I would disagree on China though. China didn't need us for the first 5000 years, and they don't need us now. They have 1.5 Billion people to our 300 million. As China emerges into the industrial empire of the world (and they are quickly doing so) it will come down to supply and demand and who needs it and wants it the most. We are already seeing China willing to push the envelope and they will continue to do so even more as they emerge.

http://the-diplomat.com/china-power/2010/10/28/chinas-risky-iran-strategy/

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/10/17/AR2010101703364.html

We will never fight China. They depend on us for like 50% of their grain. Without us they starve. Without them, we have no products. We're not gearing up for conflict. It's not feasible. However, he reason we were in the middle east before the 80's was because we needed to control oil for our war efforts: Not because we wanted to be an empire. America's imperial actions take place largely from the 80's to now. Mostly Reagan and Bush jr. I mean remember, China has only been a real power in the last 20 or so years. It's not like we were preemptively saying: We gotta get all the oil to fight China. That's ridiculous. China is our biggest trading partner. That relationship will HAVE to stay that way for both countries. There's no interest for them to fight the US and none for us to fight them.

Now, before you say "but what about our debt to them?" They only own 7% of our debts. That's not a big deal. We owe more domestically.

You're right about deep seated corruption, but that's no reason to give up on government. Our government pits interest against interest. Corruption checks corruption. Our Founders planned for corruption which is why they designed our government with checks and balances. The reason our government is so big and slow is a check against corruption. Its a way to ensure that there are many interests competing. I would not chip away at the Constitution. I believe in our system because I have to. Because if we don't we'll lose it forever and give it to the right wing.

Here are my answers: See what you think.

1) Cut Defense Spending and Reapportion the Money into Infrastructure. The government could create jobs paying people to install solar paneled roads, to construct a bullet train that goes from coast to coast, to build affordable housing for the poor. The government could pay people in bonds that accrue in value over time and are exchangeable for cash. That way people could begin to save and it would reestablish faith in government. There's always something to improve domestically that government could put people to work to do.

2) Welfare Reform. The way it works now people get built up by welfare to a point and then all assistance is taken away. Many people fall back down. What I'd do is I would have welfare ween people off for 2 years past the point when they are dropped today. This would help them establish themselves on more secure footing. This is progressive government.

3) Tax Reform. I'd like to add more income brackets and have the highest bracket at 90% income tax. Because its graduated, this will NOT punish the rich. This will draw in huge amounts of money to fund these aforementioned programs while at the same time helping pay our debts. I'd also like to raise the capital gains tax to at least 30%. This is how millionaires and billionaires draw most of their profits. The Bush Tax Cut cost our government $1.7 trillion. Taxes need to be fair.

4) Stricter regulation of banks and big businesses. We need to ensure that these bubbles do not happen. Bubbles are not reliable real economic growth. They benefit one group of people: the rich. We must ensure through government oversight that businesses behave fairly to ensure that people can actually get rich in America because lately that's almost impossible. We must fund our current regulations and oversight.

Perhaps the main point here to my solutions is that growth has to come from the bottom up. When the people have money our economy booms. When the rich have money, it pools up top and doesn't trickle down.

I am not obviously as frustrated as you friend. I think you missed my point. Nowhere did I state anti-government nor did I dismiss its need - quite the opposite. I am a U S Army Veteran and my family has fought in every war this nation has ever been in...including Iraq, in which my oldest son has served two tours.

I'm not really sure where you are coming from in your response. Do you think we can continually consume as much oil as we do and sustain ably transport our food from halfway around the world? Do you think we can continue to spend recklessly by imposing capitalism and fighting preemptive wars to protect our interest in oil with money our nation does not have?

Hamilton?? Really?? I guess he may have be proud of our national debt, I believe that is how he wanted to govern...using states and other nations indebtedness to grow our federal government (at which we have greatly failed)??? I, as others at the time would have distanced my self from Hamilton, after all wasn't he killed in a pistol duel with Burr?

I would not suggest as you, that the recession (as you call it) we're in, was simply caused by the banks. In fact, it's taken politicians being bought by corporations a number of years to provide the vehicle in which they now enjoy the de-regulation, favoritism, tax benefits and no-bid military contracts that they think they are now entitled to each and every year, while continually operating beyond the boundaries of the law.

There are many laws in place as you correctly state, but these laws are openly broken everyday. Immigration, labor, advertising, child labor, workplace safety, product quality, international and on and on and on....some are handed small penalties yet few men are ever prosecuted for continually breaking these laws!

I couldn't agree more with the distinct lack of historical understanding, especially how it it perceived! The problems we have run much deeper and much wider than most people comprehend. In fact, the corruption is so deeply embedded in our political system there will be no simple fix, nor will it be anytime soon...if so what is your solution friend? I would like to hear.

If you see someone lost and driving in the wrong direction on a dead end road, do you encourage them, or do you send them back and help get them pointed in the right direction?

True CAPITALISM is not the problem, but government intervention is. Politicians have become the vehicle that corporations use for corruption and greed!

My point is: We are all caught in a place that makes us totally dependent on a system that IS NOT sustainable, economically or otherwise, and this is a dangerous place!

How do you suppose we feed ourselves when developing countries such as India and China emerge and put additional demands on reduced supplies of oil? Who do you think will fund us when we fight China - who has funded the entire Iraq war? And there will be a fight - when people begin to starve. For this reason we have been trying to control oil in the Middle East for the past 70 (or so) years, but it seems now we have failed.

Friend, you'll have to come down much harder with some real solutions to convince me or change history as I understand it.

Communism/Marxism, anarchy, or primitivism, or any combination of these, etc. are appealing because they allow people to dismiss the whole system because and avoid actually looking into viable ways to fix complex problems. When people are disillusioned talk like this is very common. The trouble is that this rhetoric alienates people from the ultimate goal because the fact is: America is founded on its market. Alexander Hamilton specifies that in his Report on Manufacturers, Report on the Debt etc etc. Our Founders WANTED a nation that was commercially powerful where ANYONE could make it rich.

Now, America is corrupt. Our wealth gap is larger than many third world countries, our poorest poor are as poor as poor people anywhere. The ultimate goal I believe of the Occupy movement is to attack wealth inequality in the US. To more evenly distribute the wealth and make sure that those who are not making it rich are not starving or losing their standard of living due to illness or bank foreclosure.

Capitalism is not going to disappear and talking about "other possibilities" immediately turns people off. Capitalism is what we were founded on. Thomas Jefferson's idea of the yeoman farmer proved just that: an ideal.

Another issue with this argument is its total dismissal of the need for the federal government. The recession we are in is the result of a lack of regulation over the banks. The elimination of Glass Steagall opened the doors. In fact, throughout history we can see a direct tie between government regulation and standard of living. It was government that ended slavery, Jim Crow, segregation, and child labor. It was government that established the minimum wage, workplace safety standards, product quality standards, protection from false advertising, workman's comp, female suffrage, etc.

To argue that we can go back to a "simpler time" as a viable option is absolutely ridiculous and conveys a larger problem in this movement. There is a distinct lack of historical understanding as well as a lack of focus on what needs to be done.

I don't mean to come down hard on you, I understand your frustration.

Our government woorks to continually change in order to protect our way of life and to do whatever is necessary make us safe. When you think about it, maybe it’s not the government and financial institutions that are to blame… maybe it’s us, or the way we live that needs to change?

For a little over 200 years in the ever changing world in which we live the leaders in our government have done what they feel is necessary to protect our way of life. We have become dependent on a system that is supported by oil, capitalism, corruption and greed .

The first thing we must understand is that the entire system exists out of our own dself interest and greed, other than need. The one single resource that we NOW can not live without is OIL. The fact is this very forum, web site, computer you are on and the internet would not exist without oil. You can thank our leaders for that. If we had not been constantly fighting to maintain at least some control over the Middle East and its vast supplies of oil, we would perhaps be a third world country being run by someone other than ourselves.

The only way to change, is to change the way we live. Our lifestyles as American consumers and workers are what feed the banks, corporations, oil companies and the rich. By changing the way we think, we can change the way we live, work and play to self-sustaining ways. If we reduce our dependency on oil and the system we have created from oil, we will take away the power of the corporations, financial systems and the influence these corporations have over us and our government.

In the past hundred and fifty years or so we have evolved out of influence of the media. Our natural instinct in “seeing is believing” has allowed smaller groups of special interest to influence the masses with mass media, much as the advertisers today sell us their goods through the use mass-media marketing.

The ONLY WAY TO BREAK this cycle is to break our dependency from the huge amounts of unnecessary products and services we buy, and the credit we use to purchase them!

Is this possible? Can we live without the power companies, water companies, grocery stores, gas stations, jobs, rents, mortgages on our homes and payments on our cars. Can we live without credit cards and going to Wal-Mart and buying masses of products that we do not need?

The answer is YES…if we choose – Rural America has some of the most beautiful and abundant resources in the world, and before oil, our forefathers and humans had survived for millions of years without jobs, mortgages, and with little or no money for the goods and services they needed. Everything was produced in the environment in which they lived.

Today’s Technology with Yesterday’s Principals

Building sustainable rural communities. We have abundant NATURAL RESOURCES throughout the united states and by using technologies and information available today on rural lands around the nation we can provide everything we need to survive with limited oil and even to thrive without it.

How Do We Begin?
Like our forefathers did. If small groups of people come together and invest in a land trust and use the trust to buy tracks of quality rural land America can work especially well again by reducing its dependency on oil and jobs provided by and supported by oil. Communities working together and helping one another build homes, raise animals, grow crops and even make energy can not only create sustainable communities and livelihoods, but can generate enough quality food using modern growing techniques http://www.backyardfarms.com/ to supply urban areas with fresh local food and generate a substantial income for the community as well.

Note: I grew up in a small town in Maine. My grandparents lived very well (and without stress) on their two acres of land. They would make a trip to the grocery store once a month to purchase mostly sugar and flour. They had a milking cow, raised two vegetable gardens every summer, raised two pigs, honey bees, fruit trees, blackberries, raspberries and a fresh water spring to feed it all. Also In the Spring of the year we would tap Maple trees and make 50 (or so) gallons of maple syrup. They grew way more food than they needed and gave much of it away to us…their four children and grandchildren who lived nearby.

I am interested in meeting others who have to explored the possibilities of building self-sustaining communities through new technologies in locally grown agriculture.