Sharky:

In an uninvited response to your communication to Rebels, allow me to give my view from the perspective of a conservative US citizen.

* At present the unemployment rate in the US is 20%. This is not the rate the Department of Labor reports. The Department of Labor reports a rate of 8.7% unemployment. The discrepancy is because the US Government changed the way they calculate and report unemployment. The real rate is done by an economist who used to work for the US Government and follows the formula the Government used to. As the saying goes, "garbage in, garbage out".

* The people who are unemployed frequently do not care about the fiscal health of the nation. They only care about the fact that they are out of work and worried. An understandable position from a purely selfish perspective. However, the Government cannot become the employer of last resort. At least not unless one wants to bankrupt the entire society.

* There is an element of the working age population that wishes to not work. And since they have never had steady empoyment, they have never qualified for unemployment insurance. This group frankly, not only has no understanding of economic reality, they do not even minimally care. Many of these people are on welfare. Thusly not caring. But, are at the same time, a drag on the economy as they are receiving benefits which a Government running a 1.7 trillion dollar defecit cannot afford.

* All of the above is made even worse by our central bank which is called the Federal Reserve. The reason for this is that the Chairman of the Federal Reserve (Ben Bernanke) is a Kensyian in his economic philosophy and has embarked upon inflating our way out of our debt by the printing of bogus money. This of course makes each $ worth less in effective purchasing power. Thusly resulting in inflation. This of course reduces the effective debt measured in US Dollars. It also results in the US, people having less purchasing power. Our Government reports that inflation is 1.5%. However, again Shadow Stats which also tracks inflation the way the US Government used to, reports that the inflation rate is running 9.5% utilizing the way the Government used to report inflation. The US Government reports all of the price inflation in the way of what they call "hedonics". Most clear thinking intelligent people call it something else. Telling a lie!

* Our Government tells us we are in a recession. This is nonsense which can only be supported by presentation by the government of falsified data. We in the US by all standard metrics are in a depression. Just as Europe is.

* Depressions are a common phenomena taking place every 70 years or so. They were postulated in the 1920's by a Russian econimist named Kondratiev. The reason why seventy years? That is within a range of how long it takes for those remembering the last depression to die off. An individual remembering the last depression is now in their 90's. Thus the societal memory circuits are short circuited and the economic excesses reach crisis proportions. That is certainly true of Europe and the US. Canada is in a stronger position as due to their excesses in the 1980's and 90's they got their fiscal condition muchly improved. They are also a major producer of the commodities which the developing world has great need for.

Brian