Well, lets start by any system that offers its people an affordable or free health care system.
How can the so called greatest country in the world put a price tag on there peoples health(on a human life).
If you are sick in America and poor or middle class, without insurance your illness, if serious enough can bankrupt you. This is IMHO disgusting, inhuman, unchristian, but accepted in America where everything is for profit and if you can't make a buck on it we won't do it.
Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
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firsttimebangkok
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Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
firsttimebangkok wrote:Well, lets start by any system that offers its people an affordable or free health care system.
How can the so called greatest country in the world put a price tag on there peoples health(on a human life).
If you are sick in America and poor or middle class, without insurance your illness, if serious enough can bankrupt you. This is IMHO disgusting, inhuman, unchristian, but accepted in America where everything is for profit and if you can't make a buck on it we won't do it.
Healthcare is available to every person in America all the time.Those that can not pay,still get treated.If you present yourself to an Emergency room,you will be treated!Yes,someone with assets(middle class)can go bankrupt,especially if they buy the new ''thing'' or ''party'' off their money,instead of buying health Insurance,the prudent choice!
Every person in the World has a degree of ''greed'',it has nothing to do with Capitalism as a system.That ''middle Class person going bankrupt,does so because he can not control his own greed!
Systems that take from the strivers to provide for the slackers,has proven itself to fail!
As a person railing on about greed,you might want to ask yourself why your greed to hold on to your present assets,prevents you from distributing them to every less fortunate person you see everyday???Yes,it is greed!Now think about how you would feel if the gov't decided to take a great portion of those assets and arbitrarily give them to those they consider have less than you!
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firsttimebangkok
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Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
The problem is corporate America needs to control its greed.
By the time most get to the emergency room its too late........sad. Any apprehension one might have to get treatment because they may be turned down, or cannot afford it, is wrong, end of story. Many who already have conditions are turned down for insurance. This is may be the greatest country to make a buck, 'cause the buck is more important than a human life.
Capitalism feeds on greed, it may not be what the system is about, and it may bring about innovation and reward hard work, but without controls and allowed to run amok it can bring out the ugliest and worst in people, and a nation.
By the time most get to the emergency room its too late........sad. Any apprehension one might have to get treatment because they may be turned down, or cannot afford it, is wrong, end of story. Many who already have conditions are turned down for insurance. This is may be the greatest country to make a buck, 'cause the buck is more important than a human life.
Capitalism feeds on greed, it may not be what the system is about, and it may bring about innovation and reward hard work, but without controls and allowed to run amok it can bring out the ugliest and worst in people, and a nation.
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
Jonathan Jay Pollard was an American-Israeli citizen who worked for the US government. He is well known because he stole more secrets from the U.S. than has any other spy in American history. During his interrogation Pollard said he felt compelled to put the "interests of my state" ahead of his own. Although as a U.S. Navy counter-intelligence specialist he had a top-secret security clearance, by "my state" he meant the state of Israel.nkstan wrote:Hey Joke-y,Maybe if you were to name those jews you rale on about rather than evoking the nation or religion in your remarks.
Literally tens of thousands of Americans holding U.S. passports admit they feel a primary allegiance to the state of Israel. In many instances, these Americans vote in Israeli elections, wear Israeli uniforms and fight in Israeli wars. Many are actively engaged both in the confiscation of Palestinian lands and in the Israeli political system. Three examples come to mind:
One is Rabbi Meir Kahane, who founded the militant Jewish Defense League in the U.S. in the 1960s, then emigrated to Israel where, eventually, he was elected to the Knesset. Until he was shot and killed at one of his U.S. fund-raising rallies in 1990, the Brooklyn-born rabbi shuttled between Tel Aviv and New York, where he recruited militant American Jews for his activities in Israel against Palestinians. He claimed to be a "dual citizen" of America and Israel.
Another Jewish American, James Mahon from Alexandria, Virginia, reportedly was on a secret mission to kill PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat when he was shot in 1980 by an unknown assailant. When he was shot, Mahon held an American M-16 in his hand and a U.S. passport in his pocket.
Then there was Alan Harry Goodman, an American Jew who left his home in Baltimore, Maryland, flew to Israel and served in the Israeli army. Then, on April 11, 1982, armed with an Uzi submachine gun, he walked, alone, to Al-Aqsa, Jerusalem's most holy Islamic shrine, where he opened fire, killing two Palestinians and wounding others. Both the U.S. and Israeli governments played down the incident, as did the media.
Most recently, US Navy Petty Officer, Ariel J. Weinmann, while serving at or near Bahrain, Mexico, and Austria, "with intent or reason to believe it would be used to the injury of the United States or to the advantage of a foreign nation (Israel), [attempted] to communicate, deliver or transmit classified CONFIDENTIAL and SECRET information relating to the national defense, to a representative, officer, agent or employee of a foreign government." Weinmann was apprehended on March 26 after being listed as "a deserter by his command," according to the US Navy. The information he gathered was supplied to Israel.
