America in 50 years

What happened to the great American tradition of forward looking? Where are the prognosticators? Where are the optimists and the builders and architects?

It seems as though our entire awareness has been caged into our commercial environment, we can't seem to think about anything but what is going happen in the business world. Don't you think that is getting rather boring and uninteresting?

Maybe it's the war, maybe the WTC disaster kinda left everyone dumbstruck. But how man years is it going to drag on? We have to get our brains in gear again and restimulate our forward-thinking selves.

The world isn't going to come to a grinding halt. It's going to keep on grinding. Lets have some fun again. It was really stupid to lock down America so hard, because all it hurts is ourselves.

So we've got two prez candidates. Who is going to be better for us? I mean, we've got trillions of dollars in a budget, tons of industry, manpower, and science, why don't we start having good ideas again?

Let's get out of the wars that our honorable president has started pretty much unilaterally, and get back to the mainstream of our strength, which is the excersise of our Liberty and the progression of our innovations.

It's time to fire Bush, I voted for him to get in , now I vote for him to get out, and to flush out the cabinet. Cmon guys, do you really want 4 more years of Rumsfield and those other characters? They give me the creeps.

The funny part is, I'm a republican, and this administration would make my forefathers run for their flintlocks.

It makes no sense to burden the people and diminish their Liberty. There is no threat here from the domestic herd. We are a very well behaved people when it comes to the functions of the nation. Our power plants and water plants and roads don't need protection. There aren't pirates roaming the highway. Why then did medieval people have more personal liberty than us? What the hell happened to us? We have too many laws.

Neither party is going to return our liberty to us. Nether party is going to take control from the lobbysists, neither party is going to reform our laws and courts. That is where the corruption is coming from. No one is attacking the dragon in its lair, they are all just serving it.

Thoughts for the next 50 years??

Arkaleus

I think that in 50 years things will be more honest and less free. Big business will be running things as usual, they just won't need the illusion that you have any say in things, elections.

Why so negative? Not everyone in America is willing to live in such a country. I don't think it's possible to continue on this current trend for much longer than 50 years, and certainly 100 years. I don't think that the world is going to come crashing down anytime soon, but I do feel that it is going to rock and roll a bit.

We do need a shakeup to dislodge the septic tank, so to speak.

When there's nothing to move the wheels, they rust. When the field is not harvested for a long time, the weeds grow wild. Same thing thing in D.C., when things are calm and steady for a long time, the rats and the hogs rule the roost. Gotta cull the herd a little and shake up the house.

One thing we need is a new politcal party that doesn't play with the corporations and interests that are currently running the show. We need to rouse up the thinkers and the citizens and remove them from the dems and the republicans and get them into a new party that will form an opposition to the military-industrial complex.

Arky

You are forgetting the Golden Rule. He with the gold makes the rules. There is no way to wrestle power away. It's society that has to radically change and I don't see that happening in my lifetime, hopefully those 50 years.

Intrepid, you are making me weep in my beer. :p

Be optimistc for the good of the country. There's a lot of us out there still, we just aren't organized.

I know its frustrating to see what is happening in our government. Everyone with a soul and a conscience is irritated at being forced to serve a industrial-Federal combination of power. It's a very corrupt and yucky spirit in our government today, because it's finally coming out in the open, having lost all of its shame.

Now it's okay to openly court the government, guide its laws, and corrupt its officials with your "lobby" and money. No wonder nothing gets done in congress, and our nation is totally stagnant in its domestic issues. It sold its soul long ago, and now is just the lap dogs of the rich guys and the powers.

They won't be able to hold the house for long, it's just not possible to keep 300 million Americans under wraps and control forever.
The main reason for this is that we cannot support our ecomony with slaves. We can't maintain a huge debt burden on the people and expect our economy to grow indefinately. It's impossible.

That is what will break the cycle - plain old greed. The constant economic expansion has been maintained for the last 20 years by the growth of personal debt. People's lifestyles have been funded by credit, not by the profits of labor, and this has finally reached saturation.

The same thing happened in Ancient Greece (Several times!) where the debts of the public became a threat to the Liberty of the land, and the people rose up and CANCELLED the debts. It actually happened that way. It's okay to do it kids, it is our Land, not the creditors.

We need to think in terms of having rights, and a power of our own. It's not gone, we've just been convinced to forget about it. We're not chipped and tatooed yet!

If you manage to enslave and indebt the entire population, then you have a problem. It is harmful to the people, it kills their spirit, and the wheels of the nation stop working. People aren't going to be willing to just throw their babies into this machine they are making. It is a system that cannot support itself. It will eventually run out of people to devour and enslave, and then it will have nothing but slaves and poverty, and no more money with which to buy their goods.

People gotta realize that you can't just keep building higher and higher and higher. You gotta have some balance in the system, or you end up ploughing through your seed corn. You can't raise up a generation of wage slaves and expect a vital and productive people to take the reigns in the future generations. It just doesn't work. They will become poor and ignorant, and will not produce anywhere near what their forefathers did, and the system will break.

And if George Bush is any indication of the kind of people that our "elites" have born and bred to lead us, then we are in for a helluva time. I think it's that baby-boomer generatiion - They are not the same kind of character as their parents. Just look at what they are like! No wonder we're not going anywhere.

We're gonna have to wait 20 years until my generation takes the lead, and then we will see what is to be done. It will either sink there, or start to rise again.

Arky

Interesting points Arky. I am a baby boomer and you hit the nail on the head. But it started the generation before. Now my Grandparents generation, they were pro-active because they had to be. Debt is a big thing to occupy a persons mind, and where do you think that money goes? Those behind the political scene. We are actually funding those you would like to be free of. We spend way too much time working to provide for our families, due to this debt. Some parents have to work more than one job each to make ends meet. This takes away from our kids in more than one way.

