jerome scuggs' weekly "shit hits the fan" politics thread

[Epinephrine]

You should check out our rating on the Index of Freedom, we're about as high up as our rating on Healthcare quality.

Keep in mind - if you track our GDP, and then you look at the GDP in terms of public versus private spending, you'll see two trends. One is that our government is now responsible for over 58% of the GDP - meaning they own a majority of production in the country. But something that you might not consider - as the Government's share has been increasing, the private sector has been decreasing. Though we have a massive GDP, the fact is, our economy is not as robust as the GDP stats would have you believe. Case in point: in the past few months the economy has 'grown' 1.5%, yet so has the jobless rate - from 5.5 to 5.7% this month alone. How?

Thanks for proving my point, about how when you talk about 'world falling apart' you're actually just talking about the USA.

I got news for you, the USA isn't the world, and considering the USA is probably doing among the worst of the developed world right now AND has the most 'economic freedom' and the least 'socialism', maybe that's a sign that more of the so-called free market isn't always the best idea.

Here's a fun way to look at things. Before there was any regulation in the markets, before there was the Fed, before we got off the gold standard, there were boom and bust cycles every 5-10 years in the USA. By boom I mean 20% GDP increase, by bust I mean 15-20% GDP decreases. The world was much less sure, and much less secure. Sure, eventually the trend was that things slowly got better, but inbetween there were also a TON of really horrible years. The entire point of social systems is to decrease those horrible years, and I believe that they have helped alieviate a lot of those problems that the free market never came close to solving the USA's first 150 years of existance.

[Summa]

They'd never do that would they?

Corporate big wigs denying claims? THATS ABSURD!!!!!!!!!!! NEVER!!! I want citations to prove your sources good sir!

On another note, we as Americans are granted the right to life (only if you have the money to pay the bills), liberty (only if the government doesn't take it away from you), and the pursuit of happiness (i wasn't aware it was possible to be happy in this country).