http://bloggingblue.com/wp-content/u...ad-in-sand.gif

With their acute eyesight and hearing, the Man Ostrich can sense predators such as logic and common sense from far away. When lying down and hiding from these outrageously convincing predators, the Man Ostriches lay their heads and necks flat on the ground, making them appear as a mound of earth from a distance.

No, inflation is currently at 1.4% and falling. Inflation has not been above 6% since 1990.
http://www.usinflationcalculator.com...flation-rates/

You guys are talking about communism, which doesn't work. EVERY modern economy is a combination of socialism and capitalism. It's called a Mixed Economy. The US has been a mixed economy since the New Deal.

Unfortunately for all of us...every modern economy is bankrupt. :(

True. Thanks for the correction.

Ed Hammer for president

that guy knows what time it is!

But why are they bankrupt? It's not because of Mixed Economies, i'll tell you that. It all started here with the mortgage crisis. That massive fraud has cost us over $3 Trillion (3x more than those bullshit wars) and has also decreased people's median net worth by around 40%!

I saw the mortgage crisis coming and got out early. When shit started hitting the fan, i was saying that there would be more shoes to drop. Europe was that next shoe.

The combined European Union is our largest trading partner. When we entered longest & deepest recession since the Great Depression, we were obviously buying dramatically less european (and chinese etc) goods. Of course they were going hit a big decline, and we've been seeing that over the last couple years. We're also seeing China slow sharply due to slack demand in the US and Europe.

To me, the evidence is clear that the problem was caused by barely regulated, unfettered capitalism run amok.

For a brilliant overview of the financial crisis, I highly recommend the documentary Inside Job.
https://youtube.com/watch?v=FzrBurlJUNk
crap, forgot how to embed youtube movies lol

I don't know the answer to that.
I do know that when they bring on real economic experts on CNN and other news organizations...that entitlement programs are exactly what they blame for Greece and other European countries in trouble.

The analysts I have seen over the last 3 years on the news have all said that those European govt.'s promised way too much "Free" stuff with no way to pay for it (sound familiar?)

http://www.unc.edu/depts/europe/euro...n%20Europe.php

I don't see how a mortgage crisis caused countries to go bankrupt. It didn't cause our country to go bankrupt...it just fucked up our economy.

Greece's govt. just kept borrowing so much to pay entitlements that they went over any sane percentage of their GDP. Same with Spain, and most European nations are teetering on doing the same thing.

So yes...your wording of a "Mixed Economy" (which really is code for entitlement and wealth distribution) is failing big time at the moment.
Hopefully, you are right and Europe will pull out of it's problems and the U.S. will too. And then I can cut back working so damn hard and start getting myself a govt. check too. :pimp

No. Taxation is tribute levied in return for a license to trade. The rich are trading at a higher level, and so they pay more tax.

It's no different to fur tribute, and it has no connection at all to a welfare state.

few things:

i agree on greece. i've spent a lot of time there and love the place. but since they kicked out the junta in '74, they've just been living beyond their means, buying votes and having a bureaucracy so bloated and corrupt as to make ours look lean and squeaky clean lol. they could (sorta) afford that while their tourism industry remained strong, but when the downturn came, it cratered. and as a few greeks told me, soccer isn't the national sport...tax evasion is :1orglaugh

regarding the term bankrupt. you had used it, so i was just going with it. europe isn't gonna go broke. they'll do what we did and fire up the printing press.

Mixed Economy as code for entitlement and wealth distribution - keep in mind, what we had before the Depression and the New Deal was pretty much Social Darwinism (aka every man for himself). There was a tiny middle class and almost everyone else was working class or poor.

If you fell on hard times or lost your job, you literally went to the poorhouse. Or starved.
If you got sick and couldn't afford to pay, you died.
If you got injured due to unsafe working conditions, too bad. Poorhouse or die.
If that's your idea of a great, civilized society, then have at.

But hey, if that's what you want, I have good news for you - it's coming back! For the last, say, 40 years, (basically since Wall St and the Government hugged it out and became partners) the middle class has been shrinking and the distribution of wealth is even more skewed than it was before the depression.
http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/wp-cont...phs_web_31.png

Another interesting graph here http://visualizingeconomics.com/2008.../#.UEwJeI1lTmU