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Why Economics Says America’s Collapse is Probably Irreversible Now

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
America eventually recovered from the Spanish/Kansas flu pandemic,of 1918, which was even worse than this Wuhan Corona virus fiasco, I'm confident America will soon again have a Trumped-up economy.


One thing I'd really hate to see is a return to business as usual, and the status quo. Not that the virus has really affected that all too much.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
Now thats something thats reasonable.

It's going to take however, a brand new third-party to do that, who is not beholden or associated with either Democrats or Republicans.
The two ruling parties will not allow that. They have already made it nearly impossible for a viable third party to exist. And soon they will have so corrupted the electoral system that our votes will be irrelevant, anyway.

It's past the point of party solutions, now. The people have to unite to take control back from the corrupt politicians that are now in power. And the only way to do that is to vote them all out, every time, regardless of party. Until and unless we get people in there that will TAKE ACTION to stop the legalized bribery and corruption. Ideologies no longer matter, now. Parties no longer matter, now. All that matters is stopping the wholesale bribery and corruption. Until we do that, none of them are representing any of us, anyway.
 

icehorse

......unaffiliated...... anti-dogmatist
Premium Member
Hi @Kangaroo Feathers,

"It's not that I'm Negative.." was a good article, thanks for the link. I thought it was interesting when he said that we missed our chance when we didn't vote for Bernie or Warren, I agree.

My immediate thought is that we need to mobilize a plan, ASAP. How do we get the disillusioned to understand what's in this article? How do we get our fellows to wake up?
 

Twilight Hue

Twilight, not bright nor dark, good nor bad.
The two ruling parties will not allow that. They have already made it nearly impossible for a viable third party to exist. And soon they will have so corrupted the electoral system that our votes will be irrelevant, anyway.

It's past the point of party solutions, now. The people have to unite to take control back from the corrupt politicians that are not in power. And the only way to do that is to vote them all out, every time, regardless of party. Until and unless we get people in there that will TAKE ACTION to stop the legalized bribery and corruption. Ideologies no longer matter, now. All that matters is stopping the bribery and corruption. Until we do that, none of them are representing any of us, anyway.

I'm sure some of us have noticed just how immensely well things are going for the elites. Come to think of it, you probably have to be blind for anybody not to notice that.

It's obvious with both parties that they do not want to change anything anymore and it's really for all practical intents and purposes, has effectively become a two-party dictatorship considering how everything has been intentionally rigged against a third party ever coming in.

When was the last time a dominant party was ousted in this country? The Whigs?

I think most common people would now recognize thats it's high time for the Democrats and Republicans to go.

Sadly the foxes have taken over the hen house and are feasting quite comfortably without any recourse.
 

Kangaroo Feathers

Yea, it is written in the Book of Cyril...
Hi @Kangaroo Feathers,

"It's not that I'm Negative.." was a good article, thanks for the link. I thought it was interesting when he said that we missed our chance when we didn't vote for Bernie or Warren, I agree.

My immediate thought is that we need to mobilize a plan, ASAP. How do we get the disillusioned to understand what's in this article? How do we get our fellows to wake up?
I'm glad you liked it
 

Shadow Wolf

Certified People sTabber
The badge of honor article reminded me everyone who would abandon fundamentalist Evangelicals and thinks attempts to help them out are utterly useless and wasted. But Fundamentalists are capable of leaving that cult just as not all Americans accep the ****. Myself, I'm more steongly considering Canada because I've medical debts issues and concerns since I was young and I dont anticipate that getting better. And it'll be nice to know higher income won't put me behind after insurance and deductibles.
 

Terrywoodenpic

Oldest Heretic
Our selfishness is now so pervasive that we really don't care if our neighbors or fellow citizens suffer or die as result of our corrupt, brutal, and incompetent economic and political policies. All we care about is ourselves and our own. So the only thing that will spur us to take action, now, will be for ourselves and our loved ones to be seriously hurt or killed by this total failure of our social, economic, and political systems. That's when the suffering will become real enough for us to finally be willing to act. Even then, we will need someone or something to tell us what we can do. Or our actions will just be chaotic and self-destructive.


But by then, I suspect, it will be too late, anyway.

Maybe if this virus kills enough of us quickly enough that we are all directly touched by the death and suffering, we will be willing to take action, quickly, before it's too late. ... That's a very sad thing to have to hope for, though.


When ever did a few thousands of deaths change American policies.

America is in love with death and killing
That is the way it looks anyway.
 

Stevicus

Veteran Member
Staff member
Premium Member
It is still reversible. But sadly, we are still not going to reverse it. Because we are still too sick as a people to do what we need to do to reverse it.

And sadly, it will soon become irreversible, and then even if we did decide to act, we will not be effective.

The prognosis is not good. The greed and stupidity are too pervasive. And so are the fear and selfishness that it fuels.

The solution is simple: we need to vote out of office every incumbent candidate in every election regardless of their party affiliation, unless and until we get people in there who prove that they will ACT (not just talk) to stop the legalized bribery of our legislative branch of government (the Congress and the Senate). Because until we stop the corruption caused by this wholesale and legalized bribery of our lawmakers, NOTHING ELSE CAN CHANGE OR BE FIXED. And they are currently rigging and corrupting our electoral system to the point where soon, our votes will have no effect. And then we will have lost the ability to correct the problem short of a violent revolution, which would almost certainly be horrendous, and result in an even worse mess than what we have, now.

I agree with what you're saying here, particularly about voting every incumbent out of office. But I'm not sure if that will go far enough, depending on who gets elected in their place. I tend to view politicians and candidates for public office much in the same way I look at newsreaders. They are essentially products of political machines who go up before the voters and read words written by someone else.

The voters are also part of the problem. There are a lot of people struggling, suffering hardship and pain, and perhaps this puts them under a certain level of duress which can cause them to be easily led. It's not that they're necessarily "stupid." Some of them are, but I think there's more going on in terms of how voters reach their decisions and formulate their political views.

For much of my life, I've seen a general undercurrent in public opinion that America has been in decline for quite some time. Such opinions tend to be muted or drowned out by those who don't want to hear anything they perceive as "negative." There have been many who don't want to hear "doom and gloom" and have tried to push this idea that "everything is great."

Part of the problem, at least when looking at the long-term economic history of the US, is that for most of our history, we had grown accustomed to rapid expansion across a sparsely-populated continent teeming with resources and arable land. Tell millions of people to "Go West" and build towns, roads, railroads, cities, mines, ranches, factories - then some people are going to end up making a lot of money and the overall wealth of the country will be increased. Conquest, expansionism, slavery, and all the atrocities which go along with it - that's how a lot of great empires built themselves up.

It worked for a while, but eventually you reach a plateau where there's no more room to expand, no more land to conquer (or else it might antagonize another empire and start a world war, which has happened). All the things we did to build up all the wealth and power America has enjoyed for all this time - we can't really do that anymore.

I think we reached that point in the late 60s/early 70s, but we still had enough accumulated wealth that we could maintain ourselves and "live off our fat" to give the appearance of business as usual, while we slowly mortgaged, borrowed, and outsourced our way to the point where our national debt is over $25 trillion. We also don't have the same strategic advantage we once had.

I believe that we can still salvage the situation. I don't think this is irreversible either, but I think we need to take a step back and come to the realization that we may have to shift our goals. A lot of what drives the US political culture is a strong push towards patriotism which is tied in with the US role as the "leader of the free world" and the "defender of democracy and freedom." This is what leads to policies of global interventionism which have been a drain on the taxpayers but a boon to big business and the global corporate elite. So, when America finally does fall, they'll certainly have their safe havens to run to.

But I think we need to stop thinking in terms of "American exceptionalism." I'm not against patriotism, but I think we need to have a more realistic form of patriotism, not one that involves going all over the world in some military adventurist crusade. We can focus more on basic national defense and adopt more realistic goals in terms of how we will survive in this world. We don't necessarily have to be the "leader," not anymore. Both Democrats and Republicans want to maintain this delusion, and that's where they are wrong.

Trump and his followers seem to want to double-down on the same delusion (the more anachronistic Antebellum version), but nobody from either side seems willing to acknowledge that it is a delusion.

This is the reason that empires fall and dynasties are overthrown. This is why the peasants get restless and how revolutions get incredibly nasty and violent. They all seem to suffer from some sort of delusion up until the very end. The Romanovs likely had no clue and sincerely did not know what they did wrong or why their own people hated them as much as they did. How did they wind up in such a predicament? They really didn't know. That's the consequence of deluding themselves for so long.

I think we're facing the same consequences.
 

PureX

Veteran Member
The fall came in the 80s when Reagan convinced us all that our government was an 'other' (not part of us), and was an incompetent, codependent, enemy 'other', at that. And that "free market capitalism" was our real friend, and salvation. When we bought that lie, we quit trying to make government represent us, and we made a deal with the devil, instead (we embraced deregulation). And that spelled the end. That's when we turned our collective power over to the wealthy elites who have never had any interest in our well-being, or even in the nation's. All they ever cared about was winning the monopoly game. And now they own most of the board, and are using it to take everything else on it.

