10-21-2012, 10:10 AM
Tim Donovan wrote:
Nowadays the economy is at grave risk in part because voters insist on keeping spending high and taxes low, so the red ink keeps accumulating, threatening an eventual collapse.
You've identified an important long-term problem: the national debt and it's deleterious effects on long-term economic health. The last 10 years or so really seem to have been a "bread and circuses" decade. The other two really big contributors to the stagnant economy are massive emerging markets upping demand on foodstuffs and goods (namely China and India), and a market setup that rewards reckless risktaking with massive amounts of money.I get depressed when I dwell on the issue of my nation's fiscal irresponsibility...
But yes: if there was ever a threat to our democratic way of life (barring biological or WMD catastrophe), it would be the specter of economic collapse. When ideological push comes to hard-times shove, people seem willing to trade their liberties for a promise of security. As others have pointed out, we would very likely keep the structure of democracy intact, while an executive branch wields massively disproportionate power, kept into place by, say, an "emergency" amendment to the constitution.
Nowadays the economy is at grave risk in part because voters insist on keeping spending high and taxes low, so the red ink keeps accumulating, threatening an eventual collapse.
You've identified an important long-term problem: the national debt and it's deleterious effects on long-term economic health. The last 10 years or so really seem to have been a "bread and circuses" decade. The other two really big contributors to the stagnant economy are massive emerging markets upping demand on foodstuffs and goods (namely China and India), and a market setup that rewards reckless risktaking with massive amounts of money.I get depressed when I dwell on the issue of my nation's fiscal irresponsibility...
But yes: if there was ever a threat to our democratic way of life (barring biological or WMD catastrophe), it would be the specter of economic collapse. When ideological push comes to hard-times shove, people seem willing to trade their liberties for a promise of security. As others have pointed out, we would very likely keep the structure of democracy intact, while an executive branch wields massively disproportionate power, kept into place by, say, an "emergency" amendment to the constitution.
Take what you want, and pay for it
-Spanish proverb
-Spanish proverb
