Blue sky thinking

bit

It's not mine.

Graham

The USA is facing a similar wall. Factor out the immigrants (legal and otherwise) and we're getting pretty old. That's what the whole panic over social security and the baby boomers hitting retirement is about.

Not to mention the national debt ! Nothing left to pay for it with. Talk about fiddling while Rome burns ( or should that be Washington ? )

Graham

Poor baby! I'm getting almost more than I can handle ;-)

...Jim Thompson

I've got mine, too bad about yours ;-)

...Jim Thompson

bit

I just checked cia.gov.

UK 4.7% US 5.1%

( both figures for 2005 )

So stick that in your pipe and smoke it !

Graham

If you call it an election - it was more a competition between teleivision advertising budgets, with Karl Rove spendig a mint on subsidising fake veterans organisations to lie about his opponents service record in expensive "independent" TV ads, while sandbagging TV reporters looking into Dubbya's non-service record with forged copies of real documents - brilliant stuff, but ever so slightly dishonest.

I notice that Jim didn't respond to my post pointing out that the former leader of the 'weenie' UK Liberal Democrats was once a UK special forces member who served with distinction.

OTOH Dubya spent most of his time 'bunking off' ( from what's effectively a reservist force ) as far as I can tell.

Graham

The Social Security thing can be fixed any number of ways, and it will be. Increase retirement age, cut benefits to those with other income, print some money and inflate the obligation out of existance. I have two kids and (so far) two grand-kids to work and pay taxes, and the US population is relatively young and growing.

John

average US

We have a twice weekly open market here in my home town btw.

Indeed. How many ppl do that in your estimation ?

I've grown tomatoes here in my back garden. In the open too. The yellow ones were especially nice.

Unfortunately my neighbour's grown a hedge that cuts out a lot of the sunlight exactly where the soil is most fertile ( contains old ashes from the open fire ) so it's no longer so suitable.

Graham

I don't have any trouble finding jobs. Getting the potential employers to hire me is the hard bit.

bit

Dumb-shit... my figures are from May 2006... learn to read before you jump, jerk ;-)

...Jim Thompson

It's interesting to google "actual official unemployment France" and ditto Germany. Germany in particular plays a number of bookkeeping tricks to keep the official rate down, like "retiring" people over 50 who can't find jobs. The unemployment rates among youth and immigrants in France is ghastly.

On the other hand, the considerable grey economy in the former Yugoslavia may make the actual rate lower than the official one.

John

The IRS has always had the ability to peek into your bank accounts When this was extended to the DEA any thoughts of hiding money were gone ... unless you just bury it in the yard.

BTW I wouldn't be all that secure that you "have yours" unless it is in gold, ammo or MREs. All that paper money is just a state of mind. Inflation could eat up at forune in a few years

took a

a bit

But you can see we were doing better from 2003 through 2005.

Graham

bit

Getting really hard data on unemployment can be pretty difficult.

I've heard that US figures may be under-reported for example.

Germany's relatively high rate is a result still of absorbing the former GDR. A country that has literally ceased to exist !

The two EU countries I mentioned with figures near 15% are also former Soviet Bloc countries. In comparison though, the Baltic states which were under direct Russian 'occupation' have done quite well.

Graham

Germany during the Weimar Republic era for example.

Graham

The US is pretty fast and loose with unemploymnent numbers too. They only count people who are actively looking for a job. Thee are lots of people who were laid off with "a package" and show up as retired or just dissapeared from the labor pool. The hard core unemployables you see living behind a dumpster are not in the "unermployed" either. Another group who gets missed are the criminals, although I guess they are working.

This is true of US citizens. Hence the move of a bunch of wealthy retirees renouncing US citizenship a few years ago. I believe that loophole has been plugged.

I'm waiting for the concrete wall, razor wire and checkpoints to go in at the borders. Its not quite as bad as East Germany. You can still leave. Just not with your money.