Huh? If 20% of America winds up unemployed they won’t be participating in the economy. Not because of a revolution but because of sheer math. When you have no job, how long is your severance pay going to last? 6 months? A year? You’re going to have to back off no matter what.
Plus we have 40 million people living on food stamps, with the Republicans aiming to take that away from them. When that’s gone and unemployment extensions end, this won’t be about choosing not to participate; for them it will definitely, absolutely be entirely about being forced out.
And… economic drivers? You vastly underestimate the huge damage done to entire states when just a small percentage of the middle class (less than 10% of the population) was thrown into the ranks of the poor. Countless businesses closed down, entire cities face bankruptcy, even Texas is looking at a $27 BILLION budget shortfall, because consumer spending is down and so are tax receipts. Then there’s California… and let’s not even talk about Arizona. Cut off welfare and you shut down a truckload of businesses that depend on welfare recipients.
Now if that 20% were to actually rise up in outright rebellion the cost of putting them down HARRRRRRRRDDD!!! :rolleyes: would absolutely skyrocket. You add that onto the economic damage already done by them being unemployed and unable to participate in the economy. Granted, the other 80% will win, but what will be left of the country afterwards?
[QUOTE=Le Jacquelope]
Huh? If 20% of America winds up unemployed they won’t be participating in the economy. Not because of a revolution but because of sheer math. When you have no job, how long is your severance pay going to last? 6 months? A year? You’re going to have to back off no matter what.
[/QUOTE]
Leaving aside the fact that we aren’t headed for 20% unemployment (instead we are headed down from 9%), you do realize that people on unemployment still buy stuff, right? That they still participate in the economy…right? I mean, perhaps I’m making too large an assumption here, but, well, people who are unemployed still have to eat if nothing else. I know, I know…you are using your vast hyperbole skills to gloom and doom things to where unemployed people will just be left to starve in the streets, but the reality is that this is no more likely than our unemployment going to 20%.
Can you cite where the Republicans are aiming to take away food stamps and list the probability that, even if they are it will happen? Because I haven’t heard of any legislature being proposed or submitted by the Republican party to discontinue the food stamp program and will be surprised to see it…assuming it’s more than a standard Le Jac fantasy.
The actual point being that 20% of Americans rising up in rebellion any time in the foreseeable future is on part with 20% unemployment or cutting off of food stamps.
One thing that keeps getting left out in discussions of consumer spending is…
If people did not go into debt like that and they did not spend more than they earned (mind you, this is a good thing), what would happen to all those businesses that sprouted up to take advantage of this?
All that consumerism produces jobs. If a large percentage of iPod buyers should not have bought iPods and they did not buy iPods, what would happen to Apple’s stock?
My contention is if we had kept the higher paying jobs in America we would have more money to actually engage in a higher level of consumerism without going into debt.
When I was 17 the world war 2 was over, it ended in 1945. I am in my 80’s now. It wasn’t unusual for a young person to work out side the home. My sister worked at age 10 for a family. I was 13 when i started high school and worked my way through. I lived with a family as a mother’s helper.
Economy that is based on spending what one doesn’t have is a false economy. We lived that way for too long. Europe started that practice back in the late 80’s. I was there in 1988, and our guide said Americans had more because they had more credit…well, you see what happened! Too many people lived beyond their means thinking they would always have a job, then the businesses started to leave the country (or states )and things went down to what they are now. Most of what American’s spend sends the money over seas etc.
We are overburdened by a glut of jobless people, even more people working in low paying jobs, and a rising cost of living. Add to that the fact that we have 40 million Americans on food stamps. And that’s not likely to abate any time soon, least of all in all of the year 2011.
Gasoline is on its way up, and this time OPEC, etc. have the means to keep those prices up. Plus, China and India, fully gorged on the (green) blood of lost American jobs, are experiencing a meteoric rise in prosperity - SDMBers may scream “but they’re poor!” but oil prices say something else: their demand for oil is offsetting our lack of demand. Oil prices will skyrocket. $4 is just the first stop on a long road trip of pain for American drivers.
Oh did I mention that the US deficit is in no way looking at being below $400 billion any time soon?
Combine the US budget deficit with rising gasoline prices, low paying jobs and persistent joblessness which itself will only be alleviated by an explosion in low paying jobs and top that off with 40 million people needing food stamps, and you have a new problem: a collapsing US dollar.
When that happens America will run out of jobs to export. The entire world’s economy depends on America importing goods and exporting jobs. Everyone. Everywhere. When the US dollar tanks globalism dies.