is rapidly shifting, and its need for reserves of Treasury debt will shrink, according to Stephen Roach, a senior lecturer at Yale University and non-executive chairman of Morgan Stanley.

Beijing's latest five-year economic plan focuses on building up domestic consumption, and China could even post a current account deficit by 2015, Roach said - meaning it would no longer need to buy as much debt. "They are moving away from the dollar whether we like it or not," he said.

If the dollar lost its status as the world's reserve currency it would do more than undercut America's geopolitical position: It would drive up interest rates and borrowing costs for the government, businesses and households.

PIMCO's El-Erian described the debt-limit battle as a "self-inflicted wound that weakens the economy and erodes its standing globally."

John Steele Gordon, a financial historian, downplayed the immediate effect of the debt-ceiling fight. "I don't think it will change the U.S.'s superpower status to any degree. We've had these knock down fights before."

Yet he too saw the government's budget deficit as make-or-break for America's place in the world: "What will affect superpower status is if the U.S. continues to spend more money than it takes in."

HOW MUCH DOES THE DEBT DEAL FIX THE U.S. FISCAL CRISIS?

There is no way to curb soaring U.S. debt without confronting three of the biggest drivers of American spending: Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare. Deep cuts in any of them represent deal-breakers to large and powerful political forces.

Left unreformed, these three programs - the federal pension system and the programs that support health care for the poor and the elderly - would devour every cent of America's tax revenues by 2047, according to the non-partisan Government Accountability Office.

Yet even with the threat of a catastrophic default as an incentive, and agreement by both parties that deficits must be brought under control, the debt-limit deal that finally emerged still failed to include robust reform of what are described as "entitlements".

The failure is symptomatic: Every important economic lever must work against a big political stick in the gears.

With more government stimulus "off the table," the slow-growing economy cannot generate enough jobs to pull down the unemployment rate. That in turn means Washington has to spend even more than expected on unemployment benefits, food stamps, Medicaid and other programs. Cuts in those programs would then become even more painful.

With tax hikes likewise "off the table," tax revenues will be restrained by weak consumer spending and idled labor.

And so on.

As a result, PIMCO's El-Erian expected the debt-ceiling compromise to do "very little, if at all" to fix America's underlying fiscal crisis. "Remember a sovereign debt burden is defined as total liabilities relative to a country's ability to service them. So it is not just about the debt stock, the maturity profiles and interest rates. It is also critically about the ability to grow. And this crisis has undermined growth, investment and employment."

Romer said "a holding pattern" is the most likely outcome of the debt debate saga. "It deals with the immediate issue of the debt ceiling but doesn't face up to our long-term deficit problem."

Morgan Stanley's Roach put it bluntly: "Make no mistake, we are not getting a major breakthrough in America's fiscal dilemma out of this deal. Talk about kicking the can down the road - this is probably the biggest can that's ever been kicked."

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel

1162

61587

Lima

RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES?

8/6/2011 4:13:11 PM

Standard & Poor's penalizes the world's leading economy for not doing enough with its debt

S&P downgrades US credit rating from AAA
S&P issues unprecedented downgrade of US credit rating, saying debt package falls short

