American Austerity, What could it look like?

Many of us on here are keeping score on global finance. What I'm curious about is when the bad money comes back to haunt our government, what Austerity measures will be forced upon the citizens and what slashes and cuts or worse could we expect? Any thoughts, or theories out there in ATS land?

Originally posted by matthewgraybeal
Many of us on here are keeping score on global finance. What I'm curious about is when the bad money comes back to haunt our government, what Austerity measures will be forced upon the citizens and what slashes and cuts or worse could we expect? Any thoughts, or theories out there in ATS land?

Excellent question!
S&F

American austerity will look like America before social programs and big government took over.

Personal responsibility, individuality.

People taking care of themselves without the nanny-state.

It might look like this.

'They' will make sure they have enough money to do what they want to do...while us poor don't have a chance to do what we need to do.

Austerity will begin with 2 cuts in spending...

Food Stamps will be cut by 33% initally,
Social Security retirements and the SSI will be reduced by 33% initally


Along with a seizure of wealth:

IRAs, ROTHs, 401 Ks will be seized and given an equivelent value but in US Treasury bonds/notes
which cannot be redeemed until the individual is receiving their reduced Social Security... thus financing the National debt because most other nations refusal to buy American debt, as they had for 60+ years, when the USD & Petro Dollar was the global reserve currency and medium of exchange for OPEC oil


(wealth seizures continued : gold & PMs will again be seized but more likely defined as a 'strategic resource' along with other resources like hydrogen/helium, rare earths, radioactive material....)


as for wage/price controls and resource rationing.... those will happen, eventually
We will be in a central planner government/society run by technocrats in the next decade for sure

It's going to look like a situation where we will suddenly understand why these folks about 400 million rounds of ammunition.

I know a lot of these hardcore libertarians think it will be a paradise, but they're insane. It's going to be a situation where you have less help but gain no freedom of bygone eras.

These laws making growing your own crops difficult, living off the grid, and other such things aren't going to magically go away because we get rid of welfare. The basic point is that we're going to have about a quarter of the population not being able to feed or house themselves because they don't have government help, and they don't have the freedom to help themselves.

reply to post by MzMorbid

'They' will make sure they have enough money to do what they want to do...while us poor don't have a chance to do what we need to do.

Someone is drinking the class warfare Kool Aid.

It's sad that so many Americans these days believe they are entitled to other peoples money or that being American guarantees a certain quality of life. 

I don't know what austerity measures will look like in America but we sure as hell need them!

reply to post by AnIntellectualRedneck

These laws making growing your own crops difficult, living off the grid, and other such things aren't going to magically go away because we get rid of welfare. The basic point is that we're going to have about a quarter of the population not being able to feed or house themselves because they don't have government help, and they don't have the freedom to help themselves.

Everyone has the freedom to help themselves now. A small percentage of people living off the government/tax payers don't have the physical or mental ability to do so. The vast majority just shrug their personal responsibility and take the easy road. 

I don't have a link but have you seen the lady in Michigan who won the lotto yet continued to collect food stamps and government assistance? When confronted she said, "well, I thought it was ok. After all, I still don't have a job." Her response is representative of the mindset of many Americans. 

reply to post by seabag


So when they stop food stamps, people are going to be able to grow gardens? So when people have to go without electricity or plumbing for a little while because they have to feed their families, their dwellings won't be condemned?

People can't start small businesses without paying tons for licenses and everything else. That's the point I'm trying to make.

What innovation or providing for themselves that a lot of these people might do, what they would be willing to live with in order to survive, is going to be squashed by all the bureaucracy.

And please don't tell me that they should just get jobs. Austerity in the U.S. is going to cause the same thing it has done in Europe: causing massive private employment cuts. A lot of these people simply won't be able to get jobs.

Why hasn't there been a story linking
all the simultaneous austerity measures placed
on working people world wide?

We already have a glimmer of what's involved.
Ask the people of Wisconsin Ohio and ask my wife
here in Texas. It's all the same.
Less money and benefits for working people
with the savings passed directly
to mega (already wealthy) corporations.
Does anyone not get how that works?

The alleged budget short fall in Wisconsin
"coincidently" was the tax cut (almost to the penny)
given to the mega corporations of that state.

Disgusting.
Austerity my ass.

reply to post by AnIntellectualRedneck

So when they stop food stamps, people are going to be able to grow gardens?

I think people should work for food stamps. But ya, anybody with a yard can grow a garden; I have one. 

So when people have to go without electricity or plumbing for a little while because they have to feed their families, their dwellings won't be condemned?

Life is tough. How did Americans get by before welfare?

People can't start small businesses without paying tons for licenses and everything else. That's the point I'm trying to make.

It not easy to start a business but licenses and regulations aren't the expense. Taxes will kick your butt and finding capital to get started might be tough but so what. If it was easy everybody would do it. Maybe people should be more appreciative of those of us who take those risks and provide jobs. 

Something to think about. 

What innovation or providing for themselves that a lot of these people might do, what they would be willing to live with in order to survive, is going to be squashed by all the bureaucracy.

Bureaucracy won't go away until we all stand up against it. It happens on a small scale every day but it's tougher on a national level. The easiest way to take power away from government is to not be dependent on government. If people would stop relying on government so much they'd have a lot less control over our lives, no?

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by matthewgraybeal
Many of us on here are keeping score on global finance. What I'm curious about is when the bad money comes back to haunt our government, what Austerity measures will be forced upon the citizens and what slashes and cuts or worse could we expect? Any thoughts, or theories out there in ATS land?

Excellent question!
S&F

American austerity will look like America before social programs and big government took over.

Personal responsibility, individuality.

People taking care of themselves without the nanny-state.

I disagree.

If we roll back the budget clock, that doesn't roll back the social clock that has progressed to where millions are *dependent* on that nanny state, and it's not just the adults that will be tossed out on their arses---it's their kids, too. In fact, more kids than adults will pay the price of austerity in this country. If we take them all away, what do we do with millions more kids in the foster system that already can't handle the 500,000 it has? What do their parents do when they've lost their gravy train AND their kids? Nothing left for them, right?

Load your guns.

reply to post by sealing

We already have a glimmer of what's involved. Ask the people of Wisconsin Ohio and ask my wife 
here in Texas. It's all the same. 
Less money and benefits for working people with the savings passed directly 
to mega (already wealthy) corporations. 

Does anyone not get how that works?

Apparently you don't. When our government spends trillions on BS they run low on money. They get that money on the backs of taxpayers (corporations and individuals). When a corporation has to pay more in taxes they're forced to make cuts and/or raise prices. That's called managing a business. You have to make tough decisions. *Stuff* rolls downhill. 

If our bloated government would pass and stick to a budget (like corporation and us taxpayers do) they wouldn't have to rape us with more taxes and companies wouldn't be forced to pass their tax burden onto employees and customers. 

The blame lies in DC not corporations or proper capitalism. Someone should tell OWS that.    

reply to post by seabag


The reality of austerity is going to be very, very ugly and not the paradise that so many libertarians seem to think. Saying that maybe these people deserve this, and that maybe it's better for the country in the long run doesn't change that fact.

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by matthewgraybeal
Many of us on here are keeping score on global finance. What I'm curious about is when the bad money comes back to haunt our government, what Austerity measures will be forced upon the citizens and what slashes and cuts or worse could we expect? Any thoughts, or theories out there in ATS land?

Excellent question!
S&F

American austerity will look like America before social programs and big government took over.

Personal responsibility, individuality.

People taking care of themselves without the nanny-state.

Yea! Good old "personal responsibility".

Like back in the 1950's when I slept behind my grandmother's cookstove so I didn't freeze and got up at 4:00 to build up a fire for cooking breakfast. I was only seven but I still have those fond memories.

"Individuality"! Like when we waited for grandpa to hunt and kill a rabbit, or something, to cook for breakfast because we had run out of souse meat to go with our biscuits.

Yep! No "nanny state" for us. We walked that four and a half miles to church three times a week. I was just proud I lived only 2 miles from school, but some times I went a half mile through the woods and rode the school bus on it's 22 mile route if it was bad weather.

We weren't poor, we just believed in doing the best you can with what you have. Everyone should try it for a while.

Yep, you got to love the good old days; if they had lasted much longer I think I would have died long ago.

Originally posted by 00nunya00
I disagree.

If we roll back the budget clock, that doesn't roll back the social clock that has progressed to where millions are *dependent* on that nanny state, and it's not just the adults that will be tossed out on their arses---it's their kids, too. In fact, more kids than adults will pay the price of austerity in this country. If we take them all away, what do we do with millions more kids in the foster system that already can't handle the 500,000 it has? What do their parents do when they've lost their gravy train AND their kids? Nothing left for them, right?

Load your guns.

The "social clock" needs to be rolled back NOW before auserity kicks in.

And if children are paying the price, it'll be due to the parents who skipped out on responsibility.

Originally posted by seabag

So when people have to go without electricity or plumbing for a little while because they have to feed their families, their dwellings won't be condemned?

Life is tough. How did Americans get by before welfare?

By not having their houses condemned and seized by the government because they couldn't afford electricity or plumbing, which was actually my point. Because in the age of bureaucracy we live in, that's going to happen. Which, again, is my original point: we won't have government help, and a lot of people won't have the freedom to help themselves.

More private prisons, more private law enforcement to feed the jails, education delivered by government's preferred corporation . People doing unpaid "work experience" at Walmart or McDonalds, coupled with social unrest and a lost generation. A race to the bottom over working conditions and pay. On the bright side some people will make massive profits.

We've only had 20% of the expected cuts in the UK and it already feels we are being dragged back in to a bygone Victorian era.

reply to post by hdutton

If given a choice between an oppressive regime and sleeping behind a cook stove, I'd pick the cook stove. Building a sense of responsibility is never a bad thing.

Originally posted by seabag
The blame lies in DC not corporations or proper capitalism. Someone should tell OWS that.

   

The blame lies with both---the government for pissing away our taxes and not sticking to a budget, and the corporations that lobby for tax loopholes that bring their effective rate to zero, who load the economy with BS like derivatives and CDOs that benefit no one but the rich and ruin the economy for all, etc. OWS is protesting FOR "proper" capitalism, not the form we currently have ruling over us. The Tea Party has the government angle covered, but left the corporate flank open. OWS covered that flank. No need for further overlap until everyone's ready for the *real* sh** storm. No need to let them further divide us so they can more easily control us.

Originally posted by beezzer

Originally posted by 00nunya00
I disagree.

If we roll back the budget clock, that doesn't roll back the social clock that has progressed to where millions are *dependent* on that nanny state, and it's not just the adults that will be tossed out on their arses---it's their kids, too. In fact, more kids than adults will pay the price of austerity in this country. If we take them all away, what do we do with millions more kids in the foster system that already can't handle the 500,000 it has? What do their parents do when they've lost their gravy train AND their kids? Nothing left for them, right?

Load your guns.

The "social clock" needs to be rolled back NOW before auserity kicks in.

And if children are paying the price, it'll be due to the parents who skipped out on responsibility.

I'm not disagreeing that it's the parents' fault, or trying to even assign blame, I'm just stating facts: millions depend on government support, and if that's taken away, their kids will either be homeless alongside them, or be taken away by the state to be put in huge orphanages, once again paid for by the state. It's not going to be pretty.

And furthermore, it would be great if we could fix the nanny state social problems in a few months, but that's a freakin' pipe dream, and we don't have much longer than a few months. It's not going to be pretty because there's virtually nothing we can do to soften the blow. And like I said, when there's nothing left to live for, you don't mind dying in the street so much.