by lawnchair » Sun 11 Jan 2009, 17:34:33
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('AlexdeLarge', 'Y')ep. He's not cool, can't shoot hoops, lilly white, did not have all the answers, was not a messiah. But he was the best shot we had at getting out of this mess and save the dollar.
The 'dollar' was unsavable. It, since the 70s anyway, has been based on nothing at all but debts that had to grow against a finite planet, cool image, and our military muscle. Ron Paul recognized that it was screwed. But, one does not get back on the running horse after jumping off. Dr. Paul recognizing the insanity was in no way a path back to sanity. There was and is no such path. If I had been convinced there was, I'd have been in his corner. Peter Schiff, clued in as he is, doesn't have a solution for 'saving' the dollar, either. Just that individuals can short it. The dollar was going to die in time. Only surprising it's taken this long.
The goal, then, is to delay the inevitable (the day is late, though) and build some stuff that makes the US a better place to be in 30 years, once everyone's debt-money has collapsed, and we're back to what we have domestically and what we have a real advantage in (not much but food).
Roads? Meh. Good for animal transport even post-oil. But, we don't really need new ones either. Cutting level routes for rail and installing renewable electric projects with dying debt instruments we'll default on eventually? Much much better. Preserving industrial factories and the knowledge of machinists? Not bad. The mission to build a unsecurable imperial outpost in Iraq? That was a poor investment of dying dollars.
At 1% annual growth, human bodies will incorporate every gram in the observable universe in approximately 10,170 years.