sl62

Car Audio Entertainment: RaySat, AT&T Make Their Move

I agree that things are in a mess right now. But as said, I think at this point "the world" accepts and supports America as the hub--we are the sun and the rest of the world are revolving around us. They know that if America falls or crashes and burns, they are going to be in a world of trouble because if we are f'd up, they are twice that (or at least incapable) and no where near ready for the responsbilities America has taken on. We are the glue and I would call us "too important to fail". Certainly figuratively and perceptually (and as represented by how popular our currency is around the world). Further, I think they have no problem letting us be the center of the universe because it enables them to be able to do their thing without too much attention. And because of how other governments are set up as communist, et al, they know they can never even BE the center...yet they are still comfortable with their traditions and age-old ways of life. So on that thesis, I believe that the rest of the world will in the future be willing to do "whatever is necessary" to keep the current structure viable…or at least palatable so that the world can keep turning. Our consumption does make a huge difference to the world yet at the same time we need to still be constructive in the way we take on debt (or pay it down) Your points are all valid and I don't dispute them on the face but there significant challenges with the genie out of the bottle (without our standards and with heightened global interactivity). It used to be Us and Them. Now it’s We, All of Us. As said, if anything, I see the global scene melding--the opposite of continental drift. It's the world coming back together toward Pangea, not physically, not ideologically but in further connectivity and interactivity. Which one day in the next 100 years could solidify more than any of us could imagine. I think we will keep finding ways to work together worldwide to create almost a "world manufacturing hub" that all countries utilize in a fiscally additive way rather than subtractive. There are 6B in the world and only 300M here. So between those numbers and that other parts of the world are far behind us in their development, it makes sense that manufacturing has gravitated to those places. I suggest that this timeframe right now through about the next 10 years is a restructuring of how the world interacts. And there will continue to be growing pains (like we are seeing right now) until the new paradigm is in place. Once and if settled positively, it should be able to properly support world economies for the forseeable future.

Car Audio Entertainment: RaySat, AT&T Make Their Move

relmor..

Your POV is very much about old-school responsibility, which is to be commended. You're right about some of the consequences you mention..although from my perspective, I come from a middle class midwest family who didn't have a boat, I cut our grass myself and never went to the movies every night. People who will be cutting these things out might have more of an adjustment...which is not a bad thing either. There are two types of pain. 1. the kind we just went and are gong through via greed and mistakes or 2. the self imposed kind (like higher taxes, etc)…and which is a much more controlled and less chaotic form. So the first thing that is going to happen is we will take on (approx) 1.5T more debt (for stim package to get us moving again), which will be roughly 11.5T on a 14.5T GDP (80%)...maybe a little more depending on how much we contract. Then in 2011, when hopefully we’ve stablized, we will see raised taxes to start drawing down this debt. I don’t see this as a problem personally but it will be a must to help get our debt down. I, like anyone, don’t like higher taxes, but I think everyone knows, you can’t just keep spending and borrowing. That's a big Duh. Keep in mind coming out of the War Years, in 1950, our debt to GDP was @ 90%. So this is not unprecedented and can be corrected. That’s the hope but I don’t usually consider hope a strategy. We do though need to do some belt-tightening here and I think it will happen (regardless if people whine about it or not).