Goodsounds;357768 Wrote: > Hi Pippin, > > I found your outsider's perspectives interesting - thanks for sharing > them. > > Much of the 90s coincided with the upstroke of the business cycle. > Especially the second half, which also included the dot com bubble. > Little or none of this is affected by politics or governmental > policies, either on the way up or on the way down. > > A fair amount of public infrastructure-type things apparent to a > visitor are funded by state and local authorities rather than the > federal government. In the US, unlike in much of Europe, the majority > of local governmental revenue is raised locally, not as an > apportionment of federal funds, and it tends to have pieces that are > difficult to change - real property tax, sales tax, etc. In boom times, > receipts (and so expenditures) swell. When growth slows (as we've had > since the turn of the century), the opposite happens, which is why > state and local budgets have been under such pressure in recent years. > Most are not able to run deficits, as the federal government can. It's > also clear that a lot of federal money has been wasted over the last 6 > years. > > I agree with you, US infrastructure sucks compared to that in most > European countries. On the other hand, our tax burden is rather lower. > People are generally unenthusiastic about tax increases, so you get > what you pay for. > > As far as moods go, a lot of that is dependent upon whom you speak to. > Most of my friends and associates are middle class, still employed, and > not too radically impacted by recent travails in our economy. There will > be more problems, job reductions, etc., so things will probably get > worse before they get better, but overall, I do not sense a heavy mood > among people I know. Of course, none of them have lost a house or have > been significantly bitten by recent problems, other than the downturn in > the stock market. People who have suffered big losses, different story.
Goodsounds, as I said, it was the impression I got. I am very well aware that impressions don't always fit reality in every detail. Here in Berlin, for example, the "solved" the problem of too many homeless people lurking around in public places by simply pushing them out of the city center. They are still there, you just don't see them. US cities may have had similar strategies. On th other hand: 1. Your economic argument sounds a bit one-sided to me. It's true that the 90s saw a steady economic upturn but so did the 80s and obviously you would readily attribute this to the policies of the Reagan administration instead of the dramatically declining oil price after the energy crisis of the 70s. I do believe that there is such thing as good or bad economic policy and you even though you typically don't see the effect of that for the first 2-3 years you DO see it within eight years. 2. What I see when talking to Americans recently (note: my last visit was BEFORE the LATEST financial crash), is that there is a lot of enthusiasm for politics driven by the impression that something has to change. People seem to be willing to vote (I heard this election had the highest participation rate for over 40 years) and to involve themselves to bring things forward. This is refreshing something to be jealous of from a German perspective. We've had "consensus" politics that over the time lead to worse and worse compromises for years and years now and people generally are completely fed up with politics and don't want to be bothered with it. The general perception is that it doesn't matter anyway whom you vote for since they will all do the same anyway. During the last election campaign there was a big issue about whether to raise the VAT (which is a federal tax in Germany) or not. The Socialists wanted to raise it by 2% the conservatives said it should stay where it was. When they finally teamed up after the election they found a compromise between those two positions in raising it by 3%... No joke! My feeling (again, as an outsider) is, that after the Bush years there is actually MORE enthusiasm for politics in the US because people see they have to care and if you look at the result, it looks like a pretty clear vote in favor of a change from how it is now. For the moment, I think that's a pretty big chance! -- pippin --- see iPeng at penguinlovesmusic.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------ pippin's Profile: http://forums.slimdevices.com/member.php?userid=13777 View this thread: http://forums.slimdevices.com/showthread.php?t=54678 _______________________________________________ discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.slimdevices.com/lists/listinfo/discuss
