Welcome to 2010

[War Wagon]

I'm going to bed.

You party animal, you.

Despite the date stamp, it's not 2010 here yet, you EST ball sucking homer.

[War Wagon]

I'm trying to stay awake until 2010, just to say I did.

[War Wagon]

Happy New Year

Now I'm going to bed.

[PSUFAN]

All appears to be well. HNY, nizzlerods

[Tom In VA]

Happy New Year

[Wolfman]

Happy New Year from SW FL !

[smackaholic]

How's about resolutions?

Here's a few.

1. Stop being a fat bastid. I have new motivation for this. One of my closest friends dropped dead from a heart attack christmas eve. He was about 2 years older than me. He leaves a wife and 2 sons behind. He wasn't fat, but that's besides the point. I will take my motivation from wherever I can find it. My goal is to weigh one hundred and sumpin' by year's end.

2. Bike commute at least 50% of the time. Also get in 50 miles a week other than commuting. If I accomplish both of these, I should get over 5K miles for the year. This and not eating like a pig should allow me to accomplish res. #1.

3. Spend less time here.

4. Kill at least 2 "crew" members. Don't really care which ones.

[fix]

Happy New Years to all.

I'm worn the fuck out from last night but it was definitely all good. :D

[XXXL]

May the bounty of prosperity be with all who journey to this board! Good luck to 88's Buckeyes today...

Geaux 2010

Have Fun & Stay Stoked !

[Katy]

Happy New Year, guys.

I stayed up way too late last night and I'm paying for it today.

[poptart]

It's a good read.



A Decade of Self-Delusion

Patrick J. Buchanan


About the first decade of what was to be the Second American Century, the pessimists have been proven right.

According to the International Monetary Fund, the United States began the century producing 32 percent of the world’s gross domestic product. We ended the decade producing 24 percent. No nation in modern history, save for the late Soviet Union, has seen so precipitous a decline in relative power in a single decade.

The United States began the century with a budget surplus. We ended with a deficit of 10 percent of gross domestic product, which will be repeated in 2010. Where the economy was at full employment in 2000, 10 percent of the labor force is out of work today and another 7 percent is underemployed or has given up looking for a job.

Between one-fourth and one-third of all U.S. manufacturing jobs have disappeared in 10 years, the fruits of a free-trade ideology that has proven anything but free for this country. Our future is being outsourced — to China.

While the median income of American families was stagnant, the national debt doubled.

The dollar lost half its value against the euro. Once the most self-sufficient republic in history, which produced 96 percent of all it consumed, the U.S.A. is almost as dependent on foreign nations today for manufactured goods, and the loans to pay for them, as we were in the early years of the republic.

What the British were to us then, China is today.

Beijing holds the mortgage and grows impatient as we endlessly borrow on equity and refuse to begin paying it down. The possibility exists of an eventual run on the dollar or even a U.S. debt default.

Who did this to us? We did it to ourselves.

We sold ourselves a lot of snake oil about the Global Economy, interdependence, free trade and “it doesn’t make any difference where goods are produced.” The George W. Bush Republicans ran up the deficit with tax cuts, two wars and a splurge in social spending to rival the guns-and-butter of the Great Society.

Abandoning its role as the fellow who comes and takes away the punch bowl when the party’s getting good, the Fed kept the money flowing fast and free, creating the tech bubble that burst in Y2K and the stock and housing bubble that burst at decade’s end.

To pull us back from the cliff’s edge, over which we were headed a year ago, the Fed doubled the money supply, while the administration ran up deficit spending to the highest level since World War II.

Unlike World War II, however, there is no end in sight to these deficits.

The stock market, which flat-lined over the decade, had to surge 50 percent in 2009 to retrieve the worst losses since the Depression.

Everyone, it seems, except for Washington bureaucrats and Wall Street, for whom the bonuses never seem to stop, has been hammered by the sinking home values and shrinking portfolios.

After Sept. 11, the nation was united behind a president as it had not been since Pearl Harbor. But instead of focusing on the enemies who did this to us, we took Osama bin Laden’s bait and plunged into a war in Iraq that bled and divided us, alienated Europe and the Arab world, and destroyed the Republican Party’s reputation as the reliable custodian of national security and foreign policy.

The party paid — with the loss of both houses in 2006 and the presidency in 2008 — but the nation has not stopped paying.

With nearly 200,000 troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and another 30,000 more on the way, al-Qaida is now in Pakistan, Yemen, Somalia and North Africa, while the huge U.S. military presence in Afghanistan and Iraq serves as its recruiting poster.

Again, it is not a malevolent fate that has done this to us. We did it to ourselves. We believed all that hubristic blather about our being the “greatest empire since Rome,” the “indispensable nation” and “unipolar power” advancing to “benevolent global hegemony” in a series of “cakewalk” wars to “end tyranny in our world.”

After a decade of self-delusion and self-indulgence, we must stop deceiving ourselves. As Hurricane Katrina demonstrated, the “can-do” nation that won World War II in Europe and the Pacific in less than four years, that put a man on the moon in the same decade JFK said we would, is history.

We have a government that cannot balance its books, defend its borders or win its wars. And what is it now doing? Drafting another entitlement program as we are informed that the Social Security and Medicare trust funds have unfunded liabilities in the trillions.

At the end of the first decade of the 21st century, the question is not whether we will preside over the creation of a New World Order, but whether America’s decline is irreversible.

[KC Scott]

Pretty Solid take by Buchanan.

Some of the shit about Globalization needed more than just lip service - there was a way to incentivize american companies to keep jobs here, for some reason no one in Government thought it was important to do it.

[BSmack]

When I see people predicting the end of America, I find myself thinking back to the classic Henry Fonda movie "The Battle of the Bulge" when the German Panzer commander discovers a cake in an American Sherman tank during the initial period of Nazi advance.

They have the fuel and planes to fly cake over the Atlantic Ocean. Do you know what this means?

Of course what it meant was that America would eventually steamroll Germany. Because our economic might was such that we could afford to ship luxury items to our men in uniform half a world away even while a world war raged. I look at the world today and while I agree with the indisputable fact that American influence is not what it was in 1946, I don't see an adversary capable of flying cake anytime soon. The Chinese? They have the 105th highest standard of living in the world. When they have a free and prosperous middle class we can start talking. Of course then they won't be able to afford to ship us all those manufactured goods. Iran? Give me a fucking break. Same goes for those fucks living in caves in Pakistan.

Oh, and it's pretty funny that Buchannan apparently expected New Orleans to be rebuilt in a day. While the Bush administration undoubtedly fucked up their response beyond all measure, that was hardly an indictment of America's "can do" spirit. Millions of Americans gave of themselves personally and financially to help those in New Orleans. And New Orleans has and continues to rebuild.

[poptart]

Buchanan is not predicting the end of America in that piece.

He IS pointing out the fact that the country has declined over the past decade and he questions at the end whether or not that declining trend can be reversed.


"The U.S. is becoming more juvenile as a nation. The guys who won World War II and
that whole generation have disappeared, and now we have a bunch of teenage twits."

- Clint Eastwood


Bri, Their doesn't need to be an heir apparent nation on the horizon in order the United States to stay in a rut of decline that makes it a much less appealing place to live than it was in past generations.

Pat is saying that "we" need to get our shit together before a lot of really unpleasant things start to go down.

Personally, I don't know that the U.S. is going away anytime soon, but I DO think it's possible that some kind of large "re-organization" of the nation could come about which would fundamentally change things and make it a country that our grandfathers would not really recognize.

[BSmack]

“God has a special providence for fools, drunks, and the United States of America.”

Bri, Their doesn't need to be an heir apparent nation on the horizon in order the United States to stay in a rut of decline that makes it a much less appealing place to live than it was in past generations.

"Stay in a rut of decline"???



Even after 8 years of the Bush White House's absolute incompetence, our GDP increased by roughly 4.5 TRILLION dollars.

Pat is saying that "we" need to get our shit together before a lot of really unpleasant things start to go down.

Don't we always? We needed to get our shit together before WWII and yet somehow we muddled through. We were in far greater peril at the beginning of both the 1810's and 1860's than we could even fathom today.

Personally, I don't know that the U.S. is going away anytime soon, but I DO think it's possible that some kind of large "re-organization" of the nation could come about which would fundamentally change things and make it a country that our grandfathers would not really recognize.

A nation of the size and complexity of America is not going away anytime soon. And quite frankly, my grandfathers (both deceased roughly 30 years) wouldn't make it past the first minute of a 24 hour cable network newscast before dropping the first WTF at the mention of President Barack Obama.

[War Wagon]

Rack B-Smack

[Mikey]

Pops has given America until April to completely implode economically. He's just seeing his predictions go up in smoke and is hoping for a last minute bailout.

Why does he hate Amecrica?

[BSmack]

A nation of the size and complexity of America is not going away anytime soon.

You should read this before making statements like that:



No one knows what is going to happen, and how fast the unknown is going to occur.

And I'm not making any negative statements against our current President in this post. While I personally disagree with most of his policies and think he is a shitty leader, I do not have any information that he is leading us to a "black swan" event, and you do not have any information that he is leading us away from one. But, statistically speaking, shit happens that no one expects. And the US economy could collapse in a heartbeat if the "highly improbable" occurred.

Yea, I suppose a comet could crash into the earth in 2012 and prove the Mayans right. Or AP will renounce wearing panties. Or mvscal could win an NAACP Image Award. But realistically the odds are pretty good that the sun is going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

[War Wagon]

But realistically the odds are pretty good that the sun is going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

Damn... I guess this means I should probably keep paying the mortgage.

[Wolfman]

Mark Steyn gave me a chilling thought today. What if the Jihadists sent say five glory seeking suicide bombers to our five busiest airports and while in line to go through the TSA bullshit--detonated their bombs. They would kill more people than on a plane and bring our air travel to a grinding halt. Then what ? We'd have to go through TSA screening in our cars lined up at the roads leading to the air terminals ?? When will the insanity end and we actually look for terrorists and not patting down 85 year old grandmothers ?

[KC Scott]

we kinda went way off base here - up until the last stanza, Buchanan was pretty spot on regarding what has gone wrong over the last decade.

what impressed me was he was bi-partisan in his assessment.

as for the POTUS lets call a spade a spade here and say that neither BO or GW is going to be cut into Rushmore anytime soon

[poptart]

But realistically the odds are pretty good that the sun is going to continue to rise for the foreseeable future.

I agree, and as I said, I don't expect America to go away anytime soon.
It's in the best interest of the rest of the world for America not to go totally belly up.

BUT, the American people can feel right now that something is just ... not right.

Basically, what they feel is that the fed gov has gone COMPLETELY ape shit and there is no accountability.
They feel they've lost hold of their government and that they are being played.

And it doesn't take a genius to look at America's future (and CURRENT) unfunded liabilities and see a HUGE problem ahead.

And when viewing this HUGE problem ahead, what is the approach our government is taking?

Borrow (or print) a lot more money.

ummm ...

We WILL face the fact that we've lived WELL beyond our means.

A lower standard of living in inevitable.

If you see a way around that fact, feel free to explain yourself.

[Cuda]

Sometimes Pat Buchanan sounds like a geezer yelling at the whippersnappers to get off his lawn & stay off. This was one of those times

[Tom In VA]

BUT, the American people can feel right now that something is just ... not right.

Basically, what they feel is that the fed gov has gone COMPLETELY ape shit and there is no accountability.
They feel they've lost hold of their government and that they are being played.

Nothing all that new about that though. The "message" might be more widespread than before due to the obvious ... the internet ... but there has been loads of mistrust and fear associated with the Federal Government among all the various aspects of our society.

I agree with you on everything else. Globalization has and will continue to degrade the standard of living for many Americans. Of course in my region, the more Americans vote for Big Government, the better off we are .. err were ?

With networks, broadband, etc.. many "paper pushers" are now "submit button" pushers - and I don't mean wasting away the hours on message boards. The red tape that binds the government machines can now be threaded through each cog REMOTELY.

I think in time you'll see more folks "working remotely" for the Fed, in areas where Senators and Congressmen have cooperated and/or strong armed executive branches to set up shop. It started and is continuing with BRAC.

The Irrational Exhuberence of the end of the 90's and the first decade of the 00's - is over.

It's Over Johnny.

[Dan Vogel]

Happy 2010 everyone. Our family spent ten days over the holidays on the west coast of Florida. It was the first time we had been away for Christmas and the first time for us in Florida. We had a great time and a great family time. The kids did grumble some but I chalk that up to their age. I know the memories will last their lifetime even if they don't appreciate it at the present time. The only trouble we had was a car breakdown on the way home. We had to spend an extra night in a motel as the car was being worked on. And then I had a dispute with the service man about the charges. They did some extra work that I never authorized and charged me an extra $90 for it. Then the man had a little bit of an attitude about himself. It was a bad scene and I regret that my daughter saw me arguing with him. Oh well those things happen.

We're snug at home now. The kids start school this week and it's back to work for my wife and I. Ready to attack 2010.

I have a miserable life and wish I were dead!

[BSmack]

Nothing all that new about that though. The "message" might be more widespread than before due to the obvious ... the internet ... but there has been loads of mistrust and fear associated with the Federal Government among all the various aspects of our society.

That sentiment goes back to the founding of the republic and before. Fear of an uncaring, unresponsive central government was what fueled our revolution to begin with.

I agree with you on everything else. Globalization has and will continue to degrade the standard of living for many Americans. Of course in my region, the more Americans vote for Big Government, the better off we are .. err were ?

What a load of hogwash. Unless by "degraded" you mean "not rising 3 times faster than the rest of the world".

With networks, broadband, etc.. many "paper pushers" are now "submit button" pushers - and I don't mean wasting away the hours on message boards. The red tape that binds the government machines can now be threaded through each cog REMOTELY.

I think in time you'll see more folks "working remotely" for the Fed, in areas where Senators and Congressmen have cooperated and/or strong armed executive branches to set up shop. It started and is continuing with BRAC.

So the Feds will resort to Cottage Industry? So maybe Alvin Toffler will finally be proved correct?

I'll believe it when I see it. Too many security issues for that to ever become widespread.

The Irrational Exhuberence of the end of the 90's and the first decade of the 00's - is over.

It's Over Johnny.

Irrational exuberance ended 1-20-01 and was replaced by galling incompetence.

[Dan Vogel]

I wish that dispute with the mechanic would have ended with ~75% of you in a plastic bag in the trunk of your burning car.

Wow tough man on the internet message board. I've never said anything to you that would provoke you to relay such an outrageous and sociopathic message. When crime victims are violated and suffer it isn't entertaining the way it seems on t.v. Are you an adult?

[PSUFAN]

It was a bad scene

Dan, reading that gives me an electric jolt of pleasure, like Jessica Alba nibbling the wrinkles where my scrote starts.

2010 is all about confounding you, Dan. Night-night!