This Monday, Aug. 1, 2011 picture shows the U.S. Capitol just after the House voted to pass debt legislation on Capitol Hill in Washington. Credit rating agency Standard & Poor's says it has downgraded the United States' credit rating for the first time in history of the ratings. The credit rating agency says that it is cutting the country's top AAA rating by one notch to AA-plus. The credit agency said late Friday, Aug. 5, 2011 that it is making the move because the deficit reduction plan passed by Congress on Tuesday did not go far enough to stabilize the country's debt situation. (AP photo Jacquelyn Martin)
Martin Crutsinger, AP Economics Writer, On Friday August 5, 2011, 11:55 pm EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The United States has lost its sterling credit rating from Standard & Poor's.
The credit rating agency on Friday lowered the nation's AAA rating for the first time since granting it in 1917. The move came less than a week after a gridlocked Congress finally agreed to spending cuts that would reduce the debt by more than $2 trillion -- a tumultuous process that contributed to convulsions in financial markets. The promised cuts were not enough to satisfy S&P.
The drop in the rating by one notch to AA-plus was telegraphed as a possibility back in April. The three main credit agencies, which also include Moody's Investor Service and Fitch, had warned during the budget fight that if Congress did not cut spending far enough, the country faced a downgrade. Moody's said it was keeping its AAA rating on the nation's debt, but that it might still lower it.
One of the biggest questions after the downgrade was what impact it would have on already nervous investors. While the downgrade was not a surprise, some selling is expected when stock trading resumes Monday morning. The Dow Jones industrial average fell 699 points this week, the biggest weekly point drop since October 2008.
"I think we will have a knee-jerk reaction on Monday," said Jack Ablin, chief investment officer at Harris Private Bank.
But any losses might be short-lived. The threat of a downgrade is likely already reflected in the plunge in stocks this week, said Harvey Neiman, a portfolio manager of the Neiman Large Cap Value Fund.
"The market's already been shaken out," Neiman said. "It knew it was coming."
One fear in the market has been that a downgrade would scare buyers away from U.S. debt. If that were to happen, the interest rate paid on U.S. bonds, notes and bills would have to rise to attract buyers. And that could lead to higher borrowing rates for consumers, since the rates on mortgages and other loans are pegged to the yield on Treasury securities.
However, even without an AAA rating from S&P, U.S. debt is seen as one of the safest investments in the world. And investors clearly weren't scared away this week. While stocks were plunging, investors were buying Treasurys and driving up their prices. The yield on the 10-year Treasury note, which falls when the price rises, fell to a low of 2.39 percent on Thursday from 2.75 percent Monday.
A study by JPMorgan Chase found that there has been a slight rise in rates when countries lost an AAA rating. In 1998, S&P lowered ratings for Belgium, Italy and Spain. A week later, their 10-year rates had barely moved.
The government fought the downgrade. Administration sources familiar with the discussions said the S&P analysis was fundamentally flawed. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss the matter publicly. S&P had sent the administration a draft document in the early afternoon Friday and the administration, after examining the numbers, challenged the analysis.
S&P said that in addition to the downgrade, it is issuing a negative outlook, meaning that there was a chance it will lower the rating further within the next two years. It said such a downgrade, to AA, would occur if the agency sees smaller reductions in spending than Congress and the administration have agreed to make, higher interest rates or new fiscal pressures during this period.
In its statement, S&P said that it had changed its view "of the difficulties of bridging the gulf between the political parties" over a credible deficit reduction plan.
S&P said it was now "pessimistic about the capacity of Congress and the administration to be able to leverage their agreement this week into a broader fiscal consolidation plan that stabilizes the government's debt dynamics anytime soon."
One analyst suggested the downgrade might move Congress to take concrete steps to fix the nation's budget problems.
"It's a downgrade and it's bad, but if it spurs more conversation about bringing down spending and maybe more intelligent tax policy, it could be a good thing in the long run," said Frank Barbera, a portfolio manager of the Sierra Core Retirement Fund.
The Federal Reserve and other U.S. regulators said in a joint statement that S&P's action should not have any impact on how banks and other financial institutions assess the riskiness of Treasurys or other securities guaranteed by the U.S. government. The statement was issued to make sure banks did not feel that the downgrade would affect the amount of capital that regulators require the banks to hold against possible losses.
Before leaving for a weekend at Camp David, President Barack Obama met with Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner in the Oval Office late Friday afternoon.
The downgrade is likely to have little to no impact on how the United States finances its borrowing, through the sale of Treasury bonds, bills and notes. This week's buying proves that.
"Investors have voted and are saying the U.S. is going to pay them," said Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody's Analytics. "U.S. Treasurys are still the gold standard." He noted that neither his parent organization, Moody's, nor Fitch, the other of the three major rating agencies, have downgraded U.S. debt.
The ratings agencies were sharply criticized after the financial crisis in 2008 for not warning investors about the risks of subprime mortgages. Those mortgages were packaged as securities and sold to investors who lost billions of dollars when the loans went bad.
Japan had its ratings cut a decade ago to AA, and it didn't have much lasting impact. The credit ratings of both Canada and Australia have also been downgraded over time, without much lasting damage.
"I don't think it's going to amount to a lot," said Peter Morici, a University of Maryland business economist.
Still, he said, "The United States deserves to have this happen," because of its clumsy handling of fiscal policy.
In reacting to the downgrade, Democrats and Republicans continued to blame each other and pledged to hold firm to their principles.
Republican presidential candidates criticized the White House. Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., called on Obama to fire Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner and submit a plan to balance the budget and not just reduce future deficits. Republican candidate Mitt Romney, former governor of Massachusetts, said the credit downgrade was the "latest casualty" in Obama's failed economic leadership.
House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi said the American people will be closely watching the work of the 12-member joint committee that has been created to produce more than $1 trillion in additional savings over the next decade.
"The work of this committee will affect all Americans, and its deliberations should be open to the press, to the public and webcast," she said.
Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid said the downgrade underscored the need for a "balanced approach to deficit reduction that combines spending cuts with revenue-raising measures" such as doing away with tax breaks for the wealthy and oil companies.
AP reporters Tom Raum, David Espo and Julie Pace in Washington and Business Writers Chip Cutter and Pallavi Gogoi in New York contributed to this report.

"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/6/2011 9:07:04 PM
	China rips U.S. over credit downgrade World leaders to confer on debt crises this weekend On Saturday August 6, 2011, 3:51 pm By Paul Taylor and Melanie Lee PARIS/SHANGHAI (Reuters) - Global leaders on Saturday arranged a round of emergency calls to discuss the twin debt crises in Europe and the United States that are causing turmoil in financial markets. The European Central Bank's policy-setting council will hold a rare Sunday conference call to talk about the euro zone problems, ECB sources said. Markets are anxiously looking for the central bank to start buying Italian and Spanish debt on Monday to stabilize prices, a move that has split the ECB governing council. But more pressure on the bonds of the two countries after last week's steep sell-off could undermine an already damaged European banking system and lock Italy, the world's eighth largest economy, out of the market. Worsening the outlook was the Standard and Poor's downgrade of the U.S. sovereign credit rating late on Friday on concerns about its budget deficits and growing debt burden. While not totally unexpected, the loss of top-tier AAA status by the world's economic superpower drew fierce criticism from China, a huge holder of U.S. debt, and promised more anxiety for global financial markets. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who heads the G20 group of the world's leading economies, will discuss the financial situation in light of the U.S. downgrade with British Prime Minister David Cameron on Saturday evening, his office said. Finance ministers and central bankers of the G7 group of major industrialized nations will confer by telephone on Saturday or Sunday, a senior European diplomatic source said. Their deputies from the broader G20 were due to hold a call on Saturday evening, a Brazilian finance ministry source said. GRIDLOCK IN WASHINGTON China bluntly criticized the United States after the S&P ratings cut to AA-plus, saying Washington had only itself to blame and calling for a new stable global reserve currency. "The U.S. government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone," China's official Xinhua news agency said in a commentary. After a week which saw $2.5 trillion wiped off global markets, the S&P move deepened fears of an impending recession in the United States as euro zone countries struggle with a debt crisis of their own. S&P blamed the downgrade in part on gridlock in Washington, saying politics was preventing steps to address the debt and deficit problems. Amid a vitriolic fight between Democrats and Republicans, U.S. lawmakers reached a last-minute debt deal last week to avoid an unprecedented default by the government. President Barack Obama urged lawmakers to set aside partisan politics, saying they must work to put the nation's fiscal house in order and stimulate the stagnant economy. He called on Congress to give tax relief to the middle class, extend jobless benefits and pass long-delayed trade pacts. The European source said the U.S. downgrade, added to the situation in Europe, raised the need for international policy coordination. "The G7 will confer by telephone. It's not yet confirmed whether it will be in one stage or in two stages, tonight and tomorrow," the source said. French Finance Minister Francois Baroin, who would chair any meeting under France's G7 and G20 presidency, said it was too soon to say whether there would be an early G7 gathering. Dutch Finance Minister Jan Kees de Jager said: "I am in constant contact with colleagues in other countries and am following the development of the financial markets closely." China and Japan have called for coordinated action to avert a new worldwide financial crisis. India's Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters: "There is no need to unnecessarily press the panic button." "DEBT ADDICTION" Recrimination flew thick and fast among U.S. politicians, with each side seeking to blame the other for the downgrade and the impasse over how to solve the fiscal crisis. Senator Jim Demint, a Republican, said Obama should demand the resignation of Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner. White House spokesman Jay Carney said Obama believes "it is important that our elected leaders come together to strengthen our economy and put our nation on a stronger fiscal footing." Xinhua scorned the United States for a "debt addiction" and "short sighted" political wrangling. China, it said, "has every right now to demand the United States address its structural debt problems and ensure the safety of China's dollar assets." "International supervision over the issue of U.S. dollars should be introduced and a new, stable and secured global reserve currency may also be an option to avert a catastrophe caused by any single country," Xinhua said. In contrast, France's Baroin said France had faith in the United States to get out of this "difficult period." Friday's U.S. unemployment numbers were better than expected and so things were heading in the right direction, he said. "One should not dramatize, one needs to remain cool-headed, one should look at the fundamentals," he told France's iTele. "There is no need for panic," Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk said. "We will see in August, and maybe more intensively in September what the effects for the world economy will be." Because the S&P move was expected, the impact on markets may be modest when they reopen on Monday. But the ratings cut may have a long-term impact for U.S. standing in the world, the dollar's status and the global financial system. "The consequence will be far reaching," said Ciaran O'Hagan, fixed income strategist at Societe Generale in Paris. "It will weigh on secure assets. The bigger reaction will be on risky assets, including equities and on agencies (Freddie Mac, Fannie Mae) and states backed directly by the federal government." But he added: "U.S. Treasuries will remain a benchmark. This is a ship which takes a long time to turn around." Norbert Barthle, a budget expert for German Chancellor Angela Merkel's conservatives, said the downgrade would certainly provoke further turbulence in markets. "I'm not surprised about the U.S. rating downgrade, rather I am astonished that, for weeks, international rating agencies have focused their attention on the European debt situation but not the American one," he said. "For a while, there have been clear worries about America's economic woes but also the fact the U.S. is heavily indebted." NO EARLY ITALIAN ELECTION Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi on Saturday ruled out calling early elections to stem market panic that has pounded Italian assets and forced his government to bring forward austerity measures. European policy makers are concerned that a debt emergency in the euro zone's third largest economy could completely overwhelm bailout mechanisms set up to help smaller troubled countries like Greece or Ireland. Italy is due to go to the polls in 2013 but Berlusconi dismissed any suggestion of emulating Spain, where Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero has called an early election to tackle the crisis. "This has absolutely not been talked about," Berlusconi told reporters. "This has never been an option." The European Union's top economic official praised Italy's decision to accelerate budget-balancing measures and structural reforms and said swift implementation was now crucial. "I strongly support this announcement and call on the authorities to quickly translate it into concrete measures," European Economic and Monetary Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told Reuters in a telephone interview. The ECB sources said the central bank remains divided over whether to buy Italian government bonds but that even some of those who favor the move say Italy should do more to front-load austerity measures. (Reporting by Isabel Versiani and Brian Winter in Brasilia, Laura MacInnis in Washington and other Reuters bureaux worldwide; Writing by Angus MacSwan and Stella Dawson; Editing by John O'Callaghan)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+0

Luis Miguel 1162 61587 Lima	RE: ARE WE NOW IN THE END TIMES? 8/6/2011 9:35:27 PM
	I'm sure you all know Michael Moore - well even I know him withouth being US born. Here is his newest letter. 30 Years Ago Today: The Day the Middle Class Died ...a letter from Michael Moore Friday, August 5th, 2011 Friends, From time to time, someone under 30 will ask me, "When did this all begin, America's downward slide?" They say they've heard of a time when working people could raise a family and send the kids to college on just one parent's income (and that college in states like California and New York was almost free). That anyone who wanted a decent paying job could get one. That people only worked five days a week, eight hours a day, got the whole weekend off and had a paid vacation every summer. That many jobs were union jobs, from baggers at the grocery store to the guy painting your house, and this meant that no matter how "lowly" your job was you had guarantees of a pension, occasional raises, health insurance and someone to stick up for you if you were unfairly treated. Young people have heard of this mythical time -- but it was no myth, it was real. And when they ask, "When did this all end?", I say, "It ended on this day: August 5th, 1981." Beginning on this date, 30 years ago, Big Business and the Right Wing decided to "go for it" -- to see if they could actually destroy the middle class so that they could become richer themselves. And they've succeeded. On August 5, 1981, President Ronald Reagan fired every member of the air traffic controllers union (PATCO) who'd defied his order to return to work and declared their union illegal. They had been on strike for just two days. It was a bold and brash move. No one had ever tried it. What made it even bolder was that PATCO was one of only three unions that had endorsed Reagan for president! It sent a shock wave through workers across the country. If he would do this to the people who were with him, what would he do to us? Reagan had been backed by Wall Street in his run for the White House and they, along with right-wing Christians, wanted to restructure America and turn back the tide that President Franklin D. Roosevelt started -- a tide that was intended to make life better for the average working person. The rich hated paying better wages and providing benefits. They hated paying taxes even more. And they despised unions. The right-wing Christians hated anything that sounded like socialism or holding out a helping hand to minorities or women. Reagan promised to end all that. So when the air traffic controllers went on strike, he seized the moment. In getting rid of every single last one of them and outlawing their union, he sent a clear and strong message: The days of everyone having a comfortable middle class life were over. America, from now on, would be run this way: * The super-rich will make more, much much more, and the rest of you will scramble for the crumbs that are left. * Everyone must work! Mom, Dad, the teenagers in the house! Dad, you work a second job! Kids, here's your latch-key! Your parents might be home in time to put you to bed. * 50 million of you must go without health insurance! And health insurance companies: you go ahead and decide who you want to help -- or not. * Unions are evil! You will not belong to a union! You do not need an advocate! Shut up and get back to work! No, you can't leave now, we're not done. Your kids can make their own dinner. * You want to go to college? No problem -- just sign here and be in hock to a bank for the next 20 years! * What's "a raise"? Get back to work and shut up! And so it went. But Reagan could not have pulled this off by himself in 1981. He had some big help: The AFL-CIO. The biggest organization of unions in America told its members to cross the picket lines of the air traffic controllers and go to work. And that's just what these union members did. Union pilots, flight attendants, delivery truck drivers, baggage handlers -- they all crossed the line and helped to break the strike. And union members of all stripes crossed the picket lines and continued to fly. Reagan and Wall Street could not believe their eyes! Hundreds of thousands of working people and union members endorsing the firing of fellow union members. It was Christmas in August for Corporate America. And that was the beginning of the end. Reagan and the Republicans knew they could get away with anything -- and they did. They slashed taxes on the rich. They made it harder for you to start a union at your workplace. They eliminated safety regulations on the job. They ignored the monopoly laws and allowed thousands of companies to merge or be bought out and closed down. Corporations froze wages and threatened to move overseas if the workers didn't accept lower pay and less benefits. And when the workers agreed to work for less, they moved the jobs overseas anyway. And at every step along the way, the majority of Americans went along with this. There was little opposition or fight-back. The "masses" did not rise up and protect their jobs, their homes, their schools (which used to be the best in the world). They just accepted their fate and took the beating. I have often wondered what would have happened had we all just stopped flying, period, back in 1981. What if all the unions had said to Reagan, "Give those controllers their jobs back or we're shutting the country down!"? You know what would have happened. The corporate elite and their boy Reagan would have buckled. But we didn't do it. And so, bit by bit, piece by piece, in the ensuing 30 years, those in power have destroyed the middle class of our country and, in turn, have wrecked the future for our young people. Wages have remained stagnant for 30 years. Take a look at the statistics and you can see that every decline we're now suffering with had its beginning in 1981 (here's a little scene to illustrate that from my last movie). It all began on this day, 30 years ago. One of the darkest days in American history. And we let it happen to us. Yes, they had the money, and the media and the cops. But we had 200 million of us. Ever wonder what it would look like if 200 million got truly upset and wanted their country, their life, their job, their weekend, their time with their kids back? Have we all just given up? What are we waiting for? Forget about the 20% who support the Tea Party -- we are the other 80%! This decline will only end when we demand it. And not through an online petition or a tweet. We are going to have to turn the TV and the computer and the video games off and get out in the streets (like they've done in Wisconsin). Some of you need to run for local office next year. We need to demand that the Democrats either get a spine and stop taking corporate money -- or step aside. When is enough, enough? The middle class dream will not just magically reappear. Wall Street's plan is clear: America is to be a nation of Haves and Have Nothings. Is that OK for you? Why not use today to pause and think about the little steps you can take to turn this around in your neighborhood, at your workplace, in your school? Is there any better day to start than today? Yours, Michael Moore MMFlint@... MichaelMoore.com P.S. Here are a few places you can connect with to get the ball rolling: Showdown in America Democracy Convention Occupy Wall Street October 2011 How to Join a Union, from the AFL-CIO (They've learned their lesson and have a good president now) or UE Change to Win MoveOn High School Newspaper (Just because you're under 18 doesn't mean you can't do anything!)
	"Choose a job you love and you will not have to work a day in your life" (Confucius)
	+0

My Links

Menu

Forums

Debt deal set to pass but what were the costs?

Debt deal set to pass, but at what cost?

S&P downgrades US credit rating from AAA

S&P issues unprecedented downgrade of US credit rating, saying debt package falls short

China rips U.S. over credit downgrade

World leaders to confer on debt crises this weekend

Like us on Facebook!