Quote:
Originally Posted by aico
The downfall of this country will be the economy, our laziness & arrogance, and the stupidity that our education system has recently been creating.
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Suspect the economy will be a very major factor aico and, not sure yet, but smell some initial effects are already showing. As it is, (tho that can change, but would take years to "kick in"), it's unsustainable.
Forgetting "war costs", get a feeling imports need to be head on the head with a hammer - the "real cost" to the country from importing is enormous and the flip side, exporting product/services is... well.. embarrassing, and appears to rely totally on arms and wheat (the only two items which run an actual trade surplus).
I remember looking thru the govt's actual balance sheet about eight months ago and this was presented in a format which was... not a pretty picture, but not a disaster. But... when you actually worked thru all the sub notes of items excluded from the main presentation - it was a goddamned horror story - think (roughly) an overall deficit of around $580 trillion. This includes omitted items such as govt liability to retirees (pensions due) and a wide range of other items, some fairly major.
Currently there are still borrowings from a number of nations - mainly Central Bank of China (with a borrowing level of $2 - $4 billion/day). This supposed to represent 25-33% of the total daily borrowings from other countries - so not a good thing!!! :-)
US badly needs a spectrum of good core industry and manufacturing ability - and less dependence on foreign imports.
Education? :-) Well.. only me, but education is the future of every nation.