Can Armageddon be Stopped ie the Collapse of the West Prevented

Desperate Economy, Let’s Discuss options not Preach Solutions.

The debt is huge, manufacturing jobs are gone, the Internet hires a lot from the lower, sometimes the lowest paid parts of the world, telephoning, bookkeeping, even more than half the on site security guards can be replaced by security camera’s monitored on the other side of the world. Meanwhile as Obama slows things from getting worse people become furious at his claims that things are going to get better. Promises by those who already tried to make things better are less appealing then promises of voices that never had a change to be in charge.

Is there any site, or article other than this one that actually discusses the problem looking for answers from combining a variety of ideological perspectives, rather than preaching at each other?


Most Americans avoid dealing with the possibility of the West collapsing except those hoarding food and guns, and those with a strong ideological focus like Ron Paul who says we must learn to mind our own business in order not to go bankrupt. He also condemns the Federal Reserve, not noting that countries are in financial trouble and close to meltdown status without a Federal Reserve in their country. Others want revolution, noting how fast the rich keep getting richer, which not only hurts the rest of us but money not circulating due to those who save, not spend, interferes with the ability of commerce to circulate making it harder for people to get jobs or sell anything. Those that don’t hoard or have an idiotical axe to grind just hope ignoring the danger will make it go away.

I have several suggestions from a number of ideological perspectives which I will detail later on in this article. However one point, since money not circulating is part of the cause of economic stagnation or worse, one partial solution would be for the rich to be taxed less when they spend their money then when they save it. This is already part of the theory behind tax deductions, but talking about it might improve the process.

Come on everyone join me! We are like a family riding a car with bald tires with most of the family trying not to think about it. One wanting to switch to bicycles, another to stop and stay where they are, but the rest of the family resigned to continue the drive without anyone managing to get new tires.

Ron Paul’s desire to end involvement with other nations can be examined by looking at a place the US decided not to be involved, as in the issue of piracy. President Bush decided not to fight pirates after bin Laden’s threatened to join them in retaliation if Bush sent troops after pirates in Somalia. The result was piracy kept getting worse, but Italy did send out gun boats to capture pirates, so the example doesn’t prove whether the US shouldn’t be involved or should be involved.

Then under Obama, a US ship captain ended up in a lifeboat with the pirates, after a passenger took matters into his own hands and stabbed a pirate. The ship captain was held as a hostage for their demands, as they began to get extremely frustrated, US special forces killed the pirates at perhaps the last moment to save the hostage. Now the US is back in the pirate fighting business. In one incident, American troops in close phone contact with the crew swooped down from the sky and arrested the pirates without anyone getting hurt. A perfect conclusion except we are now closer to bankruptcy. Italy didn’t risk bankrupting their countries economy with huge expense. Later on in this essay I will point out that France got involved with fighting al Qaeda in North Africa without risking bankrupting France; but with the US it is all or nothing.

According to some, the worst crime the US did was overthrowing Saddam. However, the world cheered when Vietnam likewise overthrew the Khmer Rouge and Pol Pot’s bloodbath in Cambodia. But Vietnam didn’t engage in shock and awe or nation building. The reason Saddam shouldn’t have been overthrown is that he kept the Shiites and Sunnis from fighting with each other, not that other nations had no business interfering in the domestic affairs of another regardless of how cruel their government is. However Karzai in Afghanistan is only corrupt. It is not US’s business to stop government corruption in Afghanistan. But the US believes in all or nothing.

A bit of good news concerning the possibility of the total collapse of the West is that the economies of Norway and New Zealand are soaring. Following reporting the good news might be a good place in this essay to post positive ideas in various directions that could set the ball moving toward improving things.

Iceland is being bailed out by Europe, but it has the lowest business taxes in the world, therefore many companies make their corporate headquarters there. Raising the business tax could be a condition for more aid. Then the US and Europe together raise the business tax to stop capital flight to where the taxes are lowest. Next the US and Europe could get together to end the loophole of offshore banking.

There were efforts with some state governments to get prescriptions filled in Canada and elsewhere. This can save a lot of money on medical costs, perhaps even individuals can get 5% kick back from insurance, or medicare and medicate if they get refills on the Internet. Maybe everyone’s second and future monthly prescription purchases could be bought on the Internet and mailed to patients, by their insurance company, medicare, medicare and perhaps even welfare officials. This, providing there is a way of making sure what they get is quality medicine. Of course that is a big if.

The US embargo on Cuba is hurting the US economically and the more it succeeds the more Cubans in this country send foreign aid back to their relatives in Cuba. Some Americans took their Social Security check to Mexico where everything is cheaper and the US saved money on medicare and medicaid, but crime is getting in the way of new arrivals. Crime-free Cuba would be a perfect place to retire and no more medicare costs, and if red tape is cut, close enough for easy visits back to the US.

If the US would grant 10% of Medicare, Medicaid, SSI and welfare benefits to those going overseas, Americans in Cuba would make money from the US whenever they got sick until Cuba changed its laws to charge that amount to foreigners seeking medical care in otherwise free health care Cuba. Then the 10% adjusted up and down to the lowest point Americans would seek and get medical care overseas. Some hospitals in the US, on an experimental effort, are trying to get robots to give bedridden patients baths and to feed them, with alarms temporarily to call a human nurse if the patient starts to resist or argue with each other. It would be far more humane for sick persons to seek medical nursing care where it’s cheap rather than a future in the US where machines, not people, treat the convalescent. One way or another, a lot of money is being saved by having medical procedures done in other countries of the world, see medical tourism also online pharmacies Wikipedia, and,
www.medicaldiscounts.com/employers_insurance.htm

Perhaps others could join me in suggestions to improve things that are not ideologically pure, and post them here or post my suggestions to their suggestions.

One thing glaringly missing so far in this essay is those who say simply end military spending and bankruptcy would go away. In North Africa in and around Mali there is an al Qaeda splinter that the US has yet to get involved in fighting. One can google “France declares war on al Qaeda” France refused to pay ransom and attacked instead, the war of words escalated until bin Laden himself threatening major attacks on France. So far no attacks. France’s involvement in resisting al Qaeda in North Africa might have slowed US trying to deal with that al Qaeda group there. Even if al Qaeda did make a major terror attack against France. France isn’t about to start bankrupting itself with major military expenditure or spar with non-al Qaeda Muslims, the way the US responds to an al Qaeda attack by calling Hamas a terror group.

In Afghanistan if the US leaves without a peace treaty, some women will try to flee Kabul and some of those fighting with the US might want to flee similar to when the US exited the Vietnam War. Of course nothing like when the Soviets left and the deaths went up from war lords fighting, but just as with the good news that Obama stopped or postponed a total financial collapse, the American people will be unaware of the good news if a few people die after the US leaves, despite the endless carnage if the US stays. And the President will have to deal with future provocations similar to the kidnapings of French citizens for ransom, and some in American crying for vengeance much more intensely then if US troops were still in Afghanistan.

Al Qaeda fights with a lot of people the Awakening Council of Iraq and Sufis in Pakistan have many more killed by al Qaeda then the US on 9/11. The very worse exit scenario would be US troops leaving Afghanistan as the dollar is collapsing. The peace movement’s claims that there are no al Qaeda troops in Afghanistan, but they don’t count al Qaeda connected suicide bombers. An exuberant al Qaeda might even try to seize US weapons as we leave and suicide-bomb to help them do it. Unfortunately, I believe fighting until a set withdrawal date is a poor second, but this is the main demand of the US peace movement. I wish people would instead demand that the US accept immediate arbitration if the Taliban would accept, by France, Saudi Arabia or any nation willing to mediate. Even if no nation is willing to do so, demanding this would change the spirit of the situation. At the moment every time the Afghan Karzai government has a peace Jirga the drone war gets more intense. The peace movement needs to note that during a peace gathering is not the time for drone attacks.

I realize that some of my suggestions like Internet prescription refills puts US pharmacists out of work and I would be happy to withdraw the proposal if a better mix is suggested, but any suggestion to end the path toward bankruptcy causes problems especially the supposed cost free means of saving money, simply quickly exiting the war. However, I believe if we all spread the word that our country is driving on bald tires, we will find a way to get new tires. Let’s try to have a discussion rather than a shouting match. I also realize that the Tea Parties idea of no earmarks is part of the solution not the problem, and needs to be factored into a comprehensive effort to stop the plunge toward western collapse.

Please others, add sites and links that deal with the subject of an economic meltdown in a non-ideological way. Or post these suggestions on other such sites.

RichardKanePA.blogspot.com



he following are other articles on the subject, hope someone posts more,
http://www.alternet.org/story/149Anhy104/7_reasons_why_capitalism_can%27t_recover_anytime_soon_/comments/#

http://dailyreckoning.com/prediction-hyperinflationary-great-depression-within-the-coming-year/