Thread in which the world laughs at America

[OzzyKP]

I was once on a plane where a guy had the pilot at gunpoint and said he was going to shoot if I didn't stab my wife to death. I asked if maybe I could just stab her in the stomach so she could be saved if we landed soon. He agreed, and I was going to do it when somebody suggested I could stab her in the arm instead, and I foolishly reopened negotiations. The crisis would have ended so much sooner if I hadn't been so foolishly intransigent.

[giblets]

Fact is, your country is:
1) Fiscally inept
2) Massively obese
3) Ranking near the bottom of the developed world for life expectancy
4) Home to one of the highest murder rates in the western world
5) A place where people cry over a 6 week old fetus and openly express contempt to the idea that a 50 year old single mother should have the right to affordable medical care
6) NASCAR

You're all kinds of ****ed up. Don't even try to deny it.

Completely true.

[Hauldren Collider]

Why not accept them in exchange for what you want if they're so trivial? Oh, because Republicans think delaying a debt deal until the last minute is worth it if they think Obama will look bad.

The fact that the Republicans should have accepted the meaningless tax increases because they're meaningless is not a defense of Obama's behavior.

[giblets]

The fact that the Republicans should have accepted the meaningless tax increases because they're meaningless is not a defense of Obama's behavior.

Yes it is. If the Republicans hadn't acted like children then Obama's tax increase of a few billion would have been no big deal.

[Hauldren Collider]

Yes it is. If the Republicans hadn't acted like children then Obama's tax increase of a few billion would have been no big deal.

No, Republicans acting stupid is not a defense of Obama acting stupid.

[giblets]

No, Republicans acting stupid is not a defense of Obama acting stupid.

Yes it is. Expecting right wingers to not act stupid is a very reasonable expectation. I'm not stupid if it doesn't look like it's going to rain so I don't bring an umbrella but then there's a freak thunderstorm.

[Tupac Shakur]

relying on the consensus of the market is almost certainly better than relying on Standard & Poor’s, whose advice has more often than not led investors toward the losing side of bets.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/08/why-s-p-s-ratings-are-substandard-and-porous/

Nate Silver

[Flubber]

Back to the thread title-- While I can enjoy a good chuckle sometimes when someone is so obviously inflicting damage on themselves, here I am not laughing . .. The potential is for real damage to real everyday people . .. . and mainly because there has been no political will in the US to tell the people that the free ride is over and start actually making some hard decisions

Its actually a benefit of the British style of government where if there is a majority, at least the government has 4 years to show the impacts of hard decisions. In the freaking US you are in perpetual election mode such that people are always campaigning and gol darn it you can't have an opponent saying you voted in favor of tax cuts.

Government style isn't the determining thing but it certainly doesn't help that the next election is always so very close

[Tupac Shakur]

and mainly because there has been no political will in the US to tell the people that the free ride is over and start actually making some hard decisions

It feels better to blame the politicians, I know, but they're just responding to the mood of the public that elects them. The American people need to pull their heads out of their asses first; if they do so, the politicians would follow.

[Riesstiu IV]

Serious question: Will this downgrade coupled with high unemployment rate kill Obama's 2012 reelection bid?

[Tupac Shakur]

He's toast.

[Flubber]

The average people don't pay attention enough to the details to know there was a big issue --- It was incumbent on government to educate the population on the fiscal situation long before this.

But your politics are different down there . . . In Canada we are in deficets now but they are small and manageable after some years of government surpluses where we paid down debt. Somehow the population of Canada understood the need for some austerity several years ago and only booted the Liberals once they were rocked by scandals. No one in Canada seems willing to accept the return to long term deficets (and this is a country which on most issues is markedly to the LEFT of the US)

[Tupac Shakur]

The average people don't pay attention enough to the details to know there was a big issue --- It was incumbent on government to educate the population on the fiscal situation long before this.

You've got to be ****ing kidding me. Politicians and intellectuals have been talking about the long-term unsustainability of American entitlement programs for literally decades. You simply can't educate willfully obtuse morons who have their heads firmly up their own asses.

[Flubber]

You've got to be ****ing kidding me. Politicians and intellectuals have been talking about the long-term unsustainability of American entitlement programs for literally decades. You simply can't educate willfully obtuse morons who have their heads firmly up their own asses.

WE have lots of willfully obtuse morons up here as well but somehow the message got out there so Joe and Jane Average knew we had to take steps and ther political disourse changed. Even our most leftist party was talking as a central election issue about the deficet

I see lots of US political ads-- people talk about taxes but not much about the deficet--

[Tupac Shakur]

I see lots of US political ads-- people talk about taxes but not much about the deficet--

They talk about Medicare all the ****ing time. That's all the Democrats are going to talk about in 2012, since the GOP voted for the Ryan budget which had the naive balls to call for Medicare reform. The American public wants lower taxes and higher benefits, and America's political class, with rare exceptions, promises them just that.