The Collapse of America? The Dire Message of Mr. David Walker

The Collapse of America? The Dire Message of Mr. David Walker

David Walker is the former Comptroller General of the United States, and former head of the Government Accountability Office. As the nation’s chief accountant he was appointed by President Clinton. He resigned near the end of George W. Bush’s second term. He had no authority to decide how a single penny of government funds should be collected or distributed. His job was to count those funds.

Mr. Walker’s enormous range of mind extends far beyond a single budget year. His long-range perspective allows him to project fiscal trends decades into the future, and to assess, through simulations, the impacts of policy decisions beyond their immediate effects. He truly understands the economic maxim, promoted by Henry Hazlitt, to look beyond the visible effects of any given policy and to consider its unseen consequences.

When Walker plotted these trends, and considered demographics among many other factors, what he found was “chilling.” If fundamental reforms are not begun now, he concluded, the United States will experience a financial and political collapse comparable to the fall of Rome.

So this is a guy who is supposed to know his stuff, saying that with spending at the current rate, we are looking to bottom out in this generation. Let alone any new programs that are certainly coming down the pipes.

We all know that being a .gov employee, even on a high level, does not guarantee qualification for the job, but I think I will look into this fellow and his claims.

I like the last vid the best, talkin some hard facts. Too bad nobody listened.





He is currently the President of this foundation:

Peter G. Peterson Foundation

I don't know how the heck I haven't found this before now. Sleepin with my eyes open I guess.




[edit on 15-9-2009 by hotrodturbo7]

I cannot see utube can you give me a summery of video

reply to post by hotrodturbo7


You would think if this guy knows so much about the economy He would have told Bush that giving the tax breaks to the richest 1% would break the government since they were at war. If he would of done that or said that I would give him credit as being someone to listen to. He didn't so who gives a darn what he has to say.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

Originally posted by rtcctr
I cannot see utube can you give me a summery of video

Go to this website and you can get a rundown of his figures and stance on what needs to be done.

Peter G. Peterson Foundation

Also, he had a documentary that came out last fall just before the economy tanked, I am looking for more info on it.

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by hotrodturbo7

 

You would think if this guy knows so much about the economy He would have told Bush that giving the tax breaks to the richest 1% would break the government since they were at war. If he would of done that or said that I would give him credit as being someone to listen to. He didn't so who gives a darn what he has to say.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

According to the first paragraph he resigned near the end of Bush's second term when all of his authority was taken away from him, I wouldn't mind a job counting money though.

reply to post by JBA2848


Apparently he claims he has been screaming about this for a while, but being an accountant and not a policymaker he has been brushed aside.
I am going to see how far back I can find info.

Peter G. Peterson of Peter G. Peterson Foundation

He was Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York between 2000 and 2004.

The same place this happened.

Resignation of Stephen Friedman, Chair
Stephen Friedman resigned as Chair of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York on Thursday, May 7th, 2009 effective immediately[2]. Friedman, former CEO of Goldman Sachs, had been criticized for seemingly benefiting from his role as Chair of the New York Fed branch due to the US Government's aid to Goldman Sachs in recent months. The announcement came within an hour of the government's release of the stress tests for 19 US banks. Dennis Hughes, formerly Deputy Chair, was designated as Interim Chair following Friedman's resignation.



[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by hotrodturbo7

 

You would think if this guy knows so much about the economy He would have told Bush that giving the tax breaks to the richest 1% would break the government since they were at war. If he would of done that or said that I would give him credit as being someone to listen to. He didn't so who gives a darn what he has to say.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

I knew of Mr. Walker and his pronouncements of doom during the Bush administration. Nothing in his basic message has changed. He delivered the same types of warnings all through the Bush administration.

Nobody listened.

He said plenty back when he was holding govt office, so you can give him credit for that (too lazy to google but google around you'll find similar reports from previous years while he was still comptroller).

As for "doing things," the Comptroller General of the United States has no regulatory power or power to do anything else, really, except tally up numbers and facts...which he did with admirable aplomb as a lone, unheeded voice.

[edit on 9/15/09 by silent thunder]

Originally posted by JBA2848
reply to post by hotrodturbo7

 

You would think if this guy knows so much about the economy He would have told Bush that giving the tax breaks to the richest 1% would break the government since they were at war. If he would of done that or said that I would give him credit as being someone to listen to. He didn't so who gives a darn what he has to say.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

come on can we give up on this "only tax breaks to the rich" thing already? My taxes went down considerably from bush and I am barely a middle class income earner. Stop believing what msnbc tells you.

www.nytimes.com...

