Not everyone that lives or comes from America is RICH!

In life you have to pay taxes, that's just part of the deal. In return you get an awesome place to live. Life is not so bad :D

The US is one of the only countries that taxes worldwide income. And no, considering that the money that is taken doesn't even cover the expenses, it's not a good deal.

you guys just love to pat yourselves on the backs, and are convinced that hardships are visited only upon those that are asking for it. That kind of arrogance would be well served with a bit of bad luck of your own.

Indeed. That's why I believe in social democracy - you never know what's around the next corner.

Actually, i have decided I should stop doing so much and complain more.

that's a good reason to shut the biz too. I am tired of helping people for now. Really tired. A lot of them are too stupid to help anyway.

indeed, I am going to really take the whole next year off. I'll paint some paintings.

The second dentist was a cheapy.. only because i had spent so much at the first dentist. The second dentist said he could fix the first guy's work.

The really really cheap dentist though, the one that required cash only (no medicaid or whatever) was a good dentist. I said 'please just pull the tooth' and he did pull the tooth. I think I visited 6 or seven dentists trying to finally just get that dang tooth pulled. I was told repeatedly 'we don't pull teeth' It's amazing. dentists don't pull teeth anymore. they prefer to give you painkillers and keep you coming back. the consultations weren't free either btw.

Probably I just normally do so much more and make so much more money than you that my definition of cheap and your definition of cheap are two very different things.

Oh, Well that's not good. Once you go work in another country you should pay taxes in that country and not the country you are a citizen of unless you somehow do business in it.

And as for f stop I don't believe any country should suffer hardship, but US doesn't need to go backwards just because other places aren't thriving. We are what makes our country great and I am greatful to live here.

Please, some of us have spent quite a while sleeping on couches, in squats, even camped for a while!...and relying on others kindness. You get tired of it, bust your ass, and get out of it, and...AND pay that kindness back every single day. That's how it works.

Nah, I doubt it. You only can afford to keep $5k in the bank at one time, after all.

That's pocket change, really.

Yup. The IRS exclusion is a fairly low amount of total income :(

wth are you talking about? i just needed yes or no? Are you attractive, or not?

I'm trying to justify what you're saying, maybe if you were good looking i could forgive you.

I fly frequently and no one x-rayed me at the airport yet. Does this happen to you?

what will the world do when all of us middle class american taxpayers finally exit the system and sit here waiting for handouts from them.

tsk tsk. it's happening though, even if by accident. It's going to hurt a lot of people but it needs to be done. That'll leave the very wealthy and people like me who do business with the very wealthy. and the rest, who knows what will become of them. They only exist because there's a supermarket on the corner and momma got food stamps.

the govt cannot just print money out of thin air to pay everyone off forever.


I rarely fly, I have just been listening to it all week on the radio, it's all they talk about these days.

i have a real nice car have no doubt, I drive. Gas hogs though, those pretty SUV's. I am looking into converting to hydrogen or something. The price of gas might keep me home.

Damn right.

:)

Dunno, the world is loaning them money at the moment...I guess they'll continue to do that.


Not least of which being the buyers of US debt.

It's a serious problem. What we must do is tighten our belts the way the British are doing now, pay off some of that debt and put ourselves in a better financial situation internationally. If we do not, collapse is inevitable :(

Well right, there's a lot of self-congratulation in the US. It's kind of on the wane though.

You're 2nd point however, for a long time hardships often were only visited upon those who were asking for it. Drug addicts.. 5 kids out of wedlock, etc. Look, you make ridiculous decisons.. you pay for those decisions. There's still a lot of money to be made here.. and a fair amount of opportunity. Downturns are good in the long run because it gets the country back to real productivity.

you gotta keep your story straight, are you paying taxes or not? are you poor or middle class,
Please tell me you’re drunk, Polish, on drugs or something...

BINGO! It's what keeps the US at the top of the heap...haven't had a good cleaning for a while...


Two out of three ain't bad, eh?

America is too big to collapse, it'll just mean much higher taxes. Same in the UK - all the talk of crisis is really because no-one wants to stick 5 pence on income tax, even though it would be the easiest way to raise a lot of cash quickly.

You can't just keep raising taxes forever with most of the money going to pay this huge debt. It's time to pay down the debt by reducing govt.

yup, I think i found your problem...

Lol Hydrogen car?

How about buying a more efficient car for starters?

Which in turn makes everyone richer. The government doesn't have any money of its own.. Everything that is paid out has to be taken away from productive enterprises....

Ah yes, agreed.

As much as I like Obama's vision, it just seems that now isn't the time. Universal health care might make sense in the long term (though convex-nomics dictates otherwise) - but I just cannot see how America can keep spending.

It wouldn't surprise me to see America return to the "me-first" policy.

it's not really 'the world' doing the lending, it's the Federal Reserve and IMF. And they actually have no money to lend so they just print it and pretend nothing's up.

I've heard talk that certain economists expect the dollar to fall pretty rapidly over just the next year.

Mostly, on the home front, you've got all the military, the public workers, (city employees, govt employees, the prez, the cops, etc) and these people need to be paid and there is no real money to pay them. look at California giving out vouchers instead of paychecks. So they are printing up all this money to be able to hand a check to those people. and then, there are all these retired public employees with very generous pensions who expect the govt (we the people) to support them till they die. it all adds up. So they print money to cover expenses and try to maintain their standards of living. They can't do this for very long. Maybe a year or two at most.

Ironically the government is making money at the expense of corporations. Those tarp funds has brought big money to the federal government in the form of returns. In fact, if the government could finance the debt and pay it that way, why not? Just become a big bank that charges interest.

As far as foreign investors, it's the Japanese and the Chinese. The Germans are in quite deep as well. The IMF hasn't loaned anything to the US. The Fed is buying most of the debt.


Once countries start divesting of dollar assets, the game is over. Bond sales over the last year haven't exactly been stellar.


Yup, all fiat money only works as long as the trust is maintained. Once you lose trust, the "money" reverts back to paper and ink.

I might sell this one in a couple years if technology improves and they do a better job at the factory. Unless I can convert it.

But for now I prefer reliability. It gets real icy here in winter and a good car is required. The roads here run along cliffs and ravines. i haul a lot of firewood too. a cute little car with great milage isn't going to cut it.. a 4 cylinder lasts only a couple years on these hills. Besides I already have a ford coupe too. I just never drive it. It's not reliable in winter and it's clunky all the time. I lend that vehicle to neighbors in need and the kid is also learning to drive with that vehicle. Gets decent milage but rough to travel long distances in. that car definitely will not make it up Ski Mountain Road in January.

There's a reason for everything.


The IMF lends to European nations.. that's is how Greece got into major trouble and now Ireland is about to crash too.

That just shows how complex finance is.

You know, you sound like my aunt. If it's you, I swear I didn't mean anything by this.
I'll send you money for x-mass and get you a new pickup, ok? Don't be mad at me I do this here all the time to other people too.

I disagree. Most of the true hardships here I know of personally are started with an illness or an accident.

I truly believe Ron Paul and others like him could save the country by eliminating the Federal reserve and starting up a national banking system that prints it's own money instead of borrowing it from rthe Fed. there is absolutely no good reason for the USA to borrow money when it can print it itself. we do not need the Federal Reserve to print our money then sell it back to us at interest. That is the complexity of our economic system, because we have this behemoth Fed in the middle since 1913. How and why the Federal Reserve even got into that position is very questionable.

I have a book here titled 'The Creature from Jekyll Island'. It explains the Fed pretty well.

However, just because we need to eliminate the Federal Reserve (which we definitely need to do), that doesn't mean it will happen. Even though we need to do it. The reason it may not happen is because of all those welfare recipients, public pensions, corporate welfare and foreign aid. They all insist on receiving their checks even when there is no money to pay them.. and currently the only solution is to print money for them to spend, and hope and pray no one says anything about that.

very complex, the welfare state. dumping 40 million people from food stamps wouldn't look real good for a country that is promising israel another billion bucks over the next few months..