http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/15/president-debt-negotiations-80-percent-american-people-support-balanced-approach (http://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2011/07/15/president-debt-negotiations-80-percent-american-people-support-balanced-approach)
http://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-republicans-ramp-debt-fight-151543153.html (http://ca.news.yahoo.com/us-republicans-ramp-debt-fight-151543153.html)
the democrats can never convince the republicans to tax the rich for the poor. where is robin hood when you need him?
Good thing we are Canadian?
How closely does their job market affect us anyway? I am not good with all this stuff. XD
Zenia, if the US defaults on its loans it could cause a slide back into the recession worldwide - we'd see markets drop, and because our industries are so closely tied to the US if they have a drop that affects imports we'll see a ripple effect. That could mean job losses here as factories and services for things like manufacturing and such slow down.
Having said that, what we're watching is a game of chicken between the Democrats and Republicans. That's why the Republicans have offered up a backup plan that would defer discussions over debt reduction and spending reduction to a later time while raising the debt ceiling now - they're worried about giving the Democrats political strength by being perceived as the party that pushed the country into a recession again, knowing that their president was the one who started it in the first place. The Democrats are being cautious about that, though, because it would push the discussion into the election cycle next year and give the Republicans a grandstand to work from.
Yeah, I''m a political geek. =P
Aah. I don't know anything about politics or anything like that. XD
the entire world is in fairly serious trouble (at least financially). the current financial system which is based on lending, interest and fictional money will collapse in relatively short order...to put it simply. this system is not sustainable and it's destruction will result in a major change in the way our world functions...^ ^
it could be a very good thing...if we eliminated the monetary system, we could move on to more productive things...like...surviving as a species...saving the environment...evolving into beings of pure energy...you know, the usual.
The sky is falling and it's the end of the world. :roll:
I never believed for a second that the world just poofed out of its financial troubles. Christ look at Nanaimo BC... freaking drowning in a 14.9% Unemployment rate... Explains why I almost never got calls for jobs in that town when I lived there.
Not to be pessimistic but the title of this topic is wishful thinking, I have known full timers who have been layed off, heck, I was full time solid 40hrs a week for nearly 2 years, I figured I was fairly secure and one day poof, gone.
Best you can really do is make sure to have savings and hope you are in a type of job that's not so heavily affected by the tides of consumer spending... which unfortunately unless you work in the resource sector, its hard to come by. And of course hope the US doesn't RAPE the pooch... Again
HOW IT IS ALL CONNECTED TO YOU!
personally i feel everyone should at least see "the inside job" which at least helps explain to the masses the nature of 4th even 5th party lending and its inherent dangers.
you buy a house on a mortgage. your bank sells your mortgage to a bigger bank who pays them to own it. now your payments go to a 3rd party who then sells it to insurance companies. insurance companies are inflated by 5th party bidders who bet on you to actually fail to pay your debts because they win. it works like this... when you pay your interest it goes down the system and some portion of your money goes to the insurance company who then filters it to the investors. so you essentially pay out to big multi million dollar companies and their executives when you think you are paying back your bank. Not much when its just you, plenty when we are talking about hundreds of thousands of clients and billions of dollars in the works. they take your real money and give you credit which simply allows you to spend more. when national debt from wars or spending or whatever , puts pressure on this bad system of lending. then eventually people start to be unable to pay their bills.
The way the system crashes is simple; as stated, the 5th party actually gains if you loose because they get paid from your money or at least some of it . all of this income is done through "INTEREST" so if you pay your bills on time you are ok but you still pay a % of interest which acts like a monthly or sometimes daily ( with credit cards) tax on how much you borrowed ( not how much you have left to pay). that is because if you did not borrow that half a million dollars to buy a house, it would have sat in a bank and gained interest for them. ( this is why you gain interest when you place your money in a bank because you are allowing them to use your money instead of hording it. so it grows). however when you borrow money you pay the interest to them ( this is why a credit card with no monthly interest as long as you pay on time, is great but sucks with large capacity credit cards that charge you interest even if you pay on time). so simple put. when you pay back your payments, the initial payment goes towards what you owe but the interest goes elsewhere and is generated by credit institutions such as banks, visa, or insurance companies. in the USA they have a lot more insurance for things like heath care but even we need to pay some each month if we make more than 22,000 a year.
but when you cant pay your debt is how it all crashes, its the ( 4th party) insurance companies that need to pay to ( because banks insure the money so that if you don't pay they don't loose money. this service costs banks money to protect themselves from your bad spending habits so they buy insurance and send the bill to you in the form of INTEREST. However its the insurance companies that weigh your risk and decide your interest rates based on your income, spending habits and other things.
So if you don't pay your mortgage and lose it... your small bank passes the debt to the bigger bank. Its the big banks issue. well they paid for insurance so they don't get dinged with the loss. this means the insurance company needs to pay off the loss however they can afford to do this because investors ( 5th party lenders, usually unrelated companies or executives ect). give them money to bid on your contract. this means that while you pay your bills, a portion of the interest goes to the big companies. the second you default however. the ( 5th party) is totally not responsible. they walk away with profit gained off interest you paid. while this increased debt in the insurance companies. When insurance companies suddenly are in debt because they had to pay off your debt for you, they get their money by raising interest rates for all.
meaning its all connected.. even if you pay your bills fine, your interest will keep going up and up because you are essentially paying for in high interest rates, everyone else's bankruptcy. however there's limits on how much interest companies are allowed to charge . so they either stop lending which means people cant buy. keep rates high which also limits who can buy.
a market crash happens when these insurance companies can not pay their bills, it directly effects the government. if the government does a bail out. ( spends government money) then it is more taxpayer money from everyone that pays off the bills of that insurance company. if the company fails and goes bankrupt and disappears... you may think.. why should i care? only when billions of dollars of debt suddenly goes POOF! (it effects the entire economy. where did all this money go? well surprisingly most of it was spent in sending the money down this system and back again from fees and jobs at companies and other expenses. but a significant portion of it escaped..... scott free.
to where? where else... rich people lol. why? because those (5th party investors) actually bet on you to fail because they gain more income transferred through interest sent from the insurance companies to their investors. then when the insurance company collapses, the (5th party company looses no profit and has no legal obligations to pay off that big bankrupt. they get to walk away with a % of the money.
Where greed comes in is when these companies get devious like say.. sending people out to specifically hunt for people who cant possibly pay back their bills. or they tempt people into buying a home and then convince them they can spend their credit. credit is not cash. however, convince a person its worth money and they can take a lone out on their own property for cash to go buy other stuff with. which just increases their debt and increases risk they will later default. this is also done similarly through people who already own their property but may need some cash. they convince them its not risky when in fact its extremely risky.
much more involved.... but.. this is how it gets worse and worse and leads to crashes... what happens on the hill is CRITICAL
because we are trying to tax rich people to get some of that money back into government hands who can then filter it back to the people with programs and benefits to make things cheaper, make wages go up, lower interest rates and so forth. this one here is especially important because they are talking about the national debt which ( means the USA has spent and ergo borrowed a lot of money ) which also gains interest over time, which is how national debt increases like a creditcard.
Obama wants to pay it off NOW with harsh cuts to spending and taxing rich, but the republicans are playing dodge ball for election votes down the road. and so they do nothing at all or offer bargains which avoid the primary income. instead they want to take money from places like military and government programs, which only take more money from people, or take it away from defense or jobs.
and this is how it all effects you if you don't own a car.. or a house or anything .. and you are poor ... notice its hard to find a place to live? nowhere to live when people are loosing their houses left right and center. means no open places for renting. apartments are even worse as they can dump out all tenants and "renovate" in any meager way which may not even effect much of the units" then they jack up the prices not just to improve quality of property or meet rising costs in economy, but sometimes also to make huge profits. They know they can fill these places because even though suddenly you poor people have no palace to live, with such a demand for rental.. there always someone who makes just enough or cuts their spending enough or has a double or triple income family, or rent shares.. who can afford the higher prices.
(this just happened to aphinity btw)
by law they are required to give you a choice, if they don't let you choose to come back if you would like, they must compensate you or you can sue them. however if you come back you must pay the new price and if you cant or refuse to then you are leaving of your own request and opt out of any legal back up. this sneakiness is not always the case of course but the more financial debt which causes pressure on companies to stay afloat ( to earn profit or simply to stay in business ) this happens more and more. This and many similar things like it.
everyone knows when factories and stuff shut down so do jobs, or if people lack money then there's less tourists to fuel other industries such as food or hospitality. ( Ive noticed this decline for 5 years working in various hotels. now most of our business is locals who live in town, high risk " night" customers, that i check in nightly. or "monthly guests" who have nowhere else to live not because they cant afford it but because there's just nowhere to rent or we happen to be more affordable than elsewhere. ) meaning that a lot of the tourism which was lucky to get two seasons here in Vancouver due to winter stuffs. but its shrinking significantly which puts even my own job at risk if suddenly the property shuts down from lack of income generated ( thankfully it shouldn't be for at least 5-10 years and i hope they don't frick us over one day and go SURPRISE NO JOB SORRY FOR ALL YOUR OBLIGATIONS AND BILLS AND CHANCE AT A FUTURE) lol.
of course when jobs disappear, more poor people who cant find work, or must work minimal crappy jobs because its all they can find, which means they may never get close to owning a house or finding a better job or even a place to live.
( i know most of us here have had pains in jobs housing or careers)
there's many more connections but this serves enough of the point. of how this all boils down to effecting you and me. and why we should care what happens in the next 3 days .
remember like they said above... USA and Canada are very connected. why do you think their war has increased everything from gasoline, to how even a candy bar has nearly doubled in price, and our own government is trying to rape us with taxes. ( i prey the day never comes when essential food items like milk and eggs become taxed also).
hopefully that all was informative. i try not to be a brainiac, .. im not at all. i just pay attention to the world closely. i think my obsession started with environmental studies and effects by humans and then companies, and corruption and of course led me to grander issues at hand...
not to freak you all out ... but if you watch inside job.... the PERFECT pairing movie ( which was also at the academy awards this year) is called " gas land" .... it will teirfy you what the USA and now Canada is doing to our fresh water reserves... completely uncontrolled, by companies who are out to make the biggest dollar no mater what the damage.
I don't need to worry, my career is recession proof :P, Only thing that may affect me is gas price, and cost of food but that's it. I love working in Unionized Healthcare.