Nobody can answer with certitude whether the US is bankrupt or not. One thing is for sure that financial analysts and international forums have expressed their concern in this matter. Some are categorical when they say that America is without a doubt on the verge of bankruptcy while others completely deny the existence of this possibility.
Without a thorough analyses of what bankruptcy actually means no one can say whether the US is facing it or not. Many people think that only a person or a company can go into insolvency meaning that it cannot pay back what he or it owes to the creditors. In fact, this is the opinion of some financial analysts too who say that it is unfair to compare a person with a country which has many resources to recover from bad decisions. Unfortunately there are plenty of examples to contradict them which do not include only countries like Zimbabwe but also powerful states that had to suffer after the Second World War. Nowadays there are many countries that struggle to stay solvent at a worldwide level.
One of the most important things that led everybody to believe that the US is on the verge of bankruptcy is the downgrade from AAA to AA+. Since Standard & Poor’s is a very serious rating agency many took for good their downgrade. However some international forums and politicians all over the world expressed their disagreement with this downgrade and said that Standard & Poor’s opinion in this matter is overrated. But the disagreement came too late since the downgrade led to many speculations about the possible bankruptcy.
The US has always been known for its influential power of decision and strong economy. Since the American administration revealed the fact that it accumulated trillions of Dollars as debt the entire financial world started speculating about the path of the economy of this country. Making a simple comparison with Greece which is another country on the verge of bankruptcy, the US has a huge advantage over it. First of all Greece has only one semi-solid industry to count on, that is the tourism, while the US has well developed industrial branches that bring money to the state budget.
For a country to get a loan it has to be solvable in many aspects. One of the major criteria that decide the value of the loan is that of the national gold deposits. A comparison between the amounts of gold US and Greece have shows just how much each of them can borrow. The statistics from 2010 emphasize the great difference between the two. If the US federal gold reserves sums up 8,133.5 tones of gold, Greece has only 111.7 tones. Because of that the US managed to borrow so much money and still be a solvable client. With all these advantages at hand it all depends on the American leaders how they handle their financial crisis and if they manage to avoid bankruptcy.
Invest in small bars or coins if you are looking for the traditional approach to buy gold.
Gettysburg, Pennsylvania - The Battleground
Friday, May 6th, 2011If you are at all interested in either Pennsylvania or American history, you will surely have heard of Gettysburg, Pennsylvania and the historic activities that took place there for the period of the American Civil War. The three day long battle that took place there in July 1863 was cruel and bloody, but was hailed as a victory for the Unionist North.
Even so, one quick look in the Union Army burial ground in the Gettysburg National Cemetery on Cemetery Hill will persuade you that the victory came at a very high cost. The cost in human life and human suffering was gigantic on both sides. Later on in the same year, Abraham Lincoln gave a discourse which was to become famous throughout the world as the Gettysburg Address.
These days, the Gettysburg National Military Park is a tranquil place, but it acts as a moving reminder of the battle that was fought, the strategies employed, the heroism of the combatants and the willingness of military leaders to sacrifice the common soldier for political ends.
If you go to the Gettysburg National Military Park, you would do well to start your trip in the visitors’ centre. There you will be able to pick up books, pamphlets and leaflets to help you orientate yourself when you are on the battlefield, even if you are familiar with how and where the genuine battle was fought.
If you think that it would be too much for you to work things out for yourself or if you do not have much time, you could join one of the frequent guided tours. If you are somewhere in between these two definitions, you could first watch a film in the Cycloarma Center, where there are also historical items recovered from the theatre of war on the many excavations that have taken place over the nearly 150 years since the battle at Gettysburg took place. If you do not look around the museum before you go on to the battlefield, you should look later.
If you are going to Gettysburg to enlighten your children about that most important era of American history, you should first check out the special interest programmes available to 7-12 year olds in the warmer summer months. One programme allows children to enlist in the army of 1863 for an hour in order to get a sense for what it was like for soldiers of the day and what it was like for the children that helped them go into battle.
Another programme consists of a story-teller telling stories of what it was like to be a youngster in the days of the Civil War and the role that kids played both in the war and in civilian life back then.
Gettysburg is a fascinating place to visit whether your family was involved in the battle there or not. Many of the combatants’ names and place names like Devil’s Den and Cemetery Hill will already be known to you and a visit to the Gettysburg National Military Park will bring them back to life for you.
Owen Jones, the author of this article writes on quite a few subjects, but is currently concerned with thinking about the Poconos International Raceway in Pennsylvania. If you would like to know more or check out some great offers, please go to our website at Poconos Vacations.
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