US Economy Thread

As Sa'iqa wrote:Today no country i the world is close to such level of economic freedom that USA had during XIX century. There was no income tax until 1910 or so, no concessions for resources etc. And it was the greatest period of American economy, with prosperity unrivaled elsewhere in the world. Then it gradually befggan to shift to an interventionist economy, first by creating The Federal Reserve and then during FDR's times (FDR also loved Stalin)

TR1 wrote:Let's compare two thing:

Iraq War- HUGE anti-war protests in big American cities. Go on freely.
Ukraine- some Russians gather to protest against it in Moscow, promptly arrested.

Seriously, fuck our current government.

Austin wrote:Hannibal your view on this ?

Austin wrote:From what I have seen in his debate that even the optimistic agree that Economy is very bad in shape

I think what he is stating is when QE end which is like 2015 and when real inflation grows then keeping bond wont be attractive and there will be mass selling of bonds that where the Fed will collapse.

Though I am not an economist and dont understand many aspect of it but out of sheer understand what I think he is trying to say is the current economy is doing nothing much for the 99 % but all the money is being put to Stock Market for the top 1 % and is not generating any value for the real economy via QE ...... and its not sustainable .....basicly the Fed is keeping the bankers happy to make todays collapse move over to few more year with more dire consquences.

TR1 wrote:Have you seen Russian roads?

TR1 wrote:Have you seen Russian roads?

Werewolf wrote:American infrastructure is underaverage, actually it is horrible.

The absolute majority of american houses are made of plywood at best, some parts of US are very well known to be hit by catastrophes like hurricanes. Building houses entirely made of plywood which you can knock down with your fists only, are build in tornado areas, electric power lines are going above ground which will be knocked out several times within a decade instead of investing a little bit money to burry the powerlines in the ground like every european country has.

People over there lose everything they have after a single tornado, it doesn't even have to be a big tornado even a small tornado will knock out entire streets without big problems.

Just like the story of the 3 pigs and the wolf, the first builds his house made of straw, the second makes his house made of wood and the last one makes his house of bricks and at the end they end up in the brickhouse.

magnumcromagnon wrote:
In the Caribbean their houses are built to withstand and survive hurricanes, all the concrete on a Caribbean home is reinforced with steel rebar, and all there windows have steel shutters attached to them.

It's a lesson understood by anyone who's read the story of the Three Little Pigs: the stronger you build a house, the less likely it is to blow away when a wolf--or a hurricane--starts huffing and puffing. So as builders begin reconstructing the homes destroyed by Katrina, they're taking steps to increase the odds that the new houses will survive future storms. Says engineer Tim Reinhold of the Institute for Business and Home Safety: "[Builders] need to be thinking about how you'd build this house if you were going to hold it upside down and shake it, to keep things from falling off."

Before Katrina, neither Mississippi nor Louisiana had statewide building codes. Last fall Louisiana adopted one, modeled partly on practices used in Miami-Dade County, Fla., which requires more hurricane-protection measures than anywhere else in the United States. In Louisiana, framing carpenters now use metal clips to supplement the nails that hold roof frames to walls. Builders wrap the entire house in plywood, underneath the siding, instead of the foam insulation that some previously used as sheathing. On the roof, they're using more nails and gluing down the corners of shingles. To protect windows, builders are choosing between pricey impact-resistant glass or, more frequently, installing bolts on window frames and pre-cutting custom plywood shutters, which the new homeowner can fasten on when hurricane warnings are announced.

The new building practices won't prevent flood damage, which caused more harm than Katrina's winds. Protecting homes from storm water requires rebuilding outside of flood plains, or at higher elevations (often on stilts). That remains controversial: last week the Biloxi City Council rejected the recommendation of the Federal Emergency Management Agency to expand the city's flood-plain map, and to increase the elevation for homes from 13 feet above likely flood levels up to 18 to 25 feet. "How would you like to tell your 80-year-old constituent that she was now going to have to climb up 18 feet of stairs ... to get in and out of her house?" says councilman Mike Fitzpatrick.

The extra protection comes at a cost. New Orleans builder Randy Noel says the codes are adding about 8 percent to the expense of the homes he's building. A study by Louisiana State University, however, found that if Mississippi enacted a Miami-style building code, it could save $3.1 billion in damages in a future Category 3 hurricane. Says Noel: "It may be overkill, but if it makes the insurance guys happy and makes them want to cover us, it isn't that big a deal." The next time hurricane winds start huffing and puffing, new homeowners may be able to rest a little easier.

Werewolf wrote:American infrastructure is underaverage, actually it is horrible.

As Sa'iqa wrote:So now write a dissertation describing how this "stealing" looks like and by what mechanisms it is achieved. So far you contradict yourself in the same sentence (poor countries by definition have nothing worth of stealing. Otherwise they would not be poor)