Biden's Continued Downward Slide and Changes

 

According to a recent poll conducted in late August by YouGov, 75% of Americans believe that Biden is taking us down the wrong path. A NBC News Poll reported 74% of those they polled thought America was going the wrong way too. An earlier poll, taken in late June by Monmouth University, put that number at 88%.  A mere 10% also said we were on the right path.

The Monmouth Poll pointed out that approximate 90% who thought we were going in the wrong direction.  80% of Democrats and 92% of Republicans disapproved of Biden's handling of the country.  Among America's largest political bloc, Independents, 91% agreed that we were going the wrong way.

As an aside, the poll noted that 84% of seniors (55+) disapproved of Biden. 92% of those 35 to 54 agreed that Biden was doing a poor job, as did 95% of those 18 to 34 years of age, which includes Millennials and Gen X. 

55% thought President Biden had botched his handling of the country while 42% thought he was doing at least a passable job. A majority of country---irrespective of party--- believes Biden is mentally unfit to be President. His approval rating, at 54%, remain some of lowest in history.  Meanwhile, Congress isn't doing any better. It's seemingly perpetual "in the toilet" disapproval rating is a current 60%.

Although these are significant numbers, there's nothing new here in either of the three polls. Americans, regardless of their political leanings, have for decades known that both corporate owned parties are destroying America. We've become everything our Founding Father's warned us about.

According to the above NBC poll, 58% believe that our country's best days were behind us. When we compare the America of today with that of our parents or grandparents, it's hard to disagree. True, there has been badly overdue progress, especially in the area of civil rights.

At the same time, we've managed to create a nation of "victims" and a "entitled" generation where everyone gets a "participation trophy" just for showing up and "safe spaces" when their feelings get hurt. Perhaps that's History's revenge on the self-important "Me Generation". As the saying goes, "history doesn't repeat but it often rhymes".

With prices continuing to rise, inflation is the main concern for the majority of families whose incomes aren't keeping up in survey after survey. For seniors and those on fixed incomes it's becoming a growing crisis. One report says that 45% of food banks nationwide have seen an increase of 10% or more. Among those surveyed, 56% said Biden was not doing enough to help them or the economy. 68% said that, despite Biden's reassurances, America was already well into a recession.

71% of respondents didn't think Biden's "Inflation Reduction Act"  wasn't going to help them any. 36% said it wouldn't make any difference one way or another in their financial situation while another 35% thought it would actually make matters worse for them personally!

The "Inflation Reduction Act" will cost taxpayers an anticipated $437 billion dollars. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office, which reviewed the bill in depth, stated that it would have little to no actual affect on inflation. The University of Pennsylvania went further and said the bill's impact on inflation would be "statistically zero", although it could possibly reduce the total national deficit by $300 billion over the next ten years or so, and therefore could indirectly affect inflation.

It should be pointed out that although $300 billion may sound like a lot, it's barely a drop in the debt bucket. Our current deficit is $31 trillion dollars and growing. By 2031, it will consume 106% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), which measures the value of all goods and services produced in the U.S..  

The result will almost assuredly mean a severe reduction in money available for crumbling infrastructure (like our outdated sewers and electrical grid, roads and bridges),national parks, and social services (Medicare/Medicaid, Social Security, WIC, unemployment, etc). It will also practically guarantee a substantial increase in taxes.

In the short term, I suspect that the beneficiaries of Biden's "Inflation Reduction Act" will be large corporations and those at the top of the economic ladder. After all, they own both parties and their lobbyists write the laws. Politicians are little more than hired help; the intermediaries serving as gatekeepers between the "us and them".  If we benefit in any way, it's nothing more than a happy coincidence for us and political hay for whoever is in office. But, what do you expect living in a neo-fascist "Corporate Democracy"? 

Poll after poll for decades now have shown that Americans are "sick and tired" of being sick and tired. We know both parties serve corporate masters and not the people. We know Citizens United was a mistake.  It was the catalyst for converting America from a democratic Republic to a increasingly neo-fascist Corporatocracy. It created a professional political class of multi-millionaires and ruling oligarchs no different than those found in Russia, Ukraine, China, or other nations we like to villainize.

We know what to do. We eliminate Citizens United, institute real campaign finance reform, impose term limits, end partisan gerrymandering, change elected administrative offices into non-partisan offices, create a level political playing field by opening using the same ballot requirements for everyone running for office.

We need to open up federal election debates to all qualified candidates. These debates are currently closed to anyone who isn't a Democrat or Republican. We need to encourage rank choice voting, give the chief executive line item veto powers to eliminate "pork" from bills and raise our tax bills, prohibit lobbyists from writing legislation, permit recall elections, ballot initiatives and referendums.

There are other things we can do such as create separate election officers for third parties and Independents and ending public funding of partisan primaries. Make election day a holiday in order to encourage more participation. End taxpayer based funding of partisan primaries. Lastly, voters should have the final say on all proposed local and state taxes, fee or rate increases. Any one of these would help tilt the game in our favor.

There's nothing radical about any of these reform measures mentioned above. Most were once available to nearly every citizen. But one by one we lost them thanks to political corruption and corporate greed.   All we have left is the ballot box, and even that is under attack. We've been left with little more than the illusion of power. Perhaps it's time to restore the sovereignty of the individual and curtail that of an increasingly autocratic government and its corporate masters. What do you think?

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Nearly 75% of Americans think the US is headed in the WRONGdirection under President Biden...

88 percent say US on wrong track: survey

Over half of American believe US is 'on the wrong track'---poll

U.S. Debt Clock

 

 

A 1973 Prediction From the World's First Supercomputer Predicts Civilization Collapses by 2040

 

I recently came across an interesting BBC news clip from 1973. The Club of Rome (a think tank similar to the Council of Foreign Relations) and comprises some of the world's leading business leaders, scientists, economists, academicians, and politicians, commissioned a study back in 1973, using the world's first supercomputer, which was housed at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, better known as MIT, to predict where we will be in 150 years.

Accordingly, the supercomputer predicted that by 2040, civilization will all but cease to exist due to climate changes (natural and manmade), the erosion of natural resources, over-farming and depletion of the soil, over-fishing, pollution, and changes in population (rapid growth in poor nations and stagnation or decline in most advanced ones), economic and technological inequality, and so forth.

The study, using data from multiple academic disciplines along with statistical trends, were fed into the supercomputer on a specially written program model called "World3". World3 is a systems dynamic model which uses a variety of computer simulations based the specific data fed into it to produce a range of results.

In this case, the data pertained to population and industrial growth, agriculture and food production, climatic changes, rate of pollution, technology, non-renewable resources, and the anticipated limits of our ecosystem. The World3 model has been periodically updated to ensure the results are current based on the latest data available.

The results predicted that nations will have to reduce their economic independence and political sovereignty, while global corporations will expand their interlocking influence over many of these same countries to meet the new demands. The study also states that the world's quality of life, which naturally includes the variety and availability of food and medicine, will also likely decline for all but the wealthiest.  Let's briefly consider immigration.

Just within the last 20 or so years, we've seen a wholesale change in demographics globally. Europe, including the prosperous "democratic socialist" states in Scandinavia, as well as France and Germany, have been overrun by largely uneducated and unskilled "migrants" from second and third world nations.

These individuals haven't come in order to become part of their host nation and contribute to society, but as leeches; sucking dry the social safety net provided for by taxpaying citizens. Europe's open borders was intended to allow individuals from war torn countries to immigrate, and yet statistics have shown that only a small fraction of these migrants actually come from war torn countries. Most are coming from poor, but relatively stable nations.

 It's worth noting that a preponderance of those arriving (especially from the Middle East) are young and very fit males of military fighting age, leading some to suspect that they are militants being sent to set up terrorist cells and to radicalize other migrants. If that's true (and it likely is), then Europe may be unable to cope should violence breaks out. As it is, with approximately 50 million Muslims now living in mostly western Europe, their numbers alone are enough to ensure that the EU will support Muslim interests.  If so, what does this mean for Israel and its ally, the United States?

Many have attempted to impose their culture, values, and especially their religion on the host nation. For instance, demanding women alter their attire, cancelling popular festivals, not selling liquor, and dropping certain items from menus. This is especially true with the more radicalized of the migrants. Demanding that locals conform to their values and norms is not how immigration should work.

Sadly, the "leaders" (and I use that term in its broadest sense) in Europe have proved to be completely spineless. They're more afraid of name calling than doing the right thing for the country. The result is that Europe's very liberal social safety net is now strained to the breaking point, and yet the migration continues. One has to wonder what happens when their social safety net is no longer able to support this influx, and the citizens are either no longer able or willing to shoulder the tax burden.

Of course, the same thing can be said of the politicians here in the United States. Since the early 1980's, beginning under President Ronald Reagan, illegal immigration has become a political football.  Currently, there's an estimated 11 million illegals currently in the U.S., and like in Europe, taxpayers are having to pay the tab for the politicians cowardice.  Bear in mind too that immigration, legal or illegal, is just one of the factors.

We also have to contend with the spread of diseases and viruses, terrorism, depletion of freshwater, overfished oceans and dying coral reefs, changing climatic conditions, aggressive nation-states and the potential for regional war or even a covert conflict (which could include biological and technological warfare such as weaponized viruses or system wide hacks), an ageing population and decreased child birth in developed and well educated nations along with a "baby boom" in poorer countries. 

There is, as well, a growing stratification between economic and social classes (particularly America's Middle Class). Then there are the manufactured divisions along gender and racial lines., which are often stoked by the corporate media. We must not forget to mention the decline in global democracy.

A 2020 report from Varieties of Democracy Institute (V-Dem Institute) in Sweden indicated that global democracy has declined from 54% of the world's population in 2009 to 49% by 2019. To make matters worse, the same report also pointed out that those living in autocratic countries went from 6% in 2009 to 34% in 2019. The world's largest democracy, India, has gone from being rated as "free" to "partly free" in a 2021 report from The Freedom House.

The U.S. is now classified as a "flawed democracy" and is increasingly viewed as a nation in a accelerating decline by many world leaders. It has ceased to be a Republic, and has morphed into a Corporatocracy led by an Oligarchic elite and dominates government at all levels. That, my friends, is not the definition of "socialism", nor is it "Communism".  It is, however, the definition of Fascism, albeit perhaps a new variant.  

The reports produced by many of these global think tanks and data analysis centers confirmed that America's decline includes those things I've written about countless occasions over the years such as divisive partisanship, rigged elections, gerrymandering, Citizens United and unlimited corporate money in politics, a lack of term limits, a biased media, and denying third parties and America's political majority-- Independents-- an equal opportunity to participate in the political discussion.

So, just how accurate has this supercomputer been since 1973? Actually, it's been pretty accurate thus far.  Specifically, in terms of population and economic growth and the world's overall quality of life as of 2020. The big question now is just how accurate it will be for the remaining 20 years. In case you're wondering just how much data this supercomputer can process, it can calculate more data in one second than an average human can in six billion years.

You'll find a link to the article below which includes a short video by the BBC, along with a couple other articles regarding the predictions. Check it out and let us know what you think. Is the world doomed by 2040 or will we survive? I've also provided a link to the Club of Rome's website in case you wanted to learn more about them along with additional links for more information.

 

A 1973 MIT Supercomputers Predicted the End of the World by2040

In 1973, an  MIT computer predicted when civilization will end

M.I.T.  Computer Program Alarmingly Predicts in 1973 That Civilization Will End in 2040

World3

The Club of Rome

 

New Report: The global decline in democracy has accelerated

Varieties in Democracy Institute