what happened to America and..

[shadow role]

the American Dream.A country that was universally admired as the land of freedom,democracy and a magnet for those who wanted a better life.A country that produced presidents like Lincoln,Jefferson,Roosevelt and Truman,pioneering companies like Ford,Coca Cola,Disney,and Boeing.How were those standards compromised to produce presidents like Nixon,Carter,Reagan,Bush and Obama,and companies like Enron,Monsanto,Haliburton,AIG,Boeing and Lehman Bros.Was it natural evolution of pure capitalism or just a triumph of naked venality.Today unemployment,foreclosure,inequality and Wall St running Washington,a diet of PR spin and misinformation and the 'leaders of the free world' sitting on sofas to watch a live execution!The world is a thinly disguised ghetto.What does the future hold for the next generation?

[Stumpy]

The quality of political and business leadership has become pathetic. With that being the case, it is all about capitalism. Get in, make your buck, and when they figure out you are incompetent you are forced out with a huge golden parachute.

It used to be you voted in the best candidate, now you are ask to pick the lesser of two evils.....

[genghis61]

What does the future hold for the next generation?

this man?

[Marmite the Dog]

What was wrong with Carter? He was the last president who was worth a damn.

[peterpan]

Carter was arguably the most incompetent President, and almost certainly the best intentioned.

[bobo746]

what happened to America

nothing it's still full of gullible people.

[Hampsha]

There are many reasons why the US ain't what it used to be. One definitely has to do with it not moving beyond Jesus and the bible.

[Norton]

There are many reasons why the US ain't what it used to be. One definitely has to do with it not moving beyond Jesus and the bible.

Moving beyond religion may help but as with previous empires the US has embarked on an imperialist strategy to control as much of the world as their economic and military power allow. This is nothing new.

Since it's inception to present day the strategy has been practiced. In the early days it was Manifest Destiny which prescribed it was America's role to expand the nation from coast to coast. The fact most of the country already had native occupants was but a minor inconvenience. In spite of resistance, certainly the heathens would be much better off under a benevolent, democratic, god fearing government.

Once the nation was expanded coast to coast then along comes the Monroe Doctrine. Essentially this "justified" the US to interfere in South America so US "interest" could be assured. All sorts of things justified under this doctrine. Spanish American War up through overthrowing of "unfriendly" governments in SA as practiced in the 1980's and 90's.

So far so good for the empire. Have control of the America's. Then an opportunity too good to pass up came about. WWII. As was their history the Euros were at it again. Killing each other and going bankrupt in the process. The outcome for the US was the ability to expand it's domination and influence globally.

It follows the image of America is not what it was but given the amount of legal and illegal immigrants, still plenty of folks see it as a land of opportunity.

How were those standards compromised to produce presidents like Nixon,Carter,Reagan,Bush and Obama,and companies like Enron,Monsanto,Haliburton,AIG,Boeing and Lehman Bros.Was it natural evolution of pure capitalism or just a triumph of naked venality.Today unemployment,foreclosure,inequality and Wall St running Washington,a diet of PR spin and misinformation and the 'leaders of the free world' sitting on sofas to watch a live execution!The world is a thinly disguised ghetto.

The practice of power politics funded by big business has always been the case. It will continue unless the people of the US hold their representatives feet to the fire to stop business sponsored elections.

What does the future hold for the next generation?

Same thing unfortunately unless the present generation takes an active role in changing things.

If anything has changed it's not the US or it's policies over the last couple of centuries but rather, with the internet and many media outlets, it is getting much more difficult to hide behind a few government controlled information sources.

Unfortunately even when government wrong doings are discovered citizens of the US and many other countries shrug their shoulders and do nothing.

[Boon Mee]

What was right with Carter? He was the last president who wasn't worth a damn.

There, fixed that for you!

[sabang]

I was probably too young to really get the gist of it, but the USA seemed full of it's own problems in the late 70's too- this being the era of stagflation, and then culminating in the Iranian hostage crisis to really make America feel good about itself. Well, that certainly got better.

Now we've had a massive financial crisis, and the US national mood is preoccupied with it's own problems again- indeed, there are some problems to be preoccupied about. I guess the main difference this time is the rise of China- but in the meantime we've also had the fall of the Berlin Wall and USSR. And Obama's netting of bin Laden is certainly a contrast to the disastrous Iranian hostage rescue mission.

The US role as the worlds sole superpower is inevitably changing- but is that the 'fault' of the US? Not that I can see, I'd say it was more an inevitability once China got it's act together. I'd have to say that some fairly short sighted industrial policy and spendthrift fiscal & monetary policy has hastened this though.

Basically, once the economy is back on track- and it will take a while, and the US citizenry gets used to the fact they are no longer the only gorilla on the block, I see no reason why it won't be a feel good USA again. Might even be a happier country for it. I'd say national debt and inequality are the problems of the USA, rather than the pipedream of world domination.

[Hampsha]

There's reality and there's insanity. This clip definitely is a reflection of both. The people in it seem to think America isn't what it was and is heading to doom. I didn't make it through the whole clip because it is too long. It just shows that there are lot of people out there who think 'America' is just a dream and it and everything else is near the end. Some would say this clip is a collection of unemployed middle-age nutters. Some certainly are but are they all? Maybe they just have nothing to live for. You won't get a lot of ideas out of this as I said it's just a seemingly endless colllection of mostly older people. I can't explain why this is interesting to me. It's lost or enlightened souls of modern day America united through the Internet. I don't know what orignally inspired all these people to post the response videos that are compiled in this one video. The beginning intro drags for two minutes then clearer.




This might be better in the 911 truthers or end-of-the-worlders thread. I wonder how long people like this have existed. Have they always been there or are things worse nowadays.

[Neo]

What does the future hold for the next generation?

Corporate arse fucking, religious brainwashing and prison.

[buriramboy]

I was reading somewhere the other day 40 million people in the US are on food stamps, not really a good statistic for the richest country in the world.

[Humbert]

How did this witless thread end up in issues. Don't trolling threads belong in the lounge?

[buriramboy]

^This article wrong then????

40 Million Americans On Food Stamps

[Hampsha]

It's only 'witless' because the rest of the western world probably is going the same way.


FT Alphaville

Why the British economy is in very deep trouble

Posted by Neil Hume on May 26 16:11.
Here’s something for the Chancellor and the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) to chew on: a warning from Dr Tim Morgan, the global head of research at Tullett Prebon, that the deficit reduction plan won’t work and the UK is headed for a debt disaster.
Morgan says sectors that account for nearly 60 per cent of UK economic output are critically dependent on debt (public or private) and set to contract rather than expand. This will render economic growth implausible and means the burden of public and private debt will prove too heavy for the nation to carry:

Over the past decade, the British economy has been critically dependent on private borrowing and public spending. Now that these drivers have disappeared – private borrowing has evaporated, and the era of massive public spending expansion is over – the outlook for growth is exceptionally bleak.

Sectors which depend upon either private borrowing or public spending now account for at least 58% of economic output. These sectors are now set to contract rather than expand, which renders aggregate economic growth implausible. And, without growth, there may be no way of avoiding a debt disaster.

Crikey.
So what are these debt addicted sectors?
Unsurprisingly they are real estate, finance, health, education, construction and public administration. And the outlook for each of them is grim says Morgan because:

- Public sector spending cuts are modest, but growth is now a thing of the past.

- Net mortgage borrowing, critical to the real estate and construction sectors, has crashed, from £113bn in 2007-08 to a derisory £3bn last year.

- The aggregate of private (mortgage and credit) borrowing has now turned negative.

Indeed, it’s hard disagree with Morgan who reckons the likelihood of mortgage borrowing increasing materially is close to zero until property prices return to a reasonable level, which he puts at 22 per cent below their 2010 average.
Or with his view that unsecured lending will remain weak, unless consumers are sucked into using credit to pay for necessities as real income decline.
And with real disposable incomes declining, retailing — another 11 per cent of output — will struggle even to stand still, lifting the ‘ex-growth’ proportion of the economy to 70 per cent, says Morgan.

The leads him to believe the fiscal and economic outlook is drastically worse than is generally assumed. Of course, that’s something of a problem because the government’s fiscal rebalancing plan, which he agrees with, is dependent on something more than feeble growth — i.e .less than 1 per cent a year.

The mathematical implausibility of growth poses major problems given that the government’s fiscal rebalancing plan is entirely dependant upon growth reaching at least 2.8% in less than two years from now.
If this doesn’t happen – and we are convinced that it can’t – the deficit reduction plan will come apart at the seams.

Time for a Plan B then.
The trouble is, it’s somewhat unpalatable.

Short of almost unthinkably drastic restructuring, there may be no way out of Britain’s low-growth, high-debt trap.

Gulp.

[Boon Mee]

It might be a 'witless' thread but here's a positive, feel-good video for your viewing pleasure!

[SEA Traveler]

What was wrong with Carter? He was the last president who was worth a damn.

the sarcasm of the Marmite!

[bsnub]

America is dependent on its military and prison industrial complex to provide jobs across the midwest and south. The idiots that live in those states have been drinking the right wing coolaid for far to long and will continue to do so as long as their guns and religion are at stake.

America is fast approaching a civil war. Reference these articles;

Apocalyptic GOP Is Dragging Us Into a Civil War | Rolling Stone Politics | Taibblog | Matt Taibbi on Politics and the Economy

Goodbye to All That: Reflections of a GOP Operative Who Left the Cult | Truthout

Intelligent Americans are well aware of the cult of personality that is the republican party.

[Cujo]

America has been fucked since the Government was taken over by Merrill Lynch and wall street and they stopped giving a fuck about the average American Joe.

[Neo]

America has been fucked since the Government was taken over by Merrill Lynch and wall street and they stopped giving a fuck about the average American Joe.

I agree with that but you have to go further back to the introduction of Friedman economics.
The US forced the Friedman economic model on Chile after Pinochet was put in power, that's the first country it was used on.
They saw how it enriched the minority and crippled the majority in both monetary and social mobility terms, and then applied the model to the US and then the rest of the world via the IMF. Friedman economics are still dominant today and the result is self evident.

[chitown]

Nothing "happened" to America. The American dream still exists for those willing to "go for it" and work hard. Every economy ebbs and flows. It is a recession, but it will bounce back. I think it would help if American workers stopped feeling the were owed a check and instead worked hard and put in a days work for a days wages. I know several auto workers and steel workers who boas that they "milk" jobs and work 1 or 2 hours of their 12 hour shift, yet take home a cool $40 plus per hour - for the first eight and time and half for the other 4. Double time on Saturdays and Sundays sees a cool $80 per hour. Americans spend too much and save too little if any at all. America was a better place when men made up a majority of the work force and women stayed home to raise decent, hardworking children.

I believe that American is on one side of the swing of the pendulum and that will eventually swing back. It is cyclical Japan and Germany both rebounded after we pounded them into the dirt. We ain't been pounded and we won't be either.

[Neo]

Sounds like you're coming round to Obama'a way of thinking.

[chitown]

Sounds like you're coming round to Obama'a way of thinking.

Hardly. I am a staunch capitalist. I want the government to keep it's probing nose out of my business. Politicians for the most part have never been businessman and should not involve themselves in business. They can't balance Washington's budget for one.

Edit - that goes for minimum wage - what I pay my employees is between us not the US government. I paid all my staff great money because they earned every penny of it.

[Cujo]

Sounds like you're coming round to Obama'a way of thinking.

Hardly. I am a staunch capitalist. I want the government to keep it's probing nose out of my business. Politicians for the most part have never been businessman and should not involve themselves in business. They can't balance Washington's budget for one.

Edit - that goes for minimum wage - what I pay my employees is between us not the US government. I paid all my staff great money because they earned every penny of it.

Did you pay their health insurance and super?