[Honclfibr]

Hmm, well, I suppose it has been over a year since I paid for gas over there. Looks like rising fuel prices and the fall of the dollar hasn't done much for gas prices over there, any more than it has here.

I stand by the rest of my argument however. It's not the state run government in Europe that gives rise to high gas prices, but rather that they put the cost burden on those who use the system. It may take a few decades to sort it all out, but eventually people will look back on this time in history and blame the economic problems that we have today in this country (and there's more to come, bet on it) on our complete lack of ability to reconcile the cost of what we do, be it personal transportation or national security or projecting power into other countries, on the US economy.

The economy has been global for a while now, and we've failed to recognize our lessening impact on the world at large. Meanwhile we've spent the last 8 years spending, revaluing and refunding ourselves into a hole that the government is now powerless to get us out of. In fact the more they try (and they have, see my previous posts on how the federal banks have lowered interest rates at a rate that has not been seen *ever* in the history of the US), the closer we come to total economic collapse.

Our only hope is that the U.S. might still exert enough economic influence on the world that when we finally recognize the depths of our economic peril, we might pull the rest of the world down with us enough to soften the blow. But that's a pretty shitty silver lining. No, Obama cannot save us, nor Hillary, nor McCain, nor anyone else at this point. The poor economic policies of the last 8 years have put the economy in a tailspin from which we cannot easily recover.

Four, maybe five years ago, we might have done something about it. But it's too late. We've been proper fucked since early 07 at the lastest, and we're digging ourselves deeper into a hole every day. An economic stimulus package and lower interest rates, to get us out of the hole that unsustainable tax cuts and government spending combined with a pressure towards consumer debt got us into? Even a basic understanding of economics will tell you that's like trying to get yourself out of a hole by digging deeper.

I don't want the US economy to fail, I rely on the US economy, but I can see the writing on the wall. I've been shorting this economy since early November, and I'll continue doing so until we start showing signs that we recognize the trouble we're in (it's worse than we've seen so far, just look at the government response to it and you'll see how desperate they are) and are taking the right steps to correct it.

But I tell you, there's not a single candidate today who's willing to admit the kind of trouble we're in, or the steps we need to take to correct it. No, that would be political suicide, simultaneously cutting government spending and raising taxes is political suicide no matter what party you're in. Instead, they talk about "stimulus packages" as if they didn't know they're trying to shock-start a corpse. Yeah, we're fucked, and they know it to, otherwise you'd never see the Fed chopping rates like they are while the Hill scrambles to pass a refund package that's like putting a bandaid over a gaping wound. Sometimes you have to lose a limb to save the body, but instead we're desperately trying to stop the bleeding as we deal with multiple organ failure.