svoetsch

Well said.

See this ALL the time: my neighbor is losing his home, but has a MERCEDES in the driveway.

" This explains why you see BMWs, Mercedes, Escalades, and Porsches parked in the driveways of $100,000 houses. Automobiles are the truest representation of American peacock syndrome. Very few people look at a car purchase in a rational long term financial sense. Itâ€s about impressing the neighbors, your peers and your family."

The truth is so simple: the politicians blame each other; the public blames the corporations; the corporations blame "regulations".

"Though not a single politician or mainstream economic analyst has ever made the connection, the new worldwide austerity in public spending traces to a physical cause, as measured by change in EROI energy return on energy invested"

Kunstler lays out what is happening in America today. He doesn't mention whacko comments by Trump, but he would fit in this commentary as well.

I like to get different takes on what is going on in the US.

From the page: "The real speculators are the Americans who clog our highways every morning driving monster SUVs, turbocharged sports cars, gas guzzling minivans, and pickup trucks that make them feel like salt of the earth tough guys despite living in their 6,000 square foot energy sucking McMansions in suburban tracts 30 miles from their jobs, if they have one. The ignorance of the average American car buyer knows no bounds. "

The fallacy in the article is obvious: we owe money to Social Security and "other Americans" which has EXACTLY $0.00 in the kitty. So we "pretend" we have our own money but borrow heavily from overseas, esp. China. How long do you think this can go on? This article seems to imply we don't have to worry about our borrowing...and idiots will buy that.

We are funding about 33% of the government with borrowing or" QE" which simply means conjuring money out of thin air. It implies we WILL HAVE TO borrow from the future and in the future, FROM EVERYONE AND EVERYWHERE.