Guardian/Observer UK: The United States faces a crisis not seen since the Depression

[marmar]

The United States faces a crisis not seen since the Depression
The poisonous atmosphere surrounding the role of the state and taxation allows no realistic budget bargaining

Will Hutton in America
The Observer, Sunday 24 April 2011


.....(snip).....

The Republicans rehearsed their battle cry that Obama was mortgaging the future and that the only plan in town to respond to the agency's "wake-up call" was their own – to take federal spending back to pre-modern levels, while offering further tax relief to the rich. To all this Democrats are ferociously opposed.

You can see why. The Republican position, set out in detail by Paul Ryan, the Republican chair of the congressional budget committee, is not really a budget plan at all. It is a map for dismantling the US state so that it would do little more than provide threadbare pensions and healthcare for the very poorest and almost nothing else, with even defence in the line of fire. Democrats believe in a different role for the state and that the boom story with no role for public spending on science and infrastructure is a nonsense. It is a battle for the very soul of the United States.

.....(snip).....

It is powerful, but it is deluded and self-delusion runs deep in the US. Even the smart people at MIT, where so much US innovative technology originates, buy the cultural assertion that their success is all about individual entrepreneurship and brilliance; the cumulative trillions of US government grants are a side-show. Too few see growing federal debt as the necessary flipside of the banking crisis. The state is cast as the public enemy, not its friend.

The rows may feel as if they do not concern ordinary Americans and, as before, the politicians will find a compromise as the constitution compels them to. This time, though, there is more sulphur in the air. The US's problems are real; there is a fork in the road. It took searing depression to break the self-delusion in the 1930s. It may take disaster again to disabuse the American majority of the idea that the motley crew – Palin, Trump, Murdoch and Fox News, Paul Ryan, US bankers and shock jocks – are not on the side of reason. Until then, beware. A superpower that has lost its grip on reality is very dangerous indeed. ............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/apr/24/will-hutton-america-debt-crisis

[GomezLives]

1. If we do nothing we balance teh budget in 8 years

[roamer65]

2. Here comes our "Soviet Union" moment.

[DJ13]

3. You know, instead of DC acting like Chicken Littles

All crying that the sky is falling, what really needs to happen is an honest study of the reasons behind the deficit.

The Chicken Littles want to blame the lower classes for getting too many 'entitlements', but the fact is that the lower classes arent getting more from the government, its the wealthy who keep getting more.

[CoffeeCat]

4. Look at how the world is talking about us...

It feels as if the United States is like the bad kids who have been banished to the card table by the
adults. The adults now sit at the "big table"-- talking about us in such pejorative tones, complete with
eye rolling.

It's shameful...what we have become.

My guess is that the elites in this country are now operating within a global market/environment. What the
hell do they care if the US collapses? Their investments and interests are tied up on the world market.
And I'm sure these 'globalists' look at people in the United States and think that they're paid too much
and that they receive too many benefits and handouts from the government. When you're dealing globally--
and you see what goes on in third-world countries--and in China, India, etc.--you start to think of Americans
as spoiled children.

They're wrecking this country. On purpose.

[JCMach1]

6. At least we didn't invite the Crown Prince who is oppressing his own to the nuptials

/imperial side-show.

[glinda]

12. Exactly the point. They are global and they do not care. There is no allegiance to this

Country but only to their profitability and survival on the World stage. That is why they are looting our environment. That is why they are poisoning and not caring nor paying.
There is truly only one answer and that is they must be thrown out of the Country. Or arrested and charged with treason and crimes against humanity. They have homes in other places. Let them go there and take their crappy business models with them.
This is Americ's moment. If we don't take action, it is over inmate than one way.

[Poboy]

5. 'It may take disaster again'. It will, and it will.

[Rage for Order]

7. "The state is cast as the public enemy, not its friend."

Gee, I wonder what could have led people to that conclusion? How many trillions were spent on the bailout of Wall Street while the American people were left to fend for ourselves?

:eyes:

[AlabamaLibrul]

8. I think the time period people are looking for, in fact, is the Gilded Age of the late 1800s

Shit, with the way it is for unions these days, looks like it's coming full circle...

[PSPS]

9. "the American majority"

It may take disaster again to disabuse the American majority of the idea that the motley crew – Palin, Trump, Murdoch and Fox News, Paul Ryan, US bankers and shock jocks – are not on the side of reason.

Only in the corporate media does it seem like "the American majority" are followers of Palin and her ilk. Our joke media is nothing more than a freak show.

[bvar22]

10. This can NOT be!

The TV and our Government insist we are in a vibrant recovery!
Wall Street, the Big Corporations, and America's very RICH couldn't be happier!

Damn Foreigners (Guardian/Observer UK).
Always spoiling our fun!



Who will STAND and FIGHT for THIS American Majority?
"By their WORKS you will know them,"

[Jim Lane]

11. A good analysis but with one howling factual error

"To all this Democrats are ferociously opposed."

If only.

[Poboy]

13. .