This is not the only way they accomplish their goal. Things like race, sexual orientation, sexism, abortion, political affiliation, etc. They keep us at each other so we won't have an opportunity to unite. We're too busy squabbling about these things. Divide and conquer, it happens to work.

We have other things to worry about too. What about retirement? It's looking like the pension we pay into our whole lives will not be enough to survive on. So we have to work even more to put away enough so we won't be a burden to our kids in 20 years. If that doesn't happen, your generation won't have a chance. You'll be looking after your kids AND your parents. I'm open to hearing some options, things look bleak.

There won't be a United States in 50 years. Not only due to the debt and fiat currency system which will eventually destroy the country, but the very structuring of capitalism will fail due to the dependence and inability of this country to get itself out of oil. Capitalism requires infinite growth to sustain itself. Finite resources cannot sustain something that needs something infinite to survive, so eventually it will fail. As most of us here are aware of, oil wars are already upon us which must mean that the supply IS going away right this very minute.

Then there are the issues of globalization of the economy, plus global warming and depletion of other natural resources like lumber. All of these factors are combining at an ever faster rate which will only serve to destroy everyone's current way of life.

I personally don't see a way out of the mess we've gotten ourselves into other than to pray for a miracle. Too bad I'm agnostic.

It is true about oil - The world's economy is going to enter great trouble here fairly soon - certainly within our lifetimes. Ever play Fallout 2?

That huge sum of money that was spent for no real good reason in Iraq could have been spent on transitioning us to replacement fuels. It's not that hard to do, the "hard" part is taking the sucker out of the mouths of the monied interests that Bush comes from. They would rather drive us into the ground than give up their money and power.

There IS going to be an America is 50 years, Heelstone, We are still going to be here. The bombs aren't going to fall and a meteor isn't going to hit us anytime soon. Even if nature goes haywire it's not going to kill off the planet, it's been fluxuating like that forever.

Oil is a real concern. Only the smart folks that are paying attention know anything about it right now. It won't become an major issue for another ten years, when the price of oil starts really dragging down the economy. That's when we'll start seeing the change to other fuels.

But it will only work out well for us patriots in the long run. A major economic depression will serve the greatly needed purpose of shrinking the power of these corporate complexes, and it will reduce their grasp on our culture. As long as we have food and power, we'll get by just fine.

We need a good wake-up from this culture. We need something to shake us up and get our brains working again. Nothing like a little stress to help out mankind's drive for progress and life. We cannot expand and profit indefinately, that cycle is about to crash.

Ark

although the rest of the world will proabably kick my ass for saying this, we should just take the oil in iraq we whooped their ass we earned it maybe it would drop the price a couple of cents...

The U.S. will be fine in 50 years. We're going through tough times right now; we've been through tougher times before (it's hard to top the Great Depression, two World Wars and a Civil War!). We'll make it through all this even tougher than we were before 2000 & 2001, since what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.

As for the oil problem... I'm not worried about that one, believe it or not! The major energy companies (which used to be simply known as "oil companies") have been diversifying for years, and especially investing in hydrogen fuel cells. Hydrogen fuel cells are now to the point where all that's left is the tweaking stage, which I'd give 10-15 years to complete. Once tweaked to be both efficient and affordable, they'll be everywhere, and the same companies making big money off oil now will still be making big money... just off hydrogen fuel cells.

On top of that, every year Canadian scientists get closer and closer to finding a cheap way to get oil from the famous Canada Tar Pits, which contain more oil than Saudi Arabia and Iraq combined.

Be optimistic!

Take it or leave it Heels point is valid, the oil is running out, nothing we can do about that. A transition is needed and that won't happen until ALL of the oil is gone, then these huge companies will release their alternatives, continueing to suck our wallets dry.

I can't imagine that we'd let that go. I am certain that the OIL MEN who are now in the whitehouse know the value of the OIL WELLS they just conquered. It's kind of a NO BRAINER.

These OIL MEN are well aware of the threat looming in the production of OIL, and I am certain they have made strategic descisions to acquire this much needed substance around the world.

Iraq is now under the heel of America, and I am sure we have made certain long term contracts with the new leadership to maintain a steady supply of OIL to the USA.

That's how these gentlemen now in power think. They don't take a case to the people and teach them about the problem, they work behind the scenes and in the shadows, and protect their precious interests and friends in the industry. Dirty little secrets, dirty little lies.

But the problem is bigger than this presidency, and it's bigger than the next one. It's something we are going to have to face eventually, it's inevitable.

Arkaleus

I'm glad you guys brought this up. I was just saying the same thing the other day.

I don't think oil is so much the real problem, but rather that it will be the straw that breaks our economy. I work in Real Estate, and I have seen a 500% growth in housing prices since 1984. This is because housing value (which is a huge indicator in our economy) is based on nothing. The value is based on the sale of something similar in the area. That's it, and I know it is that way nationwide. That is one huge problem.

We have become so involved in Real Estate, that we have the Primary Money Market (which would be the first and last stop for anyone dealing with money) like Banks. The banks only have so much money to give away.

That introduces the Secondary Money Market which only deals with the Banks as a Bank would deal with you. The difference is, is that the Secondary Money Markets buy mortgages (to maintain money to be lent) when the market goes up and interest rates go down and they sell mortgages (to withdraw money to prevent it from flooding) when the market goes down and interest rates go up.

This is a complicated system, and it is only one which allows and maintains the debt potential.

Personal recommendation to you all.

Buy Gold.