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American voters and their democracy are under attack, as politicians seek to change election rules to benefit incumbents, regardless of the will of the majority of voters. America's workers are under attack as American corporations and companies, who contribute to election campaigns in record amounts, seek cheaper labor overseas. America's political system is broken. And it is ruining the the government which made this nation great. If voters do not remove these politicians responsible for America's decline, our democracy will be lost, and our vote rendered ever more meaningless.

Many civilizations in history, which failed in the absence of being conquered, faced the same 'Zenith Threat' America faces today. Confronted with the threat of leaving their prosperity zenith behind, their civilization divides. Divided, civilizations fail from within. What divides nation's in the face of a Zenith Threat, is two different ways of knowing and consequent prescriptions. I define these two ways of knowing as empiricists and 'wishful believers'. If 'wishful believers' capture control of the nation's decision making apparatus, that civilization fails. America is currently an example of a nation in the throes of a Zenith Threat, with its divisive and hence, potentially negative consequences.
 

It is often informative to view lines of history as a tug of war between ideologies or paradigms. Some historians view our political history as a record of the swing of a pendulum from conservative to liberal, and back again. Such has often been the case since the Great Depression and stock market crash of 1929. Replacing it, is a new pragmatism of necessity.

The federal government's debt ceiling will be raised on a bi-partisan vote and signature of the president. There is only one condition, in which, that previous statement could end up not true, and that would be, political imbecility. It will take only one political extremist, or dummy, to pull this off, and there are several candidates for the role.
 

Republicans and Democrats are both pandering away America's future. Who they pander to and for whose benefit, is what distinguishes them from each other.

The American people have this in common politically, whether they lean left, right, or have a foot in both camps: They want to know that they, and their children, will reside, work, and play in the best country on Earth. Deficits threaten that future. The American public want the deficits fixed. Contrary to some talking head fear-mongerers and biased pundits, most Americans are willing to sacrifice something toward this end. Deficits are really just an 8th grade math problem. Here is a road map to working that problem.

Can America afford to allow its infrastructure to deteriorate further? Can America afford not to innovate and upgrade and reinvent its infrastructure? Can America even afford infrastructure modification while government debt continues to climb? These are huge and far reaching questions. Let's take a shot at answering them.

The picture depicts what will happen to the U.S. economy around 2020 to 2025, if the United States does little to nothing over the next 5 years about the federal budget and Medicare/Medicaid deficits. It is easy to rationalize that our politicians will not allow this to occur. However, there is nothing easy, or even likely, about how that can be accomplished. In fact, the odds are against our politicians effecting the changes needed to avert the next Great Depression. Outlined here are the nuts and bolts about that future and the near impossible choices facing our politicians. There is a way, however.

Economics is not intuitively grasped. Paul Siegel at WatchBlog wrote an article that prompted my considered response here. Siegel was right in stating that under the right circumstances, specific and targeted spending can increase revenues, counterbalancing that spending, both in the the near and more distant future. This same kind of non-intuitive economics applies to lowering taxes and increasing revenues, under a very specific set of circumstances, and with specific limits.

In today's business news, Ford sales rise 25% as auto manufacturers see growth in year over year sales. Manufacturing sees 9th straight month of growth. Consumer spending rises for 6th straight month.