Economic doom (with a note about net neutrality)

Although this list has some simplistic entries, it provides a spur to discussion. Here we have one author's list of the top ten reasons why the American economy faces collapse (slightly edited for grammar):

(To read the rest, click "Permalink" below)

#1. The United States government is currently running a budget deficit of $1.8 billion/day. Too much deficit will create a weaker American dollar and cripple the US economy.

#2. The US National Debt is $8 trillion+. It has to be paid back eventually by raising taxes.

#3. Oil prices are $60+ per crude barrel; there is a shortage of oil refineries and demand is growing due to more SUVs/trucks.

#4. China's economy is now bigger than the United States economy; China is now the centre of the global economy.

#5. China's trade exports out-matches the United States -- for example, they can build cars/trucks/SUVs for half the price.

#6. English is no longer the international business language. Mandarin Chinese is now more important.

#7. Global warming is causing the US wheat Belt to turn into desert.

#8. US universities aren't creating enough graduates to compete on the global market. Tuition is too expensive and there aren't enough university professors.

#9. The babyboomers are retiring, creating a shortage of skilled workers.

#10. George W. Bush failed Economics 101. He was too busy snorting cocaine when he was at Yale.

Okay, there are problems here. I think the coke remark is not germane, #7 is premature, the problem with retiring babyboomers (#9) is how to pay for their social security, #6 need not spell disaster, and SUV sales are finally falling.

But there is the deficit. The bone-crushing, soul-sucking Debt Demon. We not only have to pay all that money back, we have to pay it back with interest. That's the part everyone forgets. The Republicans talk about tax cuts, but fully one-third (perhaps soon to be one half) of your tax dollar goes to pay the interest on borrowed funds. Most of the rest goes to the military.

Is there anything -- ANYTHING AT ALL -- we can do to make the dunderheaded Jesusmaniac red staters see this basic fact of life?

After the publication of this top ten list, a more sophisticated writer scraped together a second dark decalogue:

#11. Automobile companies keep laying off unionized workers and moving their factories to China. The only car company building new plants and hiring workers is Japanese car-maker Toyota (which only hires non-union workers).

#12. The US government sold off its oil/gasoline reserves in 2002. It no longer has oil reserves in case of a national shortage.

#13. American taxpayers have an average of $48,000 in debt due to credit cards, mortgages, university debts, etc. If the economy goes sour and they lose their jobs, they may have to declare bankruptcy.

#14. The US dollar is notoriously easy to make counterfeit bills of. Its value of the US dollar is growing steadily lower. Thanks to modern computer printers, counterfeit is very easy to make.

#15. The US economy still has not recovered from 9/11.

#16. The US economy relies on the consumption of goods at a decadent rate. If something happens that throws the economy for a loop, it can very easily fall into a depression.

#17. The US capitalist systems assumes that the United States is at the top of the global economy. It no longer is. China is at the top.

#18. Over 60% of Americans are overweight and/or obese. The health problems resulting from their unhealthy diets combined with a shortage of doctors is causing the US healthcare system to collapse.

#19. The US government can't afford to pay for its soldiers serving in Iraq, Afghanistan, South Korea... as a result, they are scaling back pay, pension and benefits for their soldiers. Injured soldiers have a crippling effect on the US economy and drain precious money from US coffers and families of the soldiers suffer economic consequences because they have to pay the hospital bills.

#20. Foreign investors are no longer investing in American companies. They are investing in Chinese companies.

#15 -- that's the one about 9/11 -- is not, in my view, a significant factor, although in red state mythology, it will loom large as the Great Excuse once the brown stuff splatters against those infamous whirling blades. I have been formulating a conspiracy theory (not really a mature theory -- more of a theorette, which might one day grow into something substantial if given proper care and feeding) that the Bush administration has been secreting oil reserves pilfered from the fields of Iraq. Wouldn't it be a kick if they started slant-drilling into Kuwait? I mean, what could stop them?

Aside from those quibbles, I cannot mount much of an argument against the second ten points.

Just for jolly, here are an additional five, offered by a third author:

#21. Five years of drought and Global Warming has caused many farmers in the American mid-west to declare bankrupty. The US is facing a possible food shortage if current drought trends continue. People aren't building enough green houses to grow food.

#22. Rising costs of airplane flights are stifling business trips by companies seeking to do business.

#23. Global Warming is causing record hurricanes, tropical storms, floods and ecological disasters are destroying homes & businesses in the South-Eastern United States. The storms also prevent oil rigs from drilling in the Gulf of Mexico, causing an oil shortage.

#24. We're already in a recession. A depression is not far away.

#25. The White House is being complacent about the US economy and isn't doing a thing to prevent a depression.

May I add another?

#26. The destruction of net neutrality.

A thriving internet created the last economic boom. Yes, I know that the last boom became a bubble. Still, does anyone doubt that the internet would be at the center of the next economic rebound, presuming that the aforementioned 25 signs of doom prove less-than-fully destructive?

And now the Republicans want to destroy the net, which makes about as much sense as salting our farmlands. In the name of providing megacorp product at ever-higher speeds (as if we needed that), small business and innovative new firms will be taxed out of a place on the web. Worse, the taxes will go into the pockets of the big carriers -- not to Uncle Sam, who could use the dough to help pay down Republican debt.

Small business, which remains the sinew of much of our economy, depends on net neutrality in order to remain competitive.

Red staters like to commie-bait progressives such as yours truly. And yet the current Republican leadership has done more than any other force in the Western world to strengthen China while undermining American capitalism. Is the G.O.P. run by secret Bolshies?

We live in insane times.