(10-06-2026 03:40 PM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (10-06-2026 01:47 PM)Todor Wrote: (10-06-2026 01:06 PM)b2b Wrote: (10-06-2026 09:04 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: (10-06-2026 07:51 AM)b2b Wrote: Are you denying that our economy is somewhat rigged?
Rigged in what way?
I mean OF COURSE we rely on new money coming in. That's called work. We are constantly producing new crops, new cars, new planes, new organic chemicals, etc etc for export.
Anyone who actually looks at the data knows that average Americans are far wealthier than average folks in every other country except possibly Norway (which is an oil republic every bit as much as Saudi Arabia, but with a highly educated populace that does their own engineering).
1. banks "too big to fail"
2. auto industry bailouts
3. tax breaks for corps / making up the difference on property taxes, etc.
4. electric vehicle subsidies
5. big tobacco bailouts from the late 90's
6. big box stores displacing mom and pop operations (see #2)
I'd also argue that offshoring our manufacturing has been a type of rigging for the corps / CEO's at the expense of Americans.
(10-06-2026 01:27 PM)Gitanole Wrote: (10-06-2026 01:06 PM)b2b Wrote: (10-06-2026 09:04 AM)Captain Bearcat Wrote: Rigged in what way?
I mean OF COURSE we rely on new money coming in. That's called work. We are constantly producing new crops, new cars, new planes, new organic chemicals, etc etc for export.
Anyone who actually looks at the data knows that average Americans are far wealthier than average folks in every other country except possibly Norway (which is an oil republic every bit as much as Saudi Arabia, but with a highly educated populace that does their own engineering).
1. banks "too big to fail"
2. auto industry bailouts
3. tax breaks for corps / making up the difference on property taxes, etc.
4. electric vehicle subsidies
5. big tobacco bailouts from the late 90's
6. big box stores displacing mom and pop operations (see #2)
I'd also argue that offshoring our manufacturing has been a type of rigging for the corps / CEO's at the expense of Americans.
Yep. There’s plenty of cause for concern here.
I’m less bothered by the bailouts per se as by the fact that so few of the people who put taxpayers on the hook seem to face any penalty for putting them there.
Housing loan fraud 2008-2009? Widespread suffering—and reportedly only one person did any jail time. Most of those who brought us the problem are stil stocking and trading, with new tax breaks, while telling the rest of us it’s all the fault of immigrants. The expense of housing remains for all of us to deal with.
As for Americans in the shrinking middle class being “wealthier” than their counterparts in other countries: offset raw dollar amounts of income with raw dollar amounts of living costs. Watch the US take a number and fall back into line.
___
Subtract a countries debt from its GDP spread out over X number of years and see what the average looks like then.
GDP figures are already skewed enough, but start looking at the net worth of countries the way we look at the net worth of people and it gets grim pretty quickly.
Nothing that either of you said changes the fact that the 50th percentile American makes about 20% more than the average Canadian, 26% more than the average Australian, 30% more than the average German, 70% more than the average Brit, and twice as much as the average Japanese. And our cost of housing is considerably lower than all five of those countries.
If you're whining about the USA, maybe you should go to one of those countries.
If you’re so pro USA, why would you want to see it drive itself to the brink of insolvency and with debt.
And if the US economy is a good as some people think, why does it take $30-40 trillion in borrowing to have the standard of living you think we have?
I’ve never seen so many run down ghettos, pay day loan stores on every block, cities that look like a Dresden at the end of WWII, people financing their groceries with Klarna and Affirm at the register, medical debt bankruptcies, a Rent To Own store in every plaza, etc in any country EXCEPT the US.
Now, I will be the first to admit that many Americans are stupid as F, can’t add for the life of them, couldn’t balance a checkbook if you put a gun to their head, make very poor, rash and irresponsible choices financially, are reckless and irresponsible in every way, and have themselves to blame for a lot of their own financial situation. I mean, I know people here who are so dumb and inept with money (and life in general) that I can’t believe they are allowed to walk around by themselves. But only here do they exist as such a large part of the population. Other places have A FEW people like that, mostly with some sort of mental/cognitive issues. But nowhere near enough to have entire industries based around providing services targeted just at them.
And we have around 10 times the percent of people incarcerated as a lot of other developed countries, so one would think that would eliminate a lot of the impulse challenged, reckless, and incompetent people from being out living so poorly. But no, there’s the millions of people incarcerated ON TOP of all the others.
Is the economy not really so great for the people of this country, or are Americans across the board that much stupider than anywhere else in the world? Because it kinda has to be primarily one of the other.
If any of those countries borrowed a proportionate amount and injected it into their own economies, is there a reason to think their standards of living would not also rise (until it comes due)?
We’re getting taken for a ride, big time. All of the people profiting from all the insider deals, all the connected people who make out like bandits no matter what they do, while constantly leaving taxpayers on the hook for cleaning up the messes, they won’t be around when TSHTF so they don’t care how much debt they get the cattle to sign off on.
Amd why should they when we let them get away with it?
