4 ms·
I think they're both right: because there is more than one problem facing us. The press like to focus on one issue at a time. Europe last week, US elections ye
by tezza 14y ago
I think they're both right: because there is more than one problem facing us.
The press like to focus on one issue at a time. Europe last week, US elections yesterday, fiscal cliff today and China tomorrow.
The reality is that there are many major problems.
Off the top of my head:
--
* People these days have everything they need. There are very few must-have items to spur sales
* The inventions so far cover a lot of what we need to live long in absolute safety and comfort. This is what Kasparov is noticing.
* Western Economies are 66% or more based on consumer spending ; any belt tightening has major impact
* People are still in too much debt, they're spending less
* Companies still have borrowed too much in the past: expecting boom years to continue 2050+
* Banks insolvent without support
* All governments bar Norway,Oz,Cananda? are in deficit
* Pensions are barely worth the contributions you put in over your lifetime. There has been no 5-8% increase as forecast
* Some countries have demographic problems where a lot of people will leave the income earning age
* It looks difficult for Democracies to reduce government spending. 'Pain-now', both real or perceived, is always deferred
[Edit for formatting, spelling]
- engtech 14y agooff-topic: you should edit your comment to get rid of the three spaces before your bullet point. The three spaces indicates pre-formatted text, so it won't line wrap. It creates scrollbars on your comment, so less people will be able to read your points.
- tezza 14y agoI do it deliberately, as I have very poor vision and find it impossible to read block text these days. Please excuse my preference for commenting this way.
- jessedhillon 14y agoIt seems that you have some good points, but please fix the formatting. I can't read it at all on my mobile. You can copy and paste from another editor if you need a more comfortable way to view it.
- gnaritas 14y agoYour readers preferences should trump your own; I don't presume you write comments for yourself to read.
- jerf 14y agoFor the rest of us, the comment ends up entirely cut off by the overflow: scroll CSS attribute. I would suggest the use of an extension that allows you to edit text in any editor you like, where you can freely use any font you like, such as It's All Text! for Firefox. That would solve this problem on any site you use.
- decasteve 14y agoCanada is still in deficit mode but our debt-to-GDP ratio still looks pretty good.