Will our country be "better off" or "worse off" 4 years from now??

[kentuck]

Because there is a helluva mess to clean up from these Republican "trickle-downers." I doubt that it can be fixed in 4 years. The worst of the Bush mess is yet to come. In four years, we can anticipate the Republican campaign once again? Are you better off now than you were 4 years ago? I hope we are but the condition of our country is so critical, that I would not be surprised to see an awful 4 years with our economy, no matter what Obama may want to do. Even if we get a 60-vote majority in the Senate, there may be a few Democrats still gun-shy from the mental torture they were subjected to over the last decade or so, to vote a straight Party line.

But we need the authority as a Party to fix this mess. The voters need to be wise enough to understand that simply giving Obama the White House will not fix the mess. He will need a 60-vote Senate to get anything passed because the Republicans have shown themselves willing to filibuster and block everything that comes out of the Democratic House and Senate.

If this authority is not granted by the voters, it is doubtful that the economy will be a great deal better off. Hopefully, some of the military adventures will have ceased and there may be a better climate to live in? However, nothing is guaranteed by the election of Barack Obama. But, if John McCain were elected, we can almost guarantee that conditions will be the same or worse than they are now. In the final analysis, that is the choice that the voters will have to make on November 4th.

[bookman]

1. Can't answer...

..until Nov. 5th.

[mrJJ]

2. Recession or Depression

Jim Cramer: Obama is a Recession. McCain is a DEPRESSION!

What will New York look like a year from now? The answer: bad and probably worse, and perhaps downright catastrophic. Three degrees of awful. The first step was passing the bank-bailout legislation. Now that it’s done—and if it didn’t get done we would have been looking at a guaranteed economic collapse—the critical issue will be presidential leadership. And while any president will be an improvement over the current one, there is a growing belief on Wall Street that Barack Obama has the capacity to lead us out of this wilderness while John McCain does not. I’ll go a step further: Obama is a recession. McCain is a DEPRESSION.
snip
http://nymag.com/news/businessfinance/bottomline/51007

[Systematic Chaos]

3. In 4 years we're going to be in a world of hurt no matter what.

* Economic meltdown - check
* Environmental cataclysm - check
* Peak oil (slowed by the economic mess but only delaying the inevitable) - check
* Right wing whackjobs still out on the fringes making trouble - check

The difference is that the pain will probably be tolerable - for most - should Obama be rightfully elected. If not, then fuck it, it's Game Over kids and we're fresh out of quarters.

[LaPera]

4. Peachy & groovy!

[Coyote_Bandit]

5. Regardless of who wins

we will be worse off in four years.

Why?

Because we are not addressing the underlying problems facing our culture and our economy.

Consider the following:
(1) Fewer than 1 in 10 workers are employed in manufacturing;
(2) Consumer spending represents about two thirds of GDP;
(3) Consumer and government debt levels are at an all time high;
(4) There are no adverse tax consequences for businesses that outsource labor to foreign coutreies;
(5) Traditional energy sources are becoming more expensive and more scarce;
(6) We have been running large trade deficits for decades;
(7) We have this perveted idea that getting a higher education means getting a good white collar job - as opposed to blue collar work which many consider beneath them;
(8) We value ideology over practicality and think in terms of us and them and red and blue;
(9) We no longer have the infrastructure or labor skills in place to easily rebuild our manufacturing base;
(10) Tax burdens have been shifted to the middle class with no incentive being put in place for the upper class to invest in our national economy;
(11) We have embraced the idea of globalization without realizing that its ultimate end is a worldwide universal standard of living which means that richer countries must become less prosperous;
(12) As individuals we have largely lost the ability to be independent of some form of employment - which means that it will be difficult if not impossible for labor to organize and reassert its rights;
(13) We tolerate and embrace large companies which squash competition; and
(14) We have embraced the idea that it is all about us as individuals - we have lost our sense of national community.

Show me some real effort to rebuild our national community, our respect for blue collar work, our infrastructure and our manufacturing base and I will have some hope for our economic future. Anything less is a bandaid approach doomed to failure.

I am not an optimist. I do not think Americans have the personal and political will required to meet the challenges. Nor do I think they are willing to compromise and collaborate to implement the changes necessary to restore our strength.

[Beregond2]

6. Even if we are in the middle of another Great Depression, we

will be better off, because we will have gotten our souls back.