You can put your head in the sand if you like.
Things are different this time. Never before has the US had so much debt at every level from consumers, city, county, state, and federal gov't.
The baby boomer retirement era is upon us.
The federal govenment wants to expand every program they can, National Health Care is being debated now. No other country has done it successfully, so it just means rationing for the elderly, which I suppose most of you are. Sucks to be you. Paid in all your life too. Jim, Social Security is now running a net loss that has to be made up from the General Fund. The alarmists weren't too far off on the date, they just didn't describe how it will play out. Broke just means outgo is equal to or greater than income. When they truely can't find money to pay out, they will tell everyone the Consumer Price Index shows very low inflation, so no cost of living increases. Then they will raise the retirement age some more, and start denying benefits to certain classes fo people, as well as raising the vesting period beyond 10 years. They can't stop the program eniterly, becuase they can't give up the income source. The status quo must continue!
More power to be given to the Federal Reserve; they are part of our current problem. As Doug said, government has a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. Stronger measures must be put in place to maintain control of the longest free lunch in world history.
More people in the world are entering some sort of middle class and want what we have. Peak oil is here. Actually the US experienced peak oil in 1970, so we buy more each year. More debt. More pressure on limited resources.
When Jimma Carter was prez, I was young and buying my first home. $370 per month for a little 700 sq. ft. house. As inflation increased, so did my pay. Even tho my pay was loosing ground to inflation due to Jimma's new way of figuring the Consumer Price Index, it was like my house payment was going down. A previous post here mentioned that as a strategy to come out of the other side rich. It would have worked then. We are on the back side of a real estate bubble so I'm not too sure that will work this time.
This means the US has 'painted it'self into the proverbial corner' We can get out, but at what cost? The current administration plans to increase every tax they can, grab as much central power too, and cut social spending on the elderly, a double punch that saves money on health care during a person's most expensive years, then saving money on Social Security payouts because of earlier death.