I knew at the time that the writing was on the wall. But America loved to hate it's own government, and loved imagining that they were all going to be rich, somehow, without the government getting in the way. So they followed the piper right into the abyss. And now here we are.
 

oldbadger

Skanky Old Mongrel!
Mad-Max-Fury-Road-large.jpg
Hi Dad......... :)
Is that your mob?

I'll join up if I can shoot that tank gun........ always wanted to do that. :)
 

Watchmen

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
All empires rise and fall, and America will too. But will coronavirus and Trump be the cause of an irreversible decline? Surely not. We’re still a superpower and things will go up again, far up, before we decline to oblivion.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
The fall came in the 80s when Reagan convinced us all that our government was an 'other' (not part of us), and was an incompetent, codependent, enemy 'other', at that. And that "free market capitalism" was our real friend, and salvation. When we bought that lie, we quit trying to make government represent us, and we made a deal with the devil, instead (we embraced deregulation). And that spelled the end. That's when we turned our collective power over to the wealthy elites who have never had any interest in our well-being, or even in the nation's. All they ever cared about was winning the monopoly game. And now they own most of the board, and are using it to take everything else on it.
Yes, deregulation is, after all, just another way of saying that we won't allow the (people's) government to oversee unfettered capitalism. That we'll let anybody do what they want, if they think they can win. That we're happy with a zero-sum game.

And even now it continues, as the Trump administration fells Inspectors General like trees in a logging camp.

And in the end, only "the people" can stop it. Go ahead -- eat the rich (most of them will take a lot of braising). What was it you guys said to King George so long ago? "WE the People....?"
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
What matter if businesses re-open if there's nobody with enough income to buy what the business has to sell? That little idea alone is the stuff black holes are made of.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Hi @Kangaroo Feathers,

"It's not that I'm Negative.." was a good article, thanks for the link. I thought it was interesting when he said that we missed our chance when we didn't vote for Bernie or Warren, I agree.

My immediate thought is that we need to mobilize a plan, ASAP. How do we get the disillusioned to understand what's in this article? How do we get our fellows to wake up?
I don't think you can...the split is too deep, everybody is watching either Fox or CNN, positions have been fortified, attitudes struck, now there's nothing left but "once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more."

When you can kick out the Kochs and the rest of the useless billionaires (there's a couple I'd keep, Gates for one), and become a PEOPLE again, then maybe you have a chance. But that, of course, is the stuff of which revolution is made. And revolutions are never comfortable affairs, are they?
 

Riders

Well-Known Member
I've known America has been screwed since the 1980s. But people back then were thinking that our economy was "good" and believed that Reagan's policies were taking America in the right direction. The thing is, if our economy is not good now, then it was never "good" in the 1980s either - or any time since then - even if some people were deluded into thinking that it was. Those of us with foresight knew full well that America was heading for a fall, but too many myopic people refused to believe it. Both Democrats and Republicans are/were fully complicit in the demise of America's economy.

I'm not sure that it's irreversible, though. I think it's still possible to turn the economy around, but it will require radical changes - the kind which should have been implemented back in the 1960s when people were calling for radical change. Too many people were afraid of change and had a disdain for radicals, so instead we chose to numb ourselves on Ronald Reagan and sing "Don't Worry, Be Happy."

It's not just the Republicans, either. Clinton and Obama each had two terms where they could have reversed the course America was on, but they didn't - because they were suffering the same delusions as everyone else. This doesn't mitigate anything Trump has done, but let's face it: The reason Trump has such an ardent fanbase now is because so many Americans have been lied to for decades by many of the same people.


Yes I hear Biden is more popular.
 

fantome profane

Anti-Woke = Anti-Justice
Premium Member
What matter if businesses re-open if there's nobody with enough income to buy what the business has to sell? That little idea alone is the stuff black holes are made of.
Or have the confidence that the businesses are safe. A lot of people are not going to feel comfortable sitting in a restaurant, or a theatre, or a stadium for a very long time. Some businesses are going to take a long time before they come back if they ever do.
 

Evangelicalhumanist

"Truth" isn't a thing...
Premium Member
Or have the confidence that the businesses are safe. A lot of people are not going to feel comfortable sitting in a restaurant, or a theatre, or a stadium for a very long time. Some businesses are going to take a long time before they come back if they ever do.
And if they can't do it quickly, then most likely they can't do it at all. No business can continue paying fixed costs forever, without some hope of revenue.
 

Shaul

Well-Known Member
Premium Member
I honestly tried to read the article, but the author makes misstatements of fact and his prose is just a rambling screed. He simply throws as much negativity as he can in the hopes that enough sticks. He provides no analysis. He seems to hope his readers will suspend critical thinking and take an emotive leap into his liberal dystopian fantasyland.

If he were significant enough we could add him to the list,
List of predictions - Wikipedia
But he doesn’t rate a mention even there.
 
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