“The Education of an American Dreamer” ,Peter G. Peterson

At 83, Mr. Peterson is a child of the Depression, but his résumé puts most modern-day multitaskers to shame. He is a self-made billionaire and philanthropist as well as a former ad executive, manufacturing mogul, Wall Street financier and secretary of commerce. What distinguishes this book from most memoirs by business titans is Mr. Peterson’s ability to mix insider tidbits with humor, painful self-revelation and candid skepticism of the Eastern establishment that eventually welcomed him as a tuxedo-wearing member.

He says he was expelled near the end of freshman year for “borrowing” portions of a class paper from Roy Cohn (later a right-hand man of Joseph McCarthy). Sobered, he later graduated from Northwestern and the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.

Admitted to being a cheat.

In 1970, two Republicans, Douglas Dillon and George Shultz, lured Mr. Peterson to Washington, where he became a special economic adviser to President Richard M. Nixon and later was commerce secretary. He says he bridled under the “Palace Guard” led by H. R. Haldeman. After a “deepening estrangement from the White House,” he left the Commerce job in 1973, before the Watergate scandal upended the administration.

In so deep yet knows how to abandon ship clean as a whistle.

Mr. Peterson is both overly modest and a bit too sketchy in accounting for his business success, which he repeatedly attributes to “pure dumb luck.” In fact, he demonstrated a rare gift for combining his pioneering market research statistics with keen insights into human behavior in analyzing business and political issues.

Sketchy about details of how he made his money and says its pure dumb luck? And he personally chooses David Walker to take his place.

[edit on 15-9-2009 by JBA2848]

The best thing that could possibly happen for the US & World is a full and total collapse of the US. Yes there will be some initial 'pain' but the end result will be America divided up into 5-7 countries. These countries will not have the resource to meddle in the global arena but they will keep busy at war with each other (likely the republican countries against the democratic countries). All resource will be directed to border patrol and war -internally-. The FED will be gone and the new countries will have more of a states rights atmosphere, a few will be evangelical insane assylums, a few will be highly educated, prosperous and have legalized drugs, etc. This is going to be a good thing 10 or so years after it happens!

reply to post by JBA2848


The top 1% deserve a break-

The top 1 percent of all households got 18 percent of all personal income and paid nearly 28 percent of all federal taxes in 2005, according to the Congressional Budget Office. The top 1 percent now pay a significantly larger share of taxes than before President Bush's tax cuts, and also have a larger share of income.
The nonpartisan CBO keeps track of such things and published its most recent tables in December 2007. The information to answer this question is in "Summary Table 2: Shares of Federal Tax Liabilities, 2004 and 2005."

The top 1 percent in 2005 were those households with income of at least $307,500, and they got 18.1 percent of all "comprehensive" income, which includes all cash income plus the cash value of such benefits as Medicare and food stamps.

As for taxes, CBO calculates that the top 1 percent paid 27.6 percent of all federal taxes, including:
38.8 percent of federal individual income taxes

4.0 percent of federal social insurance taxes (Social Security and Medicare)

58.6 percent of corporate income taxes (indirectly, through stock ownership)

5.5 percent of federal excise taxes (on such things as gasoline, tobacco, alcoholic beverages and telephones.)

The share now borne by the top 1 percent is the highest it has been since 1979, the earliest year for which CBO has figures. And surprisingly, it is larger than in 2000, the last year of President Bill Clinton's administration, before President Bush signed a series of tax cuts that benefited upper-income taxpayers by cutting the top rate on federal income taxes, cutting the rate on capital gains taxes and reducing the estate tax. One reason is that the top 1 percent now receive a greater share of income than at any time covered by CBO's statistics, though those households receive only slightly more than the 17.8 percent share they got in 2000

The change in income distribution is only one reason the top 1 percent pay more now than before their income tax rates were cut. The major reason is what the CBO and other tax experts call "real bracket creep." Even though income tax brackets are adjusted upward each year for inflation, there is still a tendency for incomes to grow faster than inflation, causing more income to be taxed in higher brackets.

link

Originally posted by reasonable
a few will be highly educated, prosperous and have legalized drugs, etc. This is going to be a good thing 10 or so years after it happens!

educated idiots you mean? in your scenario, which I would be all for at this point, there will be one or two "countries" of the so called "religious kooks". A couple (one on the west coast, one on the east) with the snob elites who think that what they were taught was more "intelligent" than what others think, and then there will be the rest of the states run by sane, real people. The snob states will be done within a few years because they would finally realize it takes hard work and production to make money not cloudy ideas.

