IMF urges US to address debt now

I agree with you on military spending. But until they can prove they can put their fiscal house in order, raising taxes is just giving them more money to waste. Tell us a realistic number that the Federal government really needs to function, no waste, no earmarks, no pork, then we can talk about taxes being raised to meet that number. But if they are just going to continue to piss the money into the ocean with no accountability, fuck them. I am pissed too, don't be sorry about it.

I said it was a bad idea.

I doubt anyone wanted us to attack Iraq. Bush and his media spin doctors kept repeating lies over and over and doing a LOT of fear mongering until they thought they could get away with it. The UN was opposed to it. Many other countries were opposed to it.

Bush ran around giving every little country that would side with him big bribes (cash).
That's how he build up his "alliance". It was truly disgusting to watch.

Well, *I* certainly said something--repeatedly, ad nauseum.

Our economy was not on the verge of collapsing when Obama lied us into the Iraq War.

Unfortunately, Obama sabotaged our really one chance to turn the Bush/Cheney economy debacle around, and Obama blew it, big time.

He has us so financially committed to his ED-compensating vanity wars that we simply cannot afford to spend the funds--or borrow them--to create the kind of real jobs programs we will need to sustainably turn unemployment around. Without sustainably improving unemployment, our economy simply cannot improve on a sustainable basis.

Under Obama's leadership the condition of our country's economy has worsened to the point of impending failure. Nothing has really changed in the bank industry, and we are set up for another near-collapse like we nearly experienced at the end of 2008.

This is because Obama did fucking NOTHING to regulate the fraud scams run by Wall Street.

If Obama is reelected in 2012, we are truly fucked. His main concern seems to be, in this order:

1. Kissing ass to the GOP and corporate America.

2. Partying like a Skull-N-Bones frat boy on OUR taxpayer money.

3. Keep starting vanity wars until he can finally not totally FAIL at a war, so he can increase his foreign-policy street cred before the 2012 election.

No I don't think the IMF is controlled by our teapublicans but they got a lot of donations from the too big to fail banks. It's all public record.

It's a group that was started back in 1945 after WW 2. I'm not sure who "owns" them but if they're like our FED, good luck finding out who the owners really are.
There's a list of people that run the IMF but they don't own it.
The FED is massive and our government doesn't control them. They graciously allow our government to appoint two members but that's it and it's probably people the FED has already picked out.

Remember the recent news about the FED giving out over 12 or was it 14 Trillion? in loans to a bunch of banks and corporations? Luckily we have some legislators that made them fess up to it but it didn't come easy. They had to pass laws to find out who got some of that money.
Trillions loaned out at half a percent interest. That tells us how powerful they are.

Former presidents and founding fathers warned us about the bankers who wanted to set up their "central banks" here in the USA.
We got duped (Federal Reserve Act of 1913) and they bought people in Congress and now they run OUR monetary system and print money out of thin air like there's no tomorrow.

"The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the REVOLUTION."

-Benjamin Franklin
founding father of the United States of America

"I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous than standing armies... if the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of currency... the banks and corporations that will grow up around them will deprive the people of their prosperity until their children wake up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered."

-Thomas Jefferson
1743-1826

"I am the most unhappy man. I have unwittingly ruined my country. A great industrial nation is now controlled by its system of credit.
We are no longer a government by free opinion, no longer a government by conviction and the vote of the majority, but a government by the opinion and duress of a small group of dominant men."

-Woodrow Wilson
1919
( President Wilson said that after he realized that he too had been duped by the bankers that we know as the FED)

Every American should now start learning about the IMF.

Bush/Cheney started us on the road to being taken over by the IMF, and Obama is damned sure he's going to complete the process.

IMF, more often than not, serves the interests of international corporations, in the guise of "helping" countries that are financially on the brink.

While I think it is a good idea to confiscate the bankers bonuses, and a better idea to regulate their activities so that we don't have a repeat of the near economic collapse we experienced at the end of 2008.

But we aren't going to see that while Obama is president. He is bought and paid for by Wall Street, and he will do nothing to inconvenience them.

We can have NONE of the IMF in our country. If they deem our debt to China is high enough that a minor event would cause us to be unable to pay on our debt, they would sell off our natural resources in a heartbeat. The first dibs would go to those carrying the most American debt--like China and Saudi Arabia.

But if Obama is reelected in 2012, I can't see any way that we will be able to avoid being taken over by the IMF.

The IMF will not let one country's piss-poor financial pratices cause economic damage which will spread to other countries, threatening an international Black Depression.

You're talking State's rights there. What are you a Tea Partier?

Hell no, I'm a die hard progressive!

After reading about N. Dakota's public bank history and how they fought to run their own state bank and have been doing so since 1919....... with very good results, I got curious and researched it some more.

Their concept is to "serve the people" not the fat cats on wall street or the too big to fail banks. Their public bank is limited to just a few functions. They keep all state and federal money in it and use it to benefit their state and people. They help small local banks with loans for local business projects and funding and also use the money to help with education loans, running the state etc.
Since they didn't have any money on wall street like most states did with their revenues and massive pension funds.... they didn't take a financial hit. They even show a profit and put that back into social programs and to keep taxes low.

At least a dozen states are now working towards opening up their own Public banks so they too can avoid the wall street sharks. Most states have BILLIONS in pension funds so they can use that money as the seed capital needed to start their own public banks.

We got screwed and robbed by wall street and the bankers so why let them do it again?
If they don't have our state money they can't risk it and send our state budgets into the red.

My states pension fund was totally funded until they lost nearly 25% to wall street gambling in 2007. I'm sure that happened to a lot of states during the meltdown.

The people know that but as long as our military is being used as the private enforcement wing of big oil, bankers and the corporations that get rich from war, the people will have a hell of battle getting defense spending cut.

Since Sarkozy just talked Obama into attacking Lybia, our third war going now, I don't see that happening anytime soon.

I think the term is 'up shit creek', but yes you are right. How 'bout we close those 100 bases around the world, the locals would like to see them leave, I'm sure.

Up shit creek is where the US now is, economically. If it cuts its military budget in half, it will be - as I stated - out of shit creek.

And increase the taxes for the richest by 50% and we'll be out of shit creek in half the time.

And how about the soldiers and troops that will be immediately unemployed?

America is run by consumerism now, something the corporations shipping our jobs to India seemed to forget about in the excitement about getting free taxpayer money to send American jobs overseas.

People without jobs cannot contribute to our consumerism-driven economy.

yep and that would be ideal but historically speaking so far humans are pretty dumb about finite resources. Consumerism is also what has us in this mess and now we're trying to pretend we can salvage this voracious act? I am not a consumer, I am a person!

And the GOP thinks that's acceptable.
Idiots. They'd destroy our country in pursuit of a freaking political win.

No offense to Ireland, my ancestors were Irish, but we are not Ireland. The IMF needs us more than we need them. But, any wake up call to the oppresive national debt we are accumulating though, is a welcome sign of sanity in the world. We cannot sustain the path we are on.

Maybe it's time to push harder for a total rewrite of the tax codes.
NO Loopholes, no deductions....just a flat tax where EVERYONE pays according to ability.

He never had any ability to lead, none of his scant resume would ever lead anyone to believe that he had. He just had an amazing ability to campaign. I hope America has learned their leason.

I'm for that!

Yeah they;ll give us loan to start over again but The IMF will own our resources.

If the debt ceiling isn't raised we will be considered high risk and probably default on our debts and then we're really screwed.
Bond interest rates will skyrocket and any slashing we do to the budget won't mean squat because the new high interest will offset the savings.

I have saved money. I have worked hard and put money back. The stock market is a total gamble. I wouldn't mind at all interest rates going up a bit, they are way to low now. So I either buy CD's at 0.25% interest or play the casino that is the stock market. I don't want to work until I'm eighty. Interest rates going up wouldn't hurt my feelings a bit.

Great story DEPlenty to thinkabout.

The only thing left out was the fact that if we hadn't let Bush get us into TWO wars we'd probably have a lot less debt. He added 5 Trillion to our debt and it's still growing because we're still in HIS wars and we're also currently paying interest on his 5 Trillion and the couple Billion per week those wars still cost us.

We could have been at about 7-8 Trillion and even after the banks and wall street screwed us over we'd still have a manageable total debt.

I agree that Bush was shit, but Obama hasn't exactly done much better, deficit speaking.

As I see it the 2 things that need to be done immediately is wind down ALL military presence everywhere we are not needed (which is probably most of the world); and start seriously taxing those 400 who really CAN afford it.

I followed Schnookums links and read a lot on the IMF site.
They stated that most countries used stimulus packages to shore up their economies from further collapse. They agreed it was a good idea so Obama did what they felt was the right thing to do at the time.

The other thing to consider is that he is stuck on Defense spending for the wars that Bush lied us into (the Bush gift that keeps on giving) and the interest on the FIVE Trillion that Bush put us in the hole before he even left office.
Also Obama's first budget was voted in before he was so there's some more we can't pin on Obama.

We wouldn't be in the hole we're in if the fiscally conservative "Republicans" hadn't put us there with one tax cut after another. The IMF also stated that stimulus plus some taxes was the prudent thing to do. Some countries did it, some didn't.

The ONLY fiscally conservative POTUS we had since Reagan was actually Clinton.
He even left a surplus.

I agree but with the House being controlled by GOP and teapublicans acting like schoolyard bullies I doubt we can accomplish that this time around.

Even when Dem's held the House and Senate the GOP did a hell of an obstruction job on them. They filibustered hundreds of bills ....including TWO jobs bills.
Anything to make the POTUS look bad....even if they killed jobs growth.

Notice they haven't mentioned jobs at all? They haven't a clue.
All they want to do is pay back their puppet masters for those big corporate donations that helped get them elected. Jobs? I don't know if that word exists in the new teapublicans vocabulary.

QUOTE FROM AUGUST K: "I agree but with the House being controlled by GOP and teapublicans acting like schoolyard bullies I doubt we can accomplish that this time around."

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As long as we have a Republican president, we cannot accomplish anything that does not benefit the GOP and corporate America.

If we can get rid of Obama in the 2012 election and elect a solid, fiscally responsible, person who doesn't prioritize lying us into wars over obtaining a sustainable decrease in unemployment and, therefore, a sustainable increase in our economy---then we have a fighting chance.

But with Obama rubberstamping everything the GOP wants---we will be saddled with a nearly straight Republican agenda until November 2012...and even then, it's only if we can Obama out of office.

I wish to god the GOP would just fucking impeach him. There are more than enough reasons.

I guess they figure they don't need to--with Obama, they have a Republican president in the Oval Office already. As long as he jumps when they snap their fingers, the GOP really risk getting another president in the Oval Office who they may not be able to control like they can Obama.

Too bad Obama was a constitutional scholar and not an economist.
He might not have been convinced by Bernanke to fall in line.

A lot of what Obama does is because he depends on those around him for sound advice....it might not be the best advice though.....it appears to be good for the IMF but not good for our country.

Wasn't that nice of President Stupid Obama to do the IMF's bidding?

He's a constitutional scholar, yet he illegally uses our military as his own little ED-compensating vanity soldier play set to get us involved in an illegal war in Libya.

Face it. It doesn't matter what he knows. If his rightwing/neocon agenda needs help to get implemented, he will do whatever his arrogant self can dream up.