State of the Union Address

Considering making this my sig.

I am in Scotland. This is significant because the UK effectively did the solve-the-debt-problem-now-even-if-it-hurts-a-bit approach and its working... sortof. I dare say in the next three years well get the real benefits of it but something worth noting is that whilst unemployment is falling across the entire country, its not falling in Scotland and is actually rising. But stupid **** like that is what our politics has been full of forever.

My point is, I think it sounds like few people in American politics seem willing to make the hard call and take a hit for a few years to get passed this. Its not necessarily wrong, you can recover from the debt in a long term approach, but one way or another things have to get worse before they will get better. The problem right now is that it seems that the politicians are aware that when it gets worse the country will blame them for it, even if it wasn't entirely in their power to begin with.

America will be fine though, at this stage its too rich and still dwarfs even China in military spending so theres really nothing to freak-out about. Though I guess making people freakout has been a primary part of political strategy in the west for a while now.

I haven't seen/read the address and if this was the most significant part of it I probably wont be checking it out.


Also, to team derail; you guys didn't even try to approach a perfectly reasonable post with an intelligent response. It's pretty shameful.

They do this to basically every Bro post or Grec post/artic fox post. But I no think they sad about it. :cry:

Are we turning this into politics in general? Because there's a lot going on in Irish politics at the minute.

So, we had to get bailed out by the IMF, a load of government ministers resigned, the Taoiseach - like the British Prime Minister - resigned as leader of his party and was only replaced yesterday, and the coalition government broke up because the Green Party finally grew a spine and stood up to Fianna Fail.

Fianna Fail have been the most powerful political party in Ireland for almost 30 years. For my parents, seeing them crumble like they are now is astonishing. The problem is, no-one is really up to the task of sorting this sh*tstorm out. Fine Gael, the other major party, has pretty much the same reputation as Fianna Fail - insider politics, cutting backroom deals and assuming we're all ignorant muck-savages who would probably burn a computer at the stake. "Media-savvy" is what we are, apparently. Labour won't actually say what they believe in - we don't want a bunch of yes-men dithering every couple of minutes. Which leaves the loony leftists free to step in and mess the situation up even more.

Sometimes I just feel like moving to Australia and picking fruit.

It's forum natural selection. The weak must be culled for the benefit and survival of the forums.

I don't feel like ranting.

Economic strength and growth is where the real power lies now. Military is still a strong thing, but globalization pretty much made trade the real power IMO.

Sounds like politics in general to me :|

good post, and ^these i liked.

if obama is serious that he thinks his ideas are going to do better for america in the long run, then thats something. but if he is just trying to delay the inevitable and pawn the blae off onto the next/previous president and/or congress, then thats dumb. take one for the team, especially if delaying it makes it just as much your fault as everyone elses.

all in all, most believe that america is turning into a 3rd rate country. its not, more like sharing the top tier, no lower than the second tier for sure.

this is what will keep us competing with china, probably at the same level and no higher but no lower in the end. both military spending and economic trade, china is catching up but its not the end of the world as i believe its a good thing more of the world is catching up. it isnt like another country catching up, or even all the countries catching up to the same level, is going to start a war. but politician's loony nonsense might.