Moral Decay and the demise of the American economy
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Machim wrote: Source Thread: 'Rise and Fall of Superpower'
The current era that we are living are presenting very challenging environment not only to the individuals but also to the very societies due to the global resource constraint and technology bottle neck.
In the past, there were enough technologies breakthrough and innovations that allowed the the country with the most advanced scientific power to become superpower in terms of economy and influence. Example is America and Japan, where their innovations allowed them to develop leading technology and products that dominated the world economy. When technology innovations are at that plenty, the direction of the future development is clear and obvious for the world leaders. USA and Japan would always manufacture the most leading products, while the less developed cheaper countries would manufacture more mainstream products at a cheap lower cost.
What happened later is that there is a slow down of technology innovations. there is less and less new leading products coming to the market, USA and Japan start running out of leading products to manufacture and find themselves hard to compete against less developed countries to manufacture more mainstream products. Slowly USA and Japan find themselves losing manufacturing power to less developed countries, at first to South American and Asia. So USA have no choice but slowly turned its attention to service sector and domestic demand, such as finance, multimedia such as films, books and others.
Initially the South America and Asia are booming, but India and China suddenly become the big players as they start opening their market and opening themselves to the world. Due to their huge population size and low wage cost, they become the biggest mainstream products manufacturing with the potential to become some of the largest domestic market globally. Suddenly, India becomes the world largest IT outsourcing venue and China becomes the largest mainstream product manufacturing venue.
Therefore, as the economies of USA and Japan become stagnant, India and China are growing at a staggering pace. As USA continues to focus on its domestic market, India and China is supplying their cheap services and products to USA and the rest of the world. Soon USA finds that it needs to borrow money to sustain the current lifestyle of living. Just like a fisherman borrowing money from the moneylender. The fisherman keeps on borrowing money from the moneylender and the moneylender dare not refuse as it depended on the fisherman for enough fishes for his diet. If one day the moneylender able to catch enough fish on his own, he will refuse to lend money to the fisherman and fisherman will become broke.
[bold font and spelling edits added]Not to sure if the fisherman scenario is that apt an example bc the US in reality, now doesn't borrow, it simply PRINT$$$$; anyhow, I think that recent US Presidents in recent times have breed an increasingly STUPID population based upon their 'job printing' policies to that lull lay electorate from genuine concern.
From what I do hear, many American citizens are still stuck in their pre-Lehman (2007-8) profligacy, (then and still) funded by the USA housing boom funded perpetuated by deception, aka "fraudulent underwriting practices".
Currently, their chieftain, Mr Ben Bernanke, Chairman of US FED, seems to be of the opinion that if by hook or crook, the share markets can be propped up by quantitative easing (aka printing $$$), then the economy can glow again, but all this silliness is no contest for the stable Asian concept of 'love' whereby individuals are taught to place others' (family/ country) first.
My current view is that rather than sticking to the purity of its own religion (Christianity (mainly protestant AFAIK))- as exemplified by mutual caring and love between men as the alter of God bestows, American citizens have instead increasingly believed in the deceptive statistics spewed by economist, in conspiracy with 2 querulous political parties- democrats and republicans, purporting on each side- skewed, half baked economic theories.
Whilst money printing aka "quantitative easing (QE)" in the short term might indeed boost the economy (raise GDP), this effect is temporary (think drug doping in cycling sport/ Lance Armstrong), unfortunately, the cost of such myopic endeavor is oft devastating. For the profit of aggrandizing Obama's joblessness/ GDP statistics/ Presidency short term, here's what QE will do to human (American) society:
- Widen rich poor divide because only equity (bonds, stocks etc) holders and home owners profit from the FED's US$1trillion p.a. QE plan (US$85billion/ month = US$1020 Billion p.a.). The $ sloshing around the economy will immediately raise stock prices and housing prices through cheap mortgage rates but the consequences of such are manifold:
- More money around makes people more stressed and the economy more complicated- essential public services are strained and eventually will costs more to run (healthcare, police, fire service)- eventually dragging down the economy if mismanaged.
- People become more unreasonable and demanding because there is excessive dependence upon government powers to provide jobs/ sustain the economy since inflation is often a delayed side effect of loose monetary policy: this disquiet will be politically challenging to control down the road for politicians of today's standards (e.g. Bush, Obama).
- Politicians who depend upon loose monetary policies (borrowing against future generations) rather than "leading by example" set the example for dishonesty amongst the citizens of the country. 'Like father like son', bad leaders beget bad followers, the Americans of tomorrow will not be more virtuous then their leaders today who rather borrow money against the credit of their unborn children than lead society by moral example.
- needless to say, I do indeed believe that the US economy is heading in the wrong direction as it seems a growing economy devoid of moral foundation. Obama's theory seems to be that by increasing the food pile upon the table of the rich, more food will fall off the table as scraps for the poor- an extremely inefficient method of alleviating poverty in the world today.
Still, little does Obama realize that over eating by the rich will result in indigestion, and over a longer term, a fatal coronary. The scraps the poor get from the floor are also stale and the indignity of receiving half eaten food isn't significantly uplifting. Worse, all the food wasted in this process only serves to pollute the environment, making it less hospitable for all (read global warming, Fukushima nuclear disaster*, environmental pollution). Ultimately, an economy that encourages 'creative accounting' and other moral hazards and plagued by an ever increasing class divide cannot be described as a resilient society and where push comes to shove, civil discord/ war will again take hold and reduce all liberties to that of a police state. One full circle, the rise and the fall of the Unites States of America.
In short, the American economy, originally built more like a house upon a rock, is now built like one upon shaky soil; the moral compass of America is broken.
Where love and liberty fail, corruption and authoritarianism take hold.
A political system not driven by moral interest (love) but by the unilateral and irresponsible desire for personal wealth(at all costs)- is doomed to fail.
Pre-Lehman was a mirage, post Lehman is truth.
Sans moral purpose and direction, the citizens of this world have little, if any, to look forward to.
1 John 4:8; New International Version (NIV)
God’s Love and Ours
8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.
Matthew 7:15-20, New International Version (NIV)
True and False Prophets:
15 “Watch out for false prophets. They come to you in sheep’s clothing, but inwardly they are ferocious wolves. 16 By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thornbushes, or figs from thistles? 17 Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. 18 A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. 19 Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. 20 Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.
Matthew 7:24-27; New International Version (NIV)
The Wise and Foolish Builders
24 “Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock. 26 But everyone who hears these words of mine and does not put them into practice is like a foolish man who built his house on sand. 27 The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell with a great crash.”
*PS: 'Fukushima nuclear disaster' is used as an example of a man made disaster: wherein it was declared by the investigation commission that: "the Japanese Nuclear Industrial and Safety Agency had been promoting nuclear energy without being open about the inherent risks.
It said that a culture of complacency about nuclear safety and poor crisis management had led to the nuclear disaster." [Japan nuclear plants 'still not safe', (aljazeera, 23July2012)]
Caption: Inflation is an extinct concept in textbooks written by Chairman of Fed, Mr Ben Bernanke.[pict source: Dear Ben, Please Print Us More Money]
Caption: Currency currency everywhere, yet not a bit to spend [Source: Hyperinflation In Zimbabwe]
Tags: America, economy, morality, quantitative easing, development, GDP, inflation, poverty, world, stability, hyperinflation, Ben, Bernanke, QE, Love, budget, fiscal, economics, Christian,