Gus, you're not talking about stable countries- Argentine, Venezuela, Brazil? Eastern European countries recently released from the USSR? That's who you're comparing the US to?

Gus, I talk to people in foreign countries, not sit on a tour bus looking out a window. I have relatives who married Europeans and I come from a second generation European family and we maintain our homeland contacts. Plus I occasionally hire foreigners on H1B visas and the internet can give you great insight into the world.

America is a great country no doubt. But I'm afraid if we just sit back and rest on our past accomplishments while poo pooing the rest of the world we will go the way of the other nations that were once world powers. For decades now from manufacturing to high tech, were losing it as we sit here paralyzed with more and more elections seeming to come down to 50-50 and a do nothing congress. I don't care who gets us off base but for 20-30 years I've heard this mantra of cutting taxes and spending (while we keep borrowing more to try to keep our economy going with public funded jobs and contracts). IMO This will bring us to our knees if we're not there already. So I look to other countries who have high standards of livings and low debt for ideas so I can use them as the benchmark to see what we are doing wrong. Especially when I hear our politicians and spin doctors blowing smoke up our a@@es.

And there can be no doubt that taxes need to increase substantially in the US so lets get on with it already.

Actually, I don't get it, Gus. Please expand on what you're referring to. I know the cliches, I just don't see what it is that you're using them to illustrate.

I'm still trying to determine what you're referring to as the bribe or the theft....

This is an interesting story - I can bet China, at this point, wouldn't care about any harmful effects - am I happier to be in the US where we're slowing learning about being even vaguely decent stewards of the earth is all about? Yes. Is it worth paying more for energy that is safe in all respects? I think so.

news.yahoo.com...

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Ted E.,

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And why did your family emigrate to the US from Europe? In search of a better life?

Ancient history in today's world Gus

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The ONLY countries with low debt loads are in Asia, for the most part, which I agree with. Thanks for proving my point.

And I'm tired of googling stuff to respond to incorrect statements.

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When your credit card balance max's out, do you get a reprieve like the government, federal and local, does? Do you like paying for ridiculous unaffordable pension plans??

I guarantee you I could unseat our village president if I promised every man, woman, and child 1,000 bucks. Entitlement, get it? This is what I call "stealing" money single mom. Robin Hood if you will. Robbing Peter to pay Paul. Need anymore examples?

No, I don't get any of this? You're saying if you owe a debt but can't afford to pay it because you borrowed too much you should just blow it off as unaffordable? You mean stealing money like Bush sending us "stimulus" checks"? Help me here.

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...take a look at your hotel bill, restaurant bill, shopping bills, and look at the bevy of taxes such as VAT

I agree. I've been to New York City and Orlando. Outrageously expensive.

I have friends and family in England and France. They're average folks who are perfectly happy, but then they don't frequent the tourist traps. I have a dual-citizenship friend who has an office job with one of the airlines at JFK. He has a cheap crash-pad apartment in Queens he shares with three roommates. He sleeps there Mon-Thurs nights.

After work on Friday, he hops on a (free) plane to Paris, sleeps on the way, and arrives fresh and happy Saturday morn. He lives in what he considers his “real” (and very nice) apartment (all his, although he pays as much as he does for his 1/3 share in Queens), parties in France all day Saturday, all day Sunday and Sunday night, catches an early morning flight back to JFK (again free), sleeps his way through it, wakes up on landing and walks across the tarmac to his office.

He makes a NYC salary (high) but spends it in France (comparatively low) and pays taxes in both countries. He still comes out ahead and banks most of it.

He's a clever guy and has obviously figured out how to beat the system... but when in France he doesn't live like a tourist or a traveling businessperson on an expense account. His goal is to be transferred to France and live and work there full time.

He must know something we don't know.

In any case, I don't see much reason to compare our economic and political systems to any other. None are perfect, all have their problems, and--in any case--too many people in each have figured out how to manipulate their respective systems to their financial advantage.

I like our private enterprise / representative democracy and think that--on paper--it is the best option. But again I think that too many participants have figured out how to manipulate the system--unfairly--to their personal advantage.

Invent the telephone? Transistor? Find a cure for cancer? You should be compensated beyond your wildest dreams. Market cheap crap that doesn't work and is just going to go straight to the landfill? Not so much.

Do I want someone to tell me what I can make, sell or buy? No. Do I wish that manufacturers were a bit more ethical in how they choose to make and market things, and that shoppers exhibited a little more intelligence before they bought something? Of course.

But then, one of the benefits of living in the good old USA is that we can be unethical (as long as what we do is legal) and we have the right to be incredibly stupid (as long as we don't get caught doing something illegal).

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Gabe, ...your marxist point of views...

Hardly. My points of view focus on my belief that we have a great system in principle but that too many people--in government and private life--have figured out how to screw the rest of us in practice so that they may benefit. Unfairly.

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...how can you be so critical of the free market...

Hey! You want to manufacture, sell or buy a Shamway, knock yourself out! But please allow me the freedom of choice to (A) decide that I would neither manufacture or sell them, and (B) that I would never buy one. I am not critical of the private enterprise system. I am critical of the crooks and thieves who abuse it.

But more important: Never forget that we do not--and never have--lived under a “Free Enterprise” system. The correct phrase is “Private Enterprise.” Thanks to our collective wisdom you are nut allowed to build a glue factory anywhere you wish, you can't grow your company by (literally) killing off the competition, you can't put a toll both in the street in front of your house and charge people who want to drive by. All wonderful examples of free enterprise.

We live by rules and regulations that attempt to keep us honest in our dealings with others. Unfortunately, the people who are honest by nature will simply remain honest, and those who are not will continue to create and exploit the loopholes that allow them to exploit others, pollute, steal etc.

And as long as We The People continue to admire and reward people for bad behavior... we'll keep getting it.

And please, just because I (and others) would like to see our private enterprise / representative democracy work a little better (read: as those who conceived it imagined), don't call us Socialists or Marxists (although I do appreciate the fact that you did not say I was just like Hitler).

Profit is not a dirty word. Neither is empathy.

Gus--

Well, thanks for the link... but... in today’s world of instant news and information via the internet... it was kinda old. Tokyo closed before I woke up, and the EU markets were pretty much through for the day before the New York Stock Exchange was really up and running full-tilt. Considering we live in an era of a “world economy,” it’s not surprising that when the EU sneezes, we say, “Gesundheit.” and visa-versa, as we all chase the money around and around the globe.

In the short term, I’m bothered more by the fact that Apple dropped over seven bucks today. I haven't really lost anything, of course, and can’t until I sell--which, with luck, won’t happen for many years--but I bought it for less than $10 a share and it’s much more fun watching it go up than down.

So the question is... is this a short-term pendulum-swing correction? Or the beginning if the end of the world as we know it?

If the latter, no problem.. we all lose everything, so were all in the same boat. Broke, and unable to buy or sell anything. All men (and women) are not only born equal, but we get to live equally, too. The poor and middle-classed are perversely thrilled, not because they lost everything, but because the rich also lost everything, which was even more. The rich are happy, because the risk/return part of the free market worked exactly as it’s supposed to. Adam Smith was right, especially when you read his warnings in the fine print.

If it is the beginning if the end, who do we blame? (This is America--we have to blame somebody. Do we blame the countries who have borrowed--or are--trying to borrow--too much?

Well, let’s see... we could all stop spending money on wars we can’t afford. Or--in the US-- perhaps we could institute some sort of health care reform that would reduce--dramatically--the costs of insurance, pharmaceuticals etc. An added plus... healthy people pay more taxes. Or maybe we could change Social Security so that the government gets to keep all the money people pay in over their careers, rather than eventually returning it to the retired people who paid for it for 40-50 years.

Nah. None of that ha a chance, so let’s instead blame China or the oil-rich countries and a few other lenders for lending. Heck, they shouldn’t have started lending money to other countries in the first place. They should have just invested their wealth into building more factories or oil wells and educating more of their people to a higher level. That way, we could go to China or India for quality health care and get it for ten cents on the dollar.

But in any case, wealthy countries probably should not be lending to debt-ridden countries, especially considering the stupid decisions large lending institutions tend to make, over and over again. And after all, what does our government have printing presses for, if not to print money?

So... obviously you’re recommending more governmental regulations... here and around the world.

Oops. No we can’t do that. More government regulations would be unpopular with The Right who like things just the way they are. Uncontrolled crashes and depressions are good, because they demonstrate the advantages of an unfettered free market system at its best.

Just look the other way while things sort themselves out naturally. Shouldn't take more than two or three generations.

If anybody dares to suggest anything that might solve the problem... filibuster ‘em! We don’t need no stinkin’ government! We’re Americans! We don’t need no Constitution or Bill of rights! They’re just laws made by rich old dead white men that get in the way of progress! Get rid of that damn military and let us carry our own AK-47s! (Sorry. I had a cup of tea this afternoon.)

Back to the subject at hand (whatever it may be)--as unregulated as nation-to-nation borrowing and lending is, I guess the only answer is to do nothing, drop ALL regulations on ALL lending institutions, no matter how large or small. That should fix everything. And we can all make a living my teaching everybody else how to speak Chinese.

Sorry about your Apple Stock.

Greece is like the canary in the coal mind. Other countries in the same boat Ireland, Portugal, Spain. The problems with Greece and the other countries may help us since there will be a flight to quality. Which means more large investors will buy U.S. Treasury's cutting our borrowing costs.

The U.S. isn't in the same boat as those countries. And unless we totally screw up we won't be .

The deficits that we're running now may not be that bad at least in the short term. With the large decline in demand across most of the economy the federal government probably acted correctly in pumping more money into the economy.

What is more worrisome are the long term trends for the deficits and how we will handle increasing entitlement programs.

After all the horse trading was done none of the Health care bills would have reduced costs.

This year for the first time the government will spend more than fifty percent of total health care spending. As the government has increased its involvement in health care costs have gone up.

With the war winding down in Iraq defense spending can and probably will decline.

The root cause of this is a housing bubble which occurred because in part over time regulations were loosened or totally ignored in the regulated mortgage industry. Most mortgage regulation is done at the local and state level.

Also the federal government has long encouraged home ownership.

My point is that the government and the politicians get some of the blame as well. They wont but they should.

Another funny quote from the kickoff speech at the supposed "1st Tea Party Convention" this week.

"People who could not even spell the word 'vote', or say it in English, put a committed socialist ideologue in the White House. His name is Barack Hussein Obama."
-- Tom Tancredo, 2008 GOP Presidential Candidate

"Cross burning will commence after brunch!" (sorry, I added that).

They have brunch ?

They use their hands, but I believe they do.