Brace yourselves everyone.

The Tea Party will win the presidential race in 2012 and there will be a jarring governmental scale back like nobody's business. The only thing left may be the military.

The good news is that it will leave Americans to govern their lives on their own and they've been there before!

But the left will go down screaming at the top of their lungs like a baby with a red hot diaper rash.

IOW, without ever paying for, nor planning to pay for past mandates and entitlements, the US Congress hasn't paused in a seemingly inexhaustible legislative bowel movement of fiscal incontinence. To this process, Obamugabe has been a large dose of Exlax. One hell of a mess to clean up.

Is the situation really any different in Canada?

Sure the banking and mortgage industries are run on a different regulatory platform but what about the bloated bureaucracy and all those government employee union contracts?

Canada could use some "jarring government scale back!"

Rob:

Canada is different in several ways.

First, when Paul Martin was finance minister about a decade ago, he realized there was going to be a CPP crunch. Everybody grumbled when contribution levels were increased, but that issue apparently is now a non-issue.

Second, Canada's banking system did not go through the insanity after the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act by the US Congress in the last year of Bill Clinton's term. That led to insane social justice practises, such as giving out mortgages to people who had not incomes, no jobs and on prospect of paying the loans back.

The US has been living in a fantasy world way back to the ‘chicken in every pot' promise of FDR. Now, the chickens are coming home to roost.

Just yesterday, the US announced it is monetizing its debt. That means the US dollar's value will be plunging, since the idea is to pay off its debt by devaluing its dollar.

Not sure where you can draw equivalence between Canada's responsible path and the ‘spend our way into prosperity' philosophy of the US.

If you have an example, I'm sure all here would like to know what you meant.

Don't forget, set, that Paul Martin and Jean Chretien stole $54 billion, yes BILLION, from Canadian citizens and businesses that contributed to the Employment Insurance fund in order to responsibly buy more votes, er, balance the budget responsibly.

The CPP is still a wreck and many of us will see very little from it.

As for the comment ‘spend our way into prosperity' philosophy of the US.

That is what socialists do, and they are about to have their butts handed to them.

Set you free. Martin did it in two ways. He took the 'surplus' from EI, which the Liberals knowing it was gone pushed for more EI. The other thing he did was take the 'surplus' out of the federal pension plan. There is a court case by the public unions to get that back. Yes we are just as bad. Open the phone book, look at the blue pages, see how many entries for women's services. Not saying some aren't required but it is an industry that contributes nothing. Also check out NGO funding by the government. Room for improvement?

11/9 - the Berlin wall fell and with it the collapse of the mother of all entitlement schemes - communism.

Currently we are seeing the beginnings of a collapse of the most egregious schemes that were on the western side of the wall - principally the EU and its members. The US's entitlements will follow in time. Canada will see change as well - primarily to its healthcare entitlement but it will be significantly insulated from most disruptions experienced elsewhere primarily because of its huge trade in resource export.

What is little understood by many is the imminent collapse of the agricultural entitlements - the CAP and the Farm Bill are not sustainable and when they do collapse the Canadian supply management system will be outlawed in the GATT.

The loss of the farm entitlement schemes will mean wrenching changes for millions in the farm sector but ultimately will deliver huge benefits and reduced costs to consumers worldwide.

We are witnessing the collapse of several different entitled elites globally - it will be one of the great benefits of globalization and a huge victory for the forces of liberty, democracy and market economic theory and practices.

The world is becoming a much better place...

The left has been trying for 6 decades to destroy capitalism trough destroying the US economy.

Putting Obama in power is one of their crowning achievement.

Not "one of" I meant "their crowning achievement"

My bad.

pffft.

I've been telling people for YEARS the entire global economy is a ponzi scheme. even before the 2008 bubble burst. long before that.

heavy on the "their" Friend of USA.

When the US stops buying all non essential goods, where and to who will Ontario sell its wares? Does Ontario still ship +70% of its wares south to the US? Does Ontario expect Quebec to buy its wares then? Does Ontario expect the western provinces to buy their wares?

I expect that when the USA's SHTF that it's going to be so much hitting the fan, there's not going to be anywhere to escape the stench. Thinking that Canada is immune is just dreaming.
What did PET say about us mice sleeping so close to an elephant?

Re: the US being bankrupt, yeah I'd say so. Canada too, except we have oil and metal still in the ground, so we at least have something to sell.

I hasn't escaped my notice that every Canadian company which actually makes things has decamped to Asia. American too. And European! Can a country not be bankrupt when all its manufacturing has run away?

But as we know, Asia is not in much better shape. Can a country where you can't drink the water not be bankrupt? Can a country like Japan that has to import -everything- not be bankrupt?

I don't know. I suspect we are at the cusp of a major re-structuring though, where things are going to change a lot. Government probably most of all.

Hopefully I don't get shot at. I hate being shot at.

Marko and Speedy:

Agreed that Martin balanced his budgets on the backs of the provinces, but far as I know the CPP is semi-solid, unlike Social Security in the US.

Exactly.

The US buys about 80% of what Canada produces.

If the US falls, many other economy/civilizations will fall with it.

Obama is working hard on that; yesterday quickly voted in another $$$ 26 Billion bill.

Just another cut in the slow bleeding/slow dying US economy.

As Ive said a million times . The Bloomers (They never age in their minds) I'm one born late enough that anything left was absorbed by the locusts 10 years before. Will be lucky to get a quick death by injection. Particularly when they realize that most of the new Generation lost their Brothers & Sisters, on an abortionists floor. To further this generations greed to devourer all for self. To make this human sacrifice to the gods of commerce with its partner venality.
This hypocritical group killed its infants real time, now the ghouls are starting on the grandkids. To rob them of any future.
Never never, never, enough for the sixties generation of looters.

For those of us who where not in on this rape, only shame is our portion for not speaking up against this tide of greed in the 80s. The boomers have made themselves a a liability by trying to secure themselves in old age, by massive theft. Itel now will become this groups grave-maker.
JMO

Revnant Dream

Sad thing about boomers is they used most of that era and prosperity to raise kids in a middle class lifestyle, and their offspring are now posting whiny, incoherent gripes on the internet. I guess they learned the victimization trick from the boomers also.
At least you've got the self-awareness to admit you were happy to participate and not object.

[quote]To this process, Obamugabe has been a large dose of Exlax. One hell of a mess to clean up.[/quote] John C

I agree but actually easy if we a brutally honest.. The opinion by Laurence Kotlikoff is useless blather you would expect from the Academia (Problems with no useful Solutions , tsk tsk).

Professor Kotlikoffs Economic class would benefit by a class visit to the Circus/midway; Enter the Freak Show, and place a wager on the betting Pool predicting when the Fat lady Farts…Observe

When you ignore the fundamental flaw in SS /Medicare (NO VESTING) you are lying to the American People.

If the SS/Medicare trust fund is a myth and 16 trillion in IOU’s have been shredded .. What lawful right has the Government to continue collecting Payroll taxes…. When Obama Care claims 500T of mythical Medicare funding money do ethical economists need to point out that the real money is stolen from existing payroll taxes of the Young.. or is it a placeholder for future funding Hmmm

We Existing Retirees know how to defend ourselves from BS…The young and stupid don’t….

BTW: The smart Students will notice that the Fat Lady & the Midget are fixing the odds.. (They have a Mann Hockey Stick Model)

It's not just about the cpp. Is there enough money to pay for all the gold plated public sector pensions for the ever growing public sector? Many private sector pension funds are also tremendously underfunded like GM and Chrysler. Will the government also bail them out?

Also there is a huge unfunded infrastructure deficit. Where will the money come from to replace the aging roads, bridges, sewers, etc. as little money has been set aside?

The demographics do not work - we are not producing enough children to pay for these problems and current immigration policies make this situation worse not better.

We are starting to run out of other peoples money.

All I can say is that I'm really grateful that my family and I were counter-cultural while the rest of the Boomers were getting rich through the '80s and '90s.

It's really hard to scale back when you're used to a self-indulgent lifestyle. If you're living a scaled-down lifestyle to begin with, “hard times” don't seem so hard: They're just more of the same.

Interesting read on the failed recovery. Bottom line is we can't sustain the current devolved economic system (inflated currency, exporting productivity, marketing/trading debt vehicles, debt spending)

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/reagan-insider-gop-destroyed-us-economy-2010-08-10?pagenumber=1

I am not sure transferring federal debt onto the backs of the provinces constitutes achieving balanced budgets. So I for one wouldn't be too quick to praise Martin.

However, he was by far a better finance guy than the current holder of the title!

The US is finally admitting printing money but they have been buying their own treasuries for quite a while now. The difference is that now they have publicly admitted it.

Sort of like here in socialist turdeaupia...

When they start opening up the SOYLENT Factories thats when I'm going to start worrying!

Part of our CPP is invested and that is a good thing. We aren't that far from Greece when it comes to debt. We have been through an incredible boom cycle. We should be sitting on surpluses. One of the reasons I took early retirement was that I had a cushion. A lot of that cushion has evaporated. When I needed some money I sold US Equity and Multinational. I felt they weren't going anywhere but down. It can turn very bad very fast, I've invested long enough to know that. I don't panic but I'm looking at a decade of low growth and increasing public demand with no appetite for cutting anything. I'm fortunate and I know that but I get requests to demand more.

Six decades?

Longer than that I think!

Repeal of Glass Steagall? Oh yeah, that was the law that Clinton signed as a lame duck, because the Republicans were pretty sure that W wouldn't sign it. Now I remember.