Donald Trump as the Republican nominee?

[Ineeda SM]

Stavros, you pay good attention to US history, and your upbeat outlook on us is admirable at best. But you have to live here to really understand what the news and media never shows you mates across the pond.

I was born and raised in the northeast. I have watched this country go through some big changes. Some for the good of all, and many for the worse. We have come a long way with race relations and prejudice, but it still exist in strong forms amongst many.

The saddest part for most working class Americans is watching manufacturing, and industry drop little by little each year as technology replaces the labor force. One automated machine does what 5 men used to do with their hands. I am all for technology advancements, but when it cuts jobs and hurts the middle class, we need to rethink how it is implemented into our society.

We are fully capable of inventing and innovating, but today's world invents technology and not manufacturing. Our infrastructure is larger than we have the funds to fix it. One drawback of having such a large country. Our population is over 300 million now, and growing. That's a lot of people to house, feed, clothe, and employ. It is why we needed the new health care plan. More people needed help than we could take care of without it. The countries of Europe have had national health care almost forever. Many here have envied your national health care system for it's low cost to the patients.

I have a bad feeling that my country will never recover from the debt that the republicans have put us into. Some of it because the debt is just too high for us to ever pay back, and the other reason is because the right wing in America doesn't want it to happen. They are not thinking of our future. They only care about their own bank accounts today. They figure they will be dead and gone long before this country falls completely apart. So they don't care. This is the new generation that is arising to take over here.

I was born when a computer was something only the government had, and it was as big as a factory. That same computer is in this little laptop I am typing on. There was no cable TV, no video games, no cell phones, no home movies, and 5 local TV channels to watch on a B&W TV. If I did something wrong I got my ass beat, and I never did it again. I learned from my mistake. It was called parenting and discipline. Today's kids are born into a world with every luxury they need. They do not know a world without the above mentioned items. If they do something wrong, they are sent to their rooms where they can play video games, talk on their cell phones....and have fun. The law says parents can't hit their kids to punish them anymore. What used to be discipline is now called child abuse, and your own child can have you arrested and sue you for hitting them. So they are learning that greed and crime pays well. They are not learning right from wrong anymore. As I said, this is the new generation that is going to become our leaders. It is very hard to see any promise in our future. I hope I am wrong, but I don't think I am.

[Stavros]

I actually agree with a lot of what you say, on population growth and the strain on natural resources, and on the changing nature of work and industry and not just in the USA -I am not naive, but my optimism is based on a long view, which is that the USA is not close to the 'point of no return' that has been seen in Zimbabwe, for example, where there is a breakdown of government, law and order, the economy, and social cohesion.

I do understand that there are fault-lines in the USA which are not class-based as they are in the UK where 75 Prime Ministers have been to Oxford University and where our current PM is an Old Etonian. There are as I see it 'preferential networks' in the USA which are as important as class is here: the Ivy League universities, the networking that gets some people into the major corporate law firms rather than others, the Wall St and DC beltway bubbles, and so on -but not, as far as I can make out, the US Military. We have tended to see 'race' as a defining fault-line in the USA, although I wish we could either abolish the word or at least recognise it as a manufactured concept rather than something derived from science (cf Ivan Hannaford, Race: the History of an Idea in the West).

In the longer term, the population globally looks set to decline from 2050, not much of a consolation to me as I will be dead by then; the prospects for a new energy future are already being applied; across the Middle East and North Africa the decrepit one-party states and dictatorships have had their day (morally if not actually) with Burma and North Korea to follow in the next 10 years; the real challenge is with resource management, especially water, but the optimism is based on the view that people do have positive initiatives for change, and that Detroit for example is one way of at least trying to make a difference.

People sometimes expect more from politicians than they can deliver; although I don't doubt Obama will be re-elected, I think his two terms will be judged a failure, because he inherited an economic mess that would take at least 10 years to sort out -having a hostile Congress will also defeat whatever good he could do from DC anyway -the US economy is large enough to survive, albeit on a smaller scale than in the past, but I don't see collapse or decline; but its not so much 'change you can believe in'. as 'change you have to get used to', and that takes time.

[Ben]

[Ineeda SM]

I agree with much of your reply, and it was very well stated. But I just wanted to address these to segments.