Ben-Ami Kadish, a Connecticut-born U.S. dual citizen who worked in New Jersey was arrested and charged with giving top secret nuclear information and details about the US Patriot Missile to an Israeli agent -- the same agent involved with the Jay Pollard case. The espionage charges reportedly stem from acts committed in the 1980s. These activities, like the ones with convicted spy Pollard, were immediately denied by Israel (Pollard pleaded guilty in 1986). It is further reported that Israeli officials instructed Kadish to lie to US investigators. Kadish was scheduled to be arraigned on April 22, 2008 at U.S. District Court in Manhattan.
In 2009 it was revealed that the NSA had secretly taped conversations of Congresswomen Jane Harman negotiating with two AIPAC spies accused of giving sensitive information about US military activities to the Israeli government. In the taped conversation she is being asked to dismiss their espionage charges in return for large political contributions and (are you ready) a chairmanship of the US Intelligence Committee! One has to assume that they thought they could actually "arrange" for this to happen. Unfortunately, such an act of treason remains unchallenged and Jane Harman remains at her congressional job and enjoys being the third wealthiest member of Congress. Only in America!
Michael Mukasey
Recently appointed as US Attorney General. Mukasey also was the judge in the litigation between developer Larry Silverstein and several insurance companies arising from the destruction of the World Trade Center on 9/11/2001.
Michael Chertoff
Former Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal Division, at the Justice Department; now head of Homeland Security.
Richard Perle
One of Bush's foreign policy advisors, he is the chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board. A very likely Israeli government agent, Perle was expelled from Senator Henry Jackson's office in the 1970's after the National Security Agency (NSA) caught him passing Highly-Classified (National Security) documents to the Israeli Embassy. He later worked for the Israeli weapons firm, Soltam. Perle came from one the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktanks, the AEI. Perle is one of the leading pro-Israeli fanatics leading this Iraq war mongering within the administration and now in the media.
Paul Wolfowitz
Former Deputy Defense Secretary, and member of Perle's Defense Policy Board, in the Pentagon. Wolfowitz is a close associate of Perle, and reportedly has close ties to the Israeli military. His sister lives in Israel. Wolfowitz came from the above mentioned Jewish thinktank, JINSA. Wolfowitz was the number two leader within the administration behind this Iraq war mongering. He later was appointed head of the World Bank but resigned under pressure from World Bank members over a scandal involving his misuse of power.
Lawrence (Larry) Franklin
The former Defense Intelligence Agency analyst with expertise in Iranian policy issues who worked in the office of Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith and reported directly to Feith's deputy, William Luti, was sentenced January 20, 2006, "to more than 12 years in prison for giving classified information to an Israeli diplomat" and members of the pro-Israel lobbying group American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Douglas Feith
Under Secretary of Defense and Policy Advisor at the Pentagon. He is a close associate of Perle and served as his Special Counsel. Like Perle and the others, Feith is a pro-Israel extremist, who has advocated anti-Arab policies in the past. He is closely associated with the extremist group, the Zionist Organization of America, which even attacks Jews that don't agree with its extremist views. Feith frequently speaks at ZOA conferences. Feith runs a small law firm, Feith and Zell, which only has one International office, in Israel. The majority of their legal work is representing Israeli interests. His firm's own website stated, prior to his appointment, that Feith "represents Israeli Armaments Manufacturer." Feith basically represents the Israeli War Machine. Feith also came from the Jewish thinktank JINSA. Feith, like Perle and Wolfowitz, are campaigning hard for this Israeli proxy war against Iraq.
Feith was investigated by the FBI under suspicion of leaking classified information to Israel, being that he was Larry Franklin's boss when Franklin leaked those documents to Rosen and Weissman of AIPAC. For that he was forced to leave the National Security Council. Feith was also investigated by the Senate Intelligence Committee for sexing up 'intelligence' that was used to justify invading Iraq.
Edward Luttwak
Member of the National Security Study Group of the Department of Defence at the Pentagon. Luttwak is reportedly an Israeli citizen and has taught in Israel. He frequently writes for Israeli and pro-Israeli newspapers and journals. Luttwak is an Israeli extremist whose main theme in many of his articles is the necessity of the U.S. waging war against Iraq and Iran.
Henry Kissinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Kissinger sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle. For detailed information about Kissinger's evil past, read Seymour Hersch's book (Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House). Kissinger likely had a part in the Watergate crimes, Southeast Asia mass murders (Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos), Installing Chilean mass murdering dictator Pinochet, Operation Condor's mass killings in South America, and more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor. He consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Kissinger is the Ariