The Bankrupt United States of America

[Dragonlipz]

Would you like to invest in an actual manufacturing concern, right here in the USA, trysail? This company actually makes sales to the rest of the world-- bringing funds into the USA. It holds original patents in physical engineering.

You could be an important man in the global safety and sporting goods worlds! And you could help it buck that government-jobs trend, by letting it create more private sector jobs.

PM me if you're interested.

SO- don't tax the boy's intellectual capacity - he's dead set on this country becoming the post-apocalyptic wasteland of his dreams or rather the post-apocalyptic wasteland of AmiCoot (his daddy) dream..........they so crave chaos and upheaval......they aren't capable of visioning a true steady course through this challenging history...........

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

Would you like to invest in an actual manufacturing concern, right here in the USA, trysail? This company actually makes sales to the rest of the world-- bringing funds into the USA. It holds original patents in physical engineering.

You could be an important man in the global safety and sporting goods worlds! And you could help it buck that government-jobs trend, by letting it create more private sector jobs.

PM me if you're interested.

Trysail is a globalist. He could care less if America's business working class, or even the entire country, goes under.

 

[Stella_Omega]

Trysail is a globalist. He could care less if America's business working class, or even the entire country, goes under.

I figure he's just a guy who wants to talk about something but doesn't want to talk about it anywhere... yanno, where anyone more knowledgeable might be.

I readily admit that I know hardly nothing about banking and *cough*high finances*cough* so all of his copypasta and graphs-minus-legends mean next to nothing to me. And I'm sure that's how trysail is most comfortable.

Anyway, I would never expect anyone to put their actual money where their virtual mouth is, here on literotica.

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

I figure he's just a guy who wants to talk about something but doesn't want to talk about it anywhere... yanno, where anyone more knowledgeable might be.

I readily admit that I know hardly nothing about banking and *cough*high finances*cough* so all of his copypasta and graphs-minus-legends mean next to nothing to me. And I'm sure that's how trysail is most comfortable.

Anyway, I would never expect anyone to put their actual money where their virtual mouth is, here on literotica.

Trysail has been going on about inflation and hyperinflation. If this guy thinks this shit is coming, he already owns an apple tree. It's that simple. I own plenty of apple trees now as a hedge, just in case. But then I also have solar power up the yin yang, at least one (aging) electric SUV, and I know people who are farmers.

If hyperinflation happens and my money becomes worthless, I'm set. But if nothing ever happens at all, then I'm still way ahead of the game.

Being protected against hyperinflation is little more than a side-effect of my desire to live off of renewable resources while pursuing a greater level of self-sufficiency. I am doing a lot of front-loading (paying costs up front) so that I rely less on the electric company and food trucked in from 200 or 2000 miles away. It cuts my carbon footprint and makes me less vulnerable to the world.


Which gets back to your point. People like Trysail never seem to act on their beliefs. Where is his apple tree? Where are his solar panels? If he thinks hyperinflation is coming he at least has an apple tree.

 

[Stella_Omega]

I wouldn't mind rebuilding the chicken coop that's in ruins in my back yard, now that I've got a dog who will chase raccoons away.

I could trade eggs for... what? Rent? I doubt that. Well, maybe.

 

[trysail]

http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alZd_d8ZX_uQ&pos=1


Congratulations! In the short time span of fifty years, irresponsible and profligate spending, looting of the Treasury, sclerotic regulation and innumeracy have all but bankrupted the richest nation the world ever saw.


What is particularly spooky is that it may already be too late to fix. It has been a nightmare for those of us who have watched this slow motion train wreck unfold for the last several decades— and the worst is still to come. Mencken was right; it is a commonwealth of morons. Trillions and trillions have been spent on education and 90% of the populace remains incapable of performing simple mathematical operations. Clearly, spending more money that we don't have is the obvious solution.



____________________

Standard & Poor’s Puts ‘Negative’ Outlook on U.S. AAA
By Robert Burgess

April 18 (Bloomberg) -- Standard & Poor’s put a “negative” outlook on the U.S. AAA credit rating, citing rising budget deficits and debt.

“We believe there is a material risk that U.S. policy makers might not reach an agreement on how to address medium-and long-term budgetary challenges by 2013,” New York-based S&P said in a report today. “If an agreement is not reached and meaningful implementation does not begin by then, this would in our view render the U.S. fiscal profile meaningfully weaker than that of peer ‘AAA’ sovereigns.”

Under President Barack Obama’s fiscal year 2012 budget, released in February, the total debt subject to the ceiling would be $20.8 trillion in 2016. The plan House Republicans approved April 15, written by Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, would need a debt ceiling of at least $19.5 trillion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg Government.

[ N.B., these debt figures do not include the unfunded liabilities of Social Security or Medicare which are estimated at ~$100 trillion ]

Treasuries fell, reversing earlier gains, after S&P lowered its outlook to negative from stable. The benchmark 10-year note yielded as much as 3.45 percent in New York before trading little changed at 3.43 percent. The dollar dropped 0.7 percent to 82.58 yen and pared its gain versus the euro. The S&P 500 Index fell 1.5 percent.

The Treasury Department projected that the government may reach the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling limit as soon as mid-May and run out of options for avoiding default by early July...

...The U.S. is the only large AAA rated country that saw its debt rise during the crisis that until recently had no plan that would reverse the trend, Steven Hess, senior credit officer at Moody’s, said last week.



more...
http://noir.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=alZd_d8ZX_uQ&pos=1

 

[JAMESBJOHNSON]

Unfortunately for us, our government's idea of economic redemption comes from Heller's book, CATCH-22. No one gets a parachute, they get a Treasury IOU in their parachute bag.

 

[elfin_odalisque]

i'm not sure it makes any sense to talk of the US going bankrupt. its ability to borrow is immense. AND unlike the case of an individual profligate spender, the creditor nations have NO interest in having 'bankruptcy,' as opposed to re finance, i.e. 'roll over' the debt.

The ability of the US to borrow has been based on its position as a reserve currency. The major factor supporting this has been that global trade of oil has been conducted in dollars. Now, Russia and China are trading between themselves in roubles, Europe is buying gas from Russia and Qatar in Euros.

Pure, no-one is talking about US 'bankruptcy', just the slow impoverishment of the US and Europe faced with the strong growth of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Production of natural resources, innovation, financial strength and growth has made a quantum shift.

The 'purchasing power' of the US citizen is going to decline in the coming decades as is the technological edge the West has had for two centuries.

In 20 years, Europe will be pleading to join the Russian federation, the US will be dependant on Russian oil, and all those unaffordable retirement and healthcare schemes, that we think can be created by magic, will be dust in our mouths.

The great behemoths of Western supremacy, Exxon, Shell, BP and Total are fighting for life.

Wake up and smell the coffee, the arrogance and complancency of Western governments (including the US) has made us totally uncompetitive faced with the BRIC tsunami.

China is already a world leader in telecoms, Russia in gas, India in IT - and we do what? We start playing with the totally unecomical biofuels, uneconomical healthcare and a financial system that ignited the derivatives crisis. Don't be fooled, the liberal left is just as myopic as the repulican right.

The Roman empire collapsed because of decay and ennui. From both sides, that's the smell coming from DC these days.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704050204576219073867182108.html


We've Become a Nation of Takers, Not Makers
More Americans work for the government than in manufacturing, farming, fishing, forestry, mining and utilities combined.

By Stephen Moore

Here's a little chart to go along with the article...

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/img/photos/2011/04/19/taxes_paid_vs_income_t615.jpg?9d74a679772b302cd354e1e6e54b2855e904d640

 

[Stella_Omega]

Here's a little chart to go along with the article...

http://media.cmgdigital.com/shared/img/photos/2011/04/19/taxes_paid_vs_income_t615.jpg?9d74a679772b302cd354e1e6e54b2855e904d640

if this chart is correct...
http://assets.motherjones.com/politics/2011/inequality-p25_averagehouseholdincom.png
then yeah, more households than ever are in direr need than ever.

 

[Zeb_Carter]

if this chart is correct...
http://assets.motherjones.com/politics/2011/inequality-p25_averagehouseholdincom.png
then yeah, more households than ever are in direr need than ever.

And the wealth envy just goes marching on.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Frederic Bastiat

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

The ability of the US to borrow has been based on its position as a reserve currency. The major factor supporting this has been that global trade of oil has been conducted in dollars. Now, Russia and China are trading between themselves in roubles, Europe is buying gas from Russia and Qatar in Euros.

Pure, no-one is talking about US 'bankruptcy', just the slow impoverishment of the US and Europe faced with the strong growth of the BRIC group (Brazil, Russia, India and China). Production of natural resources, innovation, financial strength and growth has made a quantum shift.

If America goes bankrupt the BRIC group plunges into poverty IMMEDIATELY.

The economies of China and India depend on exports to America. Our currency collapse will mean the end of their export market. Russia will have no one to export their oil to. They'll fall, taking Brazil and Russia with them, and that'll be all, folks.

I say bring it all down. America is the new Sodom & Gomorrah. Let it burn, and let the next generation of people see what happens to a nation that abandons its vulnerable citizens in favor of this emerging global plutocracy.

Bring on the new dark age. Hit the reset button lest humanity be wiped out by the shutdown button.

 

[Stella_Omega]

And the wealth envy just goes marching on.

hey, when you're right you're right.

"When plunder becomes a way of life for a group of men living together in society, they create for themselves in the course of time a legal system that authorizes it and a moral code that justifies it."

Corporate policy in a nutshell.

 

[trysail]

http://www.npr.org/2011/04/30/135844222/medicares-math-problem-taxes-benefits-trouble


Medicare's Math Problem:
Taxes - Benefits = Trouble
by NPR Staff

...There's a reason system current system is unsustainable, says Eugene Steuerle, a former Treasury Department official and senior fellow at Washington's Urban Institute. He boils it down to two simple numbers.

"An average couple retiring today has paid just a little over $100,000 in Medicare taxes" over the course of their working lives, Steuerle tells NPR's Guy Raz.

And what do they receive?

"About $300,000 in benefits" — even after adjusting for inflation.

No One To Say 'No'
How did the current system become so unbalanced?

It has to do, Steuerle says, with the way Medicare was built to work — by passing on an individual retiree's health care costs to the wide pool of current taxpayers.

"The incentive for me as a consumer to worry about the cost isn't very high," he says. "But the incentive for providers have this incentive to keep listing as many services as possible. The more services the hospital can list, the more they can collect."

A system like that works all right if health care costs stay low. But over the past few decades, they've risen dramatically. There are more and more people entering the Medicare system. Those people live increasingly longer lives. And most importantly, Steuerle says, no one is in charge of saying "no" to medical-cost inflation.

The result is a Medicare system that only pays for one third of itself. The shortfall is made up — in part — from other sources of revenue.

"It's also borrowing from China and Germany and a lot of other countries," Steuerle says.

Paying For Your Parents
That average, 66-year-old couple Steuerle talks about didn't really pay taxes for their own Medicare benefits, he says; they paid for their parents'. That's the way the system works: Current taxes pay for the benefits that go to current Medicare recipients...


more...
http://www.npr.org/2011/04/30/135844222/medicares-math-problem-taxes-benefits-trouble

 

[trysail]

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...my-means-medicare-will-run-out-of-cash-sooner


Bad Economy Means Medicare Will Run Out Of Cash Sooner
by Scott Hensley
National Public Radio
13 May, 2010

The latest financial checkup for Medicare finds the health program for the elderly and disabled won't be able to pay for all benefits due starting in 2024.

The insolvency date for Medicare comes five years sooner than the estimate in last year's annual report by its trustees. A crummy economy shoulders a lot of the blame for the deterioration.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said at a media briefing that the outlook would have been worse without savings due to changes contained in the federal law overhauling health care.

Still, the looming cash crunch underscores the need for action. At the same briefing, economist Robert Reischauer, one of two public trustees for Social Security and Medicare, declared, "Under current law these vitally important programs are on unsustainable paths."


more...

http://www.cms.gov/ReportsTrustFunds/downloads/tr2011.pdf

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/201...my-means-medicare-will-run-out-of-cash-sooner

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

hey, when you're right you're right.

I've got a few questions which never seem to get an answer.

Why would average workers be envious of CEOs who make millions while their company is going under?

Why would a poor family whose kid cannot afford a liver transplant, be jealous of those families who can afford it?

Why would the average citizen be jealous of corporate lobbyists and their ability to all but outright purchase new laws?

 

[LJ_Reloaded]

Why the dollar hasn't crashed yet: the world depends on us

http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/tpg/taipan-daily/taipan-daily-041111.html

Who Are the Real Victims of a U.S. Dollar Crash?
Justice Litle, Editorial Director, Taipan Publishing Group
Monday, 11 April 2011

If the U.S. dollar crashes, who loses big and why? The answer may surprise you...

He fought the U.S. dollar -- and the U.S. dollar won.

Guido Mantega, the Finance Minister of Brazil, is giving up. At one point he spoke out angrily against the "currency wars" that were hurting his country, saying he would use "unlimited resources" to fight back. Now he is beaten, and resigned to Brazil's forex fate.

As with Charlie Sheen, however, the U.S. dollar's victory is an odd sort of "winning."

http://www.taipanpublishinggroup.com/images/web/Taipan_Daily/20110411-img1.jpg

The greenback "won" the currency war -- against Mr. Mantega's wishes -- by continuing to fall. Brazil's currency, known as the reis or real (pronounced ray-all), was thus forced into a steady rise. Last week, the Brazilian real climbed to its highest levels since August 2008.

A strange war, this. The race is to the bottom, not the top. Like a game of battleship in reverse, the objective is to "sink" one's currency, not keep it afloat.

This happens because of exports. A cheaper currency makes it easier to sell goods to other countries. And because a healthy export industry is seen as good for the economy -- more jobs, more savings, more surplus -- lower forex values are better.

For quite a long time, the major emerging market players have thus held down their currencies -- China most notably -- to keep exports chugging along. This is a big reason those same countries have bought large quantities of dollars (and Treasury bonds).

Now, though, as the U.S. dollar keeps falling, the E.M. players have grown tired of gorging. They are getting $USD indigestion. Brazil and other countries have reached the point of exhaustion trying to keep the value of their own currencies down -- and inflation is starting to creep in. (At a time when Federal Reserve rates still flirt with zero, Brazil is paying out 11.75%.)

Inflation concerns also played a role in Mr. Mantega's change of heart. While a stronger home currency will hurt Brazil's exporters, the positive is that it will dampen growing inflation concern for Brazil's economy. (And grain prices are galloping along, which will remove some of the sting for Brazilian farmers.)

This brings up an interesting question. Who are the real victims of a U.S. dollar crash?

As you have heard, the $USD is doomed. Many have predicted it is only a matter of time before the dollar goes screaming into the abyss.

But the real situation (pun almost intended) is a little more complicated than that. Let's try to look at the world through the Brazilian Finance Minister's eyes once again.

Were the U.S. dollar to evaporate in value overnight, currencies like Brazil's would rocket higher by a comparable amount. The goods that Brazil sells to the world would quickly become nosebleed expensive. Furthermore, as a customer of Brazil's, America's purchasing power would be tapped out.

Think too how Brazilian farmers would be crushed by a U.S. dollar crash. The United States, like Brazil, is a grain-exporting superpower. A greenback falling through the floor would suddenly give a huge price advantage to American grain farmers. Grain producers in various ag markets would scream bloody murder.

Now recognize that it isn't just Brazil, and it isn't just farmers. Many emerging market nations have in large part bootstrapped themselves into growth through exports -- and done a lot of selling to America. A slowly weakening U.S. dollar can be handled... but a collapsing one would wreck all their plans. At the same time, American exporters of all kinds -- not just farmers -- would be delighted by a collapsing buck. "Made in the USA" would have a dramatic comeback.

The Federal Reserve no doubt knows this. When it comes to keeping the dollar from crashing, America has many "friends" to help out with the effort -- because their necks are on the line too.

Think about the biggest $USD counterparty of them all, for instance -- China. What would a U.S. dollar crash do to the dragon?

For China, the immediate effect of a truly collapsing greenback would be colossal financial losses on $USD holdings -- not unlike a rich man with half his liquid wealth in the stock market experiencing a 1929 crash.

But the fallout would be far tougher than that. A $USD crash would also kill off a major export customer of China's -- and possibly wreck China's economy overnight.

Why? Because many Chinese exporters operate on razor-thin profit margins. This is a function of China pushing for economic expansion as aggressively as possible. In the past, Chinese export operators have said on record that if China's currency rose even as much as 1%, that small shift could not only eat their profits, but put them out of business.

So if the $USD crashed, China would have to keep its own dollar-pegged currency from rising too much in order to protect its highly fragile export industry. But the only way to do this -- to keep the China currency peg intact -- would be in buying $USD in great size and quantity as it plummets. Such action would be EXTREMELY inflationary for China's already overheated economy -- enough so to melt it.

The bottom line is this: To a very real extent, the major victims of a U.S. dollar crash reside outside the United States. Brazil would not sail through. China would not sail through. In fact, both would have terrifying experiences as the $USD plummeted. The economies of both, and competitive advantages of both, would be in real danger of being wrecked. And this is true of many E.M. economies. Brazil and China are just large-scale examples.

(This isn't the first time I've talked about the U.S. dollar. Sign up for Taipan Daily to receive all my investment commentary.)

In this, the $USD as world reserve currency has a sort of built-in "too big to fail" component. If the greenback goes down, so do major chunks of the global economy.

Does this make it impossible for the U.S. dollar to crash? No, of course not. But it does give the Federal Reserve more room to deliberately pursue weak dollar policies, knowing that other countries will be forced to prop up the $USD, in the event of a crash threat, if real signs of dollar collapse occur.

Strange days indeed! Many decades back, the American advantage of issuing the world's reserve currency was memorably described as "exorbitant privilege."

Now, the "exorbitant privilege" America enjoys is an ability to debase its currency at will, knowing that the decline will likely remain orderly -- for the most part -- because the greenback's "too big to fail" status makes true collapse a nightmare for everyone.

And yet... is there still a path to a true U.S. dollar crash -- and ultimately to hyperinflation?

There is such a path. But it is not the one that most people think -- and on that awful road there are no winners, at least not in macroeconomic terms. The way we get to dollar hyperinflation first requires the entire global economy to go down the drain.

 

[trysail]

I didn't write the piece from which the quote below is excerpted. I know the person who did write it. That person wouldn't want to be identified here.

...State and local governments, which have to balance budgets every year, are facing up to those choices. They are reducing the sizes of government not because they want to but because they have to. Every entity is doing it differently but almost all are reducing jobs because labor is 70% of costs.

At the Federal level, however, the picture changes. There is no balanced budget mandate. The government can print money. There is a fly in the ointment at the moment called the debt ceiling. Conservatives threaten to withhold authority to raise it. But we all know the ending. After everyone in Congress gets a chance to express their 15 minutes of righteous indignation, the debt ceiling will be raised at the proverbial last minute amid empty promises to solve the problem tomorrow. We have heard this song played many times before. The reason it will go to the point of brinksmanship this time around is because everyone needs their moment to pretend they are fiscally austere. A few are; most are not. But given the mood of the nation at the moment, everyone will pretend that they tried their best but simply couldn’t throw the nation into chaos.

But, the story can’t and won’t end there. At some point we, collectively, will have to face the piper and get Federal revenues and expenses back into balance. Just to review, there are five expense buckets:

1. Discretionary spending
2. Defense
3. Social Security and other entitlements (e.g. unemployment insurance payments and Medicaid)
4. Medicare
5. Interest​

Everyone interested in cutting spending always goes after Item #1 first. To be sure, there is some fat there. But even if spending here were cut by 20%, we are talking about $100 billion. That’s all. To close a $1+ trillion gap, one has to seriously look at items 2-4. There is nothing Congress can do about cutting interest expense. All the savings have to come from the other buckets.

So now we come to rationing, that dreaded word. How do we get the most from our dollar, our tax revenues. Yes, we can raise taxes, but no one is suggesting raising taxes by a trillion dollars, even the most liberal Democrat. Therefore, without even venturing into the area of tax cuts to tax increases, it is clear that if Congress is going to seriously entertain the notion of fiscal responsibility and not just talk about it, it must ration resources.

Defense spending can be cut if (1) we are able to withdraw troops from war zones and (2) we decide that we won’t be the unilateral world cop. Those are political decisions, not economic ones. I won’t enter that fray this morning. But even if we chose the most isolationist approach, we probably can’t cut more than $200 billion per year.

That brings us to entitlements, mostly Social Security and Medicare. Social Security is easy. Assuming no one wants to raise Social Security taxes or cut benefits, the solution is a combination of raising the starting age and/or means testing receipts. It all comes down to when, not if these choices will be made.

The biggest pot, and the one getting the most attention lately, is Medicare. Democrats haven’t suggested an alternative yet. Republicans have backed a plan initiated by Rep. Paul Ryan that would essentially replace Medicare over time with a voucher system. It is akin to substituting 401k plans for defined benefit pension plans. The risk of hyperinflationary medical costs would get transferred from the Federal government to Seniors. Economically, it makes a lot of sense. Socially, such radical change will be a very hard sell.

Rather than abandoning Medicare, why not fix Medicare? Medicare today is a fee-for-service system. That means, the more that one spends, the more the providers of care (doctors, hospitals, etc.) make. It is probably the most inefficient economic system. It gets worse. In the private sector, insurance companies review claims and then make payments. In Medicare, claims are paid first and then investigated (maybe). Guess where the fraud exists. There are many other flaws, almost all politically motivated. My conclusion is that there are plenty of dollars in the system but since we have finite resources, we need to “ration” how those dollars are best spent. That doesn’t mean denying necessary care, it means eliminating unnecessary care. It means that patients, doctors, drug companies and hospitals need to be invested in providing the best outcome. By best I mean both medically and economically. It means tort reform and it means fewer unnecessary tests. It means using generic drugs whenever possible. It means paying for outcomes instead of fee-for-service. It means that patients should be aware that going to a specialist or the emergency room for a headache is expensive and a cost they must share...

 

[trysail]

One of the big questions that remains is: will the Swiss be dragged into the cesspool by the fiscal and monetary irresponsibility and profligacy of the U.S. and the E.U.?

http://research.stlouisfed.org/fredgraph.png?g=1fx

​

 

[oggbashan]

If the US does not raise its debt ceiling, or raises it too little, too late it will impact on the US's credit rating.

That would be bad news for many in the US, but would also have a real impact on the world's economy. People in many countries would suffer as a result of the effective devaluation of the dollar.

From this side of the Atlantic, who in Washington is to blame, or is stalling agreement, seems remote. Other countries can only watch the antics of the US's politicians with disbelief. It seems that they are playing Russian Roulette with all chambers loaded, but those who will feel the bullet are ordinary people in many countries.

 

[trysail]

Fascinating. Amazing. Astounding. I never thought I'd ever live to see the day when anyone even considered the possibility that the "full faith and credit" of the United States of America wasn't money good. O tempora, O mores!





Prices for credit default swaps on U.S. government debt — as measured in basis points, January 2011-present:

http://www.npr.org/news/graphics/2011/07/treasury-cds/gr-treasury-cds-624.gif​

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Ha-ha...they supposedly reached an agreement to raise the debt ceiling without raising taxes and PrezBO is going to sign it.

In other news the Triple A rating of the United States by Moody's has been downgraded to Double A.

So we don't have the money to pay our bills, let's barrow more, but now at a higher interest rate because our credit rating as been shot to shit.

You want to save money? All government employees except those men and women in the military forgo their pay for one week a month. The President and Congress go with out pay until the debt is cleared. Their staff, ditto. All managerial level bureaucrats go two weeks a month without pay.

Since government is the cause of our problems why not let them be part of the solution. The US government is now the largest employer in the country, I say freeze hiring until the debt is clear, no new bureaucrats, no new agencies, no new czars.

 

[oggbashan]

Disney Florida or EuroDisney?

Many local families used to visit Disney Florida but now they are going to EuroDisney Paris.

Why?

There are several reasons:

Against Disney Florida:
1. The cost of going to Florida has risen despite Disney's special offers.
2. The experience of flying from the UK with children has become very unpleasant. Delays in boarding flights, late cancellations and long queues are normal.
3. The entry procedures in the US are intimidating and cause unquantifiable waits which are distressing to younger children.
4. The costs to be paid once in Disneyland have increased and queues for rides and events are longer, leading to irritable children.

For EuroDisney Paris:
1. The cost has risen because of the exchange rate with the Euro but not as much as Florida. Most can be paid in advance.
2. You can catch a modern train in London, with reserved seats, space to move around, adequate toilets, and go direct to EuroDisney with Eurostar. Queues are minimal.
3. There are few formalities crossing from the UK to France and back.
4. The same as for Florida but Paris is a short train ride away.

Against EuroDisney Paris:
Mickey Mouse speaks French! (But can and does switch to English quickly.)

 

[Zeb_Carter]

Apple Now Has More Cash Than The U.S. Government
Matt Rosoff | Jul. 28, 2011, 8:14 PM

The Debt Ceiling Debacle Is Only The Beginning Of A Major Fiscal Crisis

Here's something to keep in mind as you follow this evening's congressional debate over the debt ceiling.

According to the latest daily statement from the U.S. Treasury, the government had an operating cash balance of $73.8 billion at the end of the day yesterday.

Apple's last earnings report (PDF here) showed that the company had $76.2 billion in cash and marketable securities at the end of June.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/appl...d-than-the-us-government-2011-7#ixzz1ToDYFRug
_____________________________

What a sad state of affairs, as unemployment grows, less operating cash is available. As the debt increases, more of that operating cash goes to interest payments. The economy is now in a never ending spiral to "Poof".

 

[Pure]

note to zeb

zeb In other news the Triple A rating of the United States by Moody's has been downgraded to Double A.

Pure: not true as of 4:14 EDT. from Moody's website, labelled 22 mins ago,

. Moody's Places US Aaa Government Bond Rating and Related Ratings on Review for Possible Downgrade ...

btw both Japan and Canada have lost AAA rating, without greatly detrimental effects. several commentators have pointed to the problem that the US bonds are a last resort security for the world. to whom would the Chinese sell them? would they unload lots of them and drive down their value.