Food For Thought

[HippieChick75]

Perhaps my fellow members can shed some light on an issue that I just am not understanding.....Here we go.

I just explained to my husband that I am not really sure how we, the US, is spending so much money...literally trillions upon trillions in the red, every day. We are printing more and more money and devaluing our dollar. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, which I am going to, but how can the bottom NOT drop out? How can we NOT go into 3rd world status? How can we not see the end of the US as we know it morph into complete pandemonium? I want to be wrong but don't think I am.

I am a well educated women with a masters and countless other degrees. I look, I research, I ask a million questions before I in fact form an opinion. But every where I look, everything I read, every statistic, number, and graph pain strickenly leads me to the inevitable fact that we are in (or will be soon) an Economic Depression.

I posed the question to my husband who became irritated, yet again, with my constant questioning. Now he has a good point and I would like to know how you all feel about it. He feels the United States is too big to fail, that we are not like other poorer nations in the world. Furthermore he strongly feels that the United States agriculture would not allow us to go into a depression. That irregardless about what cars and trucks the US sells / makes we are still the biggest exporter of food in the entire world. And lets face it everyone needs food. So the farmers would save the nation, essentially. This alone would keep us from becoming a nation suppressed by an economic depression. Sounds pretty good to me but I still am unconvinced that food alone will save the states. I would love your opinion! Any food for thought?????

Hippie Chick

 

[Invisible Hand]

The reason we won't fall out completely is because the money we are spending is going towards recovering the economy. Instead of worrying about extreme recession (or depression), I worry about the rate of inflation we will see with all of the new money. If we recover too quickly there won't be enough new, green jobs to "sop" up all of the excess money by turning it into tax dollars. This is obviously just my opinion; noone truly knows what's going to happen as we are currently in an unprecedented economic state, using unprecedented economic actions.

By the way, you may be over worrying because we are not spending "literally trillions upon trillions in the red every day". The ARRA is close to $800 billion (over $1 trillion after interest) and the defecit will increase by over $1 trillion this year but we aren't overspending by that much EVERY day...yet.

 

[Neubarth]

Indeed, we are not "spending" all those trillions. Many of the Billions were loans to banks and insurance companies that they are obligated to repay. In addition, the United States is rich in infrastructure. We have the means to manufacture and ship it to the market with our excellent highway system, railroad system and plentiful energy.

When it comes to natural resources, we are the richest country on earth. Our oil reserves on the Alaskan mainland and off of the north coast are the richest in the world. It is estimated that the oil in the Artic Ocean is more than in the Middle East. The US could sell that Oil for Trillions and pay off the debt if we wanted to, but it is far wiser to keep it in reserve and use the oil from the rest of the world for the time being as long as those suckers are willing to sell it to us for such low rates. Our timber reserves, coal reserves, are astounding. Other mineral reserves are phenominal. Natural Gas so plentiful that for the past hundred years we have been burning it off at the well heads. (We had no place to ship it.). Now add to that the potential for Wind energy and Solar energy and Tidal energy, and we will be rich for generations to come. If necessary, we and the rest of North America can become an economic zone onto itself. Not likely, but the future holds plenty of potential. Our debt is not a concern right now. Lack of jobs is a concern.

 

[PLYMCO_PILGRIM]

Perhaps my fellow members can shed some light on an issue that I just am not understanding.....Here we go.

I just explained to my husband that I am not really sure how we, the US, is spending so much money...literally trillions upon trillions in the red, every day. We are printing more and more money and devaluing our dollar. Not to sound like a conspiracy theorist, which I am going to, but how can the bottom NOT drop out? How can we NOT go into 3rd world status? How can we not see the end of the US as we know it morph into complete pandemonium? I want to be wrong but don't think I am.

I am a well educated women with a masters and countless other degrees. I look, I research, I ask a million questions before I in fact form an opinion. But every where I look, everything I read, every statistic, number, and graph pain strickenly leads me to the inevitable fact that we are in (or will be soon) an Economic Depression.

I posed the question to my husband who became irritated, yet again, with my constant questioning. Now he has a good point and I would like to know how you all feel about it. He feels the United States is too big to fail, that we are not like other poorer nations in the world. Furthermore he strongly feels that the United States agriculture would not allow us to go into a depression. That irregardless about what cars and trucks the US sells / makes we are still the biggest exporter of food in the entire world. And lets face it everyone needs food. So the farmers would save the nation, essentially. This alone would keep us from becoming a nation suppressed by an economic depression. Sounds pretty good to me but I still am unconvinced that food alone will save the states. I would love your opinion! Any food for thought?????

Hippie Chick

The price of grain is so low, due to mass commercialization of our crops, that the value of grain is too low in the world market to support our spending levels.

People do need food but the price we get for it isn't high enough. Plus with the inflation from the defecit spending and our bad finances damaging the value of the dollar we actually get even less value from sales of all exports.

That might get you guys fighting again