And don't come back with some "witty" rebuke about me not being educated, because I am, I just knew better than to believe the progressive bull puckey professors were dishing.

Originally posted by I_am_Spartacus

Originally posted by reasonable
a few will be highly educated, prosperous and have legalized drugs, etc. This is going to be a good thing 10 or so years after it happens!

educated idiots you mean? in your scenario, which I would be all for at this point, there will be one or two "countries" of the so called "religious kooks". A couple (one on the west coast, one on the east) with the snob elites who think that what they were taught was more "intelligent" than what others think, and then there will be the rest of the states run by sane, real people. The snob states will be done within a few years because they would finally realize it takes hard work and production to make money not cloudy ideas.

And don't come back with some "witty" rebuke about me not being educated, because I am, I just knew better than to believe the progressive bull puckey professors were dishing.

Guess I am an educated 'elitist' and I work around 70hrs a week, have built my own biz, raised and support a family. Yeah, right, we'll be screwed without the 'real people'.

www.youtube.com...

Well I guess he has been saying the same thing since 1984 according to this video.

Originally posted by reasonable

Originally posted by I_am_Spartacus

Originally posted by reasonable
a few will be highly educated, prosperous and have legalized drugs, etc. This is going to be a good thing 10 or so years after it happens!

educated idiots you mean? in your scenario, which I would be all for at this point, there will be one or two "countries" of the so called "religious kooks". A couple (one on the west coast, one on the east) with the snob elites who think that what they were taught was more "intelligent" than what others think, and then there will be the rest of the states run by sane, real people. The snob states will be done within a few years because they would finally realize it takes hard work and production to make money not cloudy ideas.

And don't come back with some "witty" rebuke about me not being educated, because I am, I just knew better than to believe the progressive bull puckey professors were dishing.

Guess I am an educated 'elitist' and I work around 70hrs a week, have built my own biz, raised and support a family. Yeah, right, we'll be screwed without the 'real people'.

people who work 70 hour work weeks and have families don't have as much time as you do to post on forums, sorry, don't believe you. I never used to have time to do this and I AM a business owner but thanks to all your "educated" buddies of the left persuasion, I don't have the business I once did thus more time to argue with you.

No we can't? UK think tank says US power is fading

Tue Sep 15, 11:12 am ET

LONDON – A weakened United States could start retreating from the world stage without help from its allies abroad, an international strategic affairs think tank said Tuesday.
The respected London-based International Institute for Strategic Studies said President Barack Obama will increasingly have to turn to others for help dealing with the world's problems — in part because he has no alternative.
"Domestically Obama may have campaigned on the theme 'yes we can'; internationally he may increasingly have to argue 'no we can't'," the institute said in its annual review of world affairs.
The report said the U.S. struggles against insurgent groups in Iraq and Afghanistan had exposed the limits of the country's military muscle, while the near-collapse of the world financial markets sapped the economic base on which that muscle relied.
The report also claimed that the U.S. had lost traction in its efforts to contain Iran's nuclear program and bring peace to the Middle East.
"Clearly the U.S. share of 'global power,' however measured, is in decline," the report said.
The head of another respected London think tank, Robin Niblett of Chatham House, said the rise in the relative power of China, India, Russia and the European Union has made it harder for the U.S. to exercise its influence.

"America should apply changes in leadership style, but I wouldn't overplay the decline because decline is relative," said Niblett — who was not involved in drawing up Tuesday's report. "One should not doubt that the U.S. remains the most powerful nation in the world, but it's difficult to use the power and to use it to influence others."

In addition to a rise in regional powers, Niblett said the U.S. has long been viewed as being part of the problem rather than the solution on many issues — including climate change, the financial crisis, and the failure of the Middle East peace process.

news.yahoo.com...

reply to post by JBA2848


I can't find where he has ever been associated with the Fed Reserve, do you have a link?

reply to post by JBA2848


That article is about Peter Peterson. The thread is about David Walker.