I actually agree with a lot of what you say, on population growth and the strain on natural resources, and on the changing nature of work and industry and not just in the USA -I am not naive, but my optimism is based on a long view, which is that the USA is not close to the 'point of no return' that has been seen in Zimbabwe, for example, where there is a breakdown of government, law and order, the economy, and social cohesion.

We in the USA may not be in the horrible situation that Zimbabwe has reached, and I would hope we never do. But your description of the breakdown of government is showing it's ugly head here already.

Our government is two sides that can not see eye to eye on anything, mainly because our right wing republicans are not willing to work with a democratic senate lead by a black president. So the government has began the breakdown already.

Law and order is mainly for the rich who seems to be able to kill and get away with it. If you are poor in America, you do not have much law and order on your side these days.

Anyone who has looked at our news threads on the web already know that our economy is past the point of no return. I say this only because those who can do something about it, WON'T.

Social cohesion? Now that is a tricky one. Our country is so divided by politicians and ignorant people who listen to, and fall for the lies and propaganda of the right wing. And now the right wing has become divided into 2 factions. One is the usual greedy asshole republicans who are 50% between center and completely to the right. The other is called, "The Tea Party". The tea party is made up of republicans who have become extremely as right from center as you can get.

The republicans, tea party, democrats, and independents all have their own followers. They disagree with each other to the point of no more social cohesion. There are threats of violence from one faction to another, and soon there could be a very strange version of civil war where the enemy is everywhere. I hope I am dead and buried by that time.

People sometimes expect more from politicians than they can deliver; although I don't doubt Obama will be re-elected, I think his two terms will be judged a failure, because he inherited an economic mess that would take at least 10 years to sort out -having a hostile Congress will also defeat whatever good he could do from DC anyway -the US economy is large enough to survive, albeit on a smaller scale than in the past, but I don't see collapse or decline; but its not so much 'change you can believe in'. as 'change you have to get used to', and that takes time.

You got this one brilliantly my friend. No president from any party could fix this economy quickly. And it will probably take 50 years to fix, only if the parties would work together. But that is not going to happen here. At least not too soon.

[Stavros]

And it will probably take 50 years to fix, only if the parties would work together. But that is not going to happen here. At least not too soon.

50 years??? Now that IS pessimistic, especially for the USA. Also the famous 'checks and balances' which were woven into your constitution were there to prevent either the President or Congress becoming, in effect a dictatorship -and, something that has amazed people for about 200 years or so, is that, the Civil War aside, your system has retained its democratic characteristics ever since it was founded; indeed one aspect of the Civil War is that the Union victory made the USA safe for capitalism and the existing system. Congress and Presidents have been at war before, Carter lost the Congress, Clinton lost Congress to a 'Contract with America'; there were times when Roosevelt barely needed it, and times when Congress, with the McCarthy hearings actually took on the citizens of the USA. I do appreciate that there are deeply entrenched corporate interests in the USA, and there are times when I feel despondent about 'race relations' and bigoted attitudes, but I think when Americans see an abyss open up in front of them -as happened on 9/11- a realisation that you are united by more than what divides you is a comfort -that however rough the trip gets, you will survive. But 50 years?? Let's stick to 10....

[Ineeda SM]

And it will probably take 50 years to fix, only if the parties would work together. But that is not going to happen here. At least not too soon.

50 years??? Now that IS pessimistic, especially for the USA. Also the famous 'checks and balances' which were woven into your constitution were there to prevent either the President or Congress becoming, in effect a dictatorship -and, something that has amazed people for about 200 years or so, is that, the Civil War aside, your system has retained its democratic characteristics ever since it was founded; indeed one aspect of the Civil War is that the Union victory made the USA safe for capitalism and the existing system. Congress and Presidents have been at war before, Carter lost the Congress, Clinton lost Congress to a 'Contract with America'; there were times when Roosevelt barely needed it, and times when Congress, with the McCarthy hearings actually took on the citizens of the USA. I do appreciate that there are deeply entrenched corporate interests in the USA, and there are times when I feel despondent about 'race relations' and bigoted attitudes, but I think when Americans see an abyss open up in front of them -as happened on 9/11- a realisation that you are united by more than what divides you is a comfort -that however rough the trip gets, you will survive. But 50 years?? Let's stick to 10....

I wish more people in my country had your vision for hope and democracy. But they don't, and that's the big problem here.

Think about this. Our national debt is around $12 TRILLION. Every year we run a deficit which means we spend more than we take in. So the debt continues to rise. This will continue for at least 7 to 10 more years. By the time (If it were possible) that we could get our costs low enough to just balance the budget, we would then be at a "Break Even" point. That has a slim chance of happening, but if it did, it wouldn't be for 15 to 20 years. The debt would no longer be increasing, but it would not be going down either. But the interest WOULD be increasing adding to the amount we still owed. Then it would take several more years to get the economy back on a steady and profitable track. Only then, would we be able to start paying down the debt. But with a yearly budget of about $4 Trillion, we would barely be able to pay the interest on the debt. Paying the debt completely where we owe nothing will take many years to do.

That is considering that it was possible because congress finally got blown to smithereens, and replaced by real life people who know the value of money, and how it should be spent.

This country is so big with over population. Our budgets are so high because we need entitlements for the poor, sick, and elderly. Big business runs the USA, not the people. And big business is bigger than the people. Yes we pull together and forget our problems when a major disaster happens. But it never lasts for very long. 9/11 happened 10 years ago now, and how did we respond? An arrogant cowboy decided to take our focus off the people who hurt us, and begin his own private little illegal war with a country that was not involved in 9/11 or a threat to us, to impress his daddy. That war costs us $3.4 trillion and almost 5,000 American soldiers, and all for nothing. The Iraq war cost us twice as much in money and lives as did 9/11. Do you realize what that much money could have done to help this country? That 3.4 Trillion is almost a full years budget for the USA. But when schools and hospitals asked for more money, they were denied. We had plenty for the military and killing brown people though.

As I said Stavros, you have to live here to fully experience the ways of the USA democracy to understand it. We have a strong and noble history. But that's all it is, history. Today is very different here. Yes 50 years would be necessary to fix our problems, but only if congress got off their greedy asses, had a major change of heart, and did something right for this nation. I seriously doubt this will happen too soon.

[Stavros]

I think the nuanced approach would suggest you do have problems but not a crisis; to some extent 'the state' is always in debt, as are most corporations who borrow on the strength of their assets and long-term prospect of return. There was a time in the 1960s and 1970s when the conventional wisdom was that New York City would go bankrup tbecause of its debt, the taxes driving businesses to New Jersey and so on -crime and a crumbling housing stock made it an increasingly dangerous and undesirable place to live, yet now what once were the no-go areas of the Bowery and the Lower East Side are smart, New York is safer than ever, ok maybe its no longer decadent or 'dangerous' in an artistic sense, but over time and with structural management, what was an econmic basket-case in the USA has retained its status as one of the most sought after locations in the world.
Major corporations have what they call a debt/equity ration: the volume of debt related to the total asset of the company -the USA is badly in debt, but in Europe Greece, Ireland and now Portugal are officially bankrupt and even though the UK is not in the EuroZone, we are having to commit billions of Euros to share this debt as well as having the largest deficit in our history.

If Obama has the mandate and the courage in a second term, I think he needs to divert the staggering cost of foreign adventures into major infrastructure projects that would create jobs and imporve transport and communications, as a start anyway. It is a difficult time to be alive and either low-paid or looking for work, but I can't give in to despair having seen so many problems that were said to be intractable unwind and get solved. New York was in as bad a situation as California is now, with some changes to tax law in that state, they could also repair the damage -though whether cities perched on the edge of the San Andreas fault have a secure long term future I cannot day!

[envivision]

To all the Birthers out there:

I will make sure that Obama produces and show you his birth certificate when you prove to me that your &^& G-O-D and his son J-E-B-U-S are not a HOAX.

Happy fu**g Easter day to you.

[Silcc69]

LMAO that was pretty funny and true.

[Faldur]

To all the Birthers out there:

I will make sure that Obama produces and show you his birth certificate when you prove to me that your &^& G-O-D and his son J-E-B-U-S are not a HOAX.

Happy fu**g Easter day to you.

Well lets see.. what year is it? And that is tracked how? Oh, after the death of Christ. A world event so cataclysmal that unanimous agreement was reached to reset the world clock to zero.

There is no proof, its like global warming you just have to believe. But unlike global warming we will all find out who was right and wrong. So just be patient, your answer will come. And if you were right you can have a grand laugh, if your able. And if I am right... well that won't be so pretty will it?

Happy Easter brother, He is risen..