Meeting of OPEC

[PoLiX]

[AstroProdigy]

Just a little side note if OPEC switched it's currency reserve from the failing dollar to the much more fiscally sound euro the United States would literally go bankrupt and considering all the debt we're taking on for tax cuts for the rich and wars for oil and influence we'd have absolutely no way to pull ourselves out of it. You see even though we spend like a 5 year old with a credit card and consume much more than we produce we make up the difference by forcing the world to use the dollar as their currency reserves.

 

The only reason the world isn't using the euro more since it's a better currency with their responsible economic policies is that oil is a major commodity and through Saudi Arabia's dominance of OPEC we have forced all the major oil producing country to only sell for dollars that we give out with interest. The only country to deviate from this was Iraq and that was followed up by a nice little invasion to show the rest of the world that challenging America in any serious way leads to destruction. Iran is talking about doing the same thing and well we can all see the rhetoric piling on preparing for that invasion.

 

Basically the point about this is that Americans can afford to stuff their faces (and give their richest some nice tax breaks that end up allowing their taxes to be less than working class schmoes pay as a percentage of their earnings so they can buy more private jets) is because we do it on the backs of the rest of the world. They are forced to pay for our gluttony and greed with their hard work and if they were ever to successfully challenge that we'd be utterly screwed. With Clinton and the dot com boom at least we had a thriving economy and a president who knew what to do with that money so there was some sense of fiscal responsibility, but with Bush we are screwing ourselves over so bad we can only keep it going by screwing everyone else. Kudos to Iran and Venezuela for not being puppets the way Saudi Arabia is. I may hate Iran's regime and think Hugo Chavez quite likely sees himself as some sort of deity, but at least they challenge the big fat imperialist power.

[Falcoknight]

Wooo for $9,100,000,000,000 national debt!

[SeVeR]

Nice post Astro.

 

Chavez is doing alot for South America. He reclaimed the oil industry from the Western companies which were draining the region dry, and put the money back into social infra-structure. He has since established favourable trade-agreements with all the other countries in the region to make it easier for them to buy cheap oil for their growing economies. Of course America hates this idea, and will continue to paint him as some sort of terrorist leader from a "rogue" state and so on...

[NBVegita]

We still have too many allies in OPEC for this to be of much real concern atm.

 

As for Chavez, he's done nothing but antagonize not only Bush, but the American people as a whole, and by pulling stunts like this, rubbing the fact that our currency is on a rapid decline in our faces publicly, a fact every country knows, it does nothing but breed animosity.

 

To be honest I could give a !@#$%^&* what he's done for his people, the fact is he spends plenty of time attacking not only our president, but us as a country, and I'll not support any such man.

 

As for our economy, Clinton had nothing to do with it. The "Dot Com Bubble" was a ridiculous economic precedent where hundreds of companies stocks rose faster than a rocket into space, and yet they were making no money. People handed out billions of dollars to unqualified people in the hopes of joining in on the bubble. It had nothing to do with the Bush administration that the "dot com bubble" happened to break right before they entered office, in fact it is surprising that it lasted so long to begin with. Then there were the dozens of corporate accounting scandals, the Clinton's were even in on one in the 's, that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, that yet again came out right after the Bush administration entered office. Yes Bush has mad mistakes with the economy, but nothing even Bush could do wrong could come close to what happened when his administration was in it's infancy. No president could have saved us from this recession.

 

We will recover from this inflation soon, it will most likely be a president or three depending on terms, but our economy will balance it's self back out as long as we don't pump billions into another war with no returns in revenue.

 

And to top it all off we've gone from the largest number of Americans owning their own home...around 2004 I think, to the biggest housing recession in the history of America, largely due to flexible lending rates with interest only financing coupled with banks pushing foreclosures.

[ThunderJam]

[AstroProdigy]

Foreigners like the idea of their currency being worth more in comparison, but they don't want their foreign currency reserve to be in money that is continually devaluating. The euro is already much more appealing in every comparison to the dollar, but the dependence of the major Gulf states (except Iran) on the US and the influence we have on them means they can't switch to the more profitable euro and other countries will keep their dollars if that's what they need to purchase oil, the most precious commodity in today's world.

 

The point is that we aren't just dependent on oil for our consumption, we are dependent on it for our dollar's dominance. Without that dominance our poorly run economy would collapse from massive gluttony. If we stopped being profitable for countries like Saudi Arabia they'd switch to the Euro that gives them more profit and a more stable currency and we'd lose the huge kickback we get to keep our economy afloat. Thus we are paralyzed and we can't even remove our dependence on oil without changing our gluttonous, consumerist culture. It's been unsustainable for a while and what I don't understand is why economists aren't willing to admit that we've only been able to sustain it through global dominance.

 

The reason why European countries aren't as wealthy as us isn't social services. Sure certain countries have too many barriers to free enterprise where they shouldn't be, but for the most part European economies under the EU are much better run than ours. We just get an extra giant sum of free money from our dominance. Without it we'd be as rich, or poorer than Europe if they gained that dominance from us.

 

There is a good chance this will backfire on us. Iran doesn't want the nuke to use against us or Israel. They actually want it as a deterrent. They know they can hit us real hard simply by switching to the euro for their trade currency and Americans will be dumb enough to buy the trumpet call again and invade on false pretenses. There's already a greater than 50% support in public opinion for launching an attack on Iran. Things are really a lot more complicated than everyone is lead to believe. If I were you I'd put my investments in Europe since there is no foreseeable reason for them to enter into a depression.

[AstroProdigy]

We still have too many allies in OPEC for this to be of much real concern atm.

 

As for Chavez, he's done nothing but antagonize not only Bush, but the American people as a whole, and by pulling stunts like this, rubbing the fact that our currency is on a rapid decline in our faces publicly, a fact every country knows, it does nothing but breed animosity.

 

To be honest I could give a !@#$%^&* what he's done for his people, the fact is he spends plenty of time attacking not only our president, but us as a country, and I'll not support any such man.

 

As for our economy, Clinton had nothing to do with it. The "Dot Com Bubble" was a ridiculous economic precedent where hundreds of companies stocks rose faster than a rocket into space, and yet they were making no money. People handed out billions of dollars to unqualified people in the hopes of joining in on the bubble. It had nothing to do with the Bush administration that the "dot com bubble" happened to break right before they entered office, in fact it is surprising that it lasted so long to begin with. Then there were the dozens of corporate accounting scandals, the Clinton's were even in on one in the 's, that cost us hundreds of billions of dollars, that yet again came out right after the Bush administration entered office. Yes Bush has mad mistakes with the economy, but nothing even Bush could do wrong could come close to what happened when his administration was in it's infancy. No president could have saved us from this recession.

 

We will recover from this inflation soon, it will most likely be a president or three depending on terms, but our economy will balance it's self back out as long as we don't pump billions into another war with no returns in revenue.

 

And to top it all off we've gone from the largest number of Americans owning their own home...around 2004 I think, to the biggest housing recession in the history of America, largely due to flexible lending rates with interest only financing coupled with banks pushing foreclosures.

 

Only Iran and Venezuela need to abandon the dollar and then that will probably push us into a recession by itself.

 

Chavez also gives us cheap heating in NYC because our own government doesn't seem to care. I may not like the man very much, but considering how demonized he is by American media I'd be pissed off too. We all know the coup was American made too and I wouldn't be happy if a government did that to me too. The fact is that we have been insulting Venezuela for years by raping their most precious resources while supporting their own impoverishment because it is more profitable for us. If you don't want leaders of countries to hate us go protest our own leaders for trying to screw their people.

 

I never said Clinton created the dot com bubble. I said he handled it responsibly by NOT squandering the money away the way Bush does. A good president could have used responsible economic policies rather than supporting a long outdated economic ideology that only sends our country spiraling into debt and does nothing to help those in need.

 

Our economy will balance itself out because future presidents will be forced to pursue responsible policies and it will take a lot of sacrifice to fix what has been done to us. In case you haven't noticed the battle cry for war with Iran has been getting louder and that type of war would be like 10 Iraqs.

 

I can put a lot of blame on Congress for the housing crisis. At least in that respect it is mostly their fault for not pursuing responsible policies and the Democrats for not voicing those policies strong enough. What I wouldn't give to change to at least a two round first past the post election system so there would be at least a little room for outside compe!@#$%^&*ion from the main two parties. Just because the founding fathers didn't think of it doesn't mean it's a bad idea and all we'd need to do is have 2 election days instead of 1. By this I mean you have a system where you need to get a 50% majority to win an election rather than just a plurality and if that doesn't happen a second round where the top two candidates are up for election only is held on the second day. Thus the old idea that voting for a third party candidate is a waste of your vote since they can't get elected and the major party candidate closest in ideology will be hurt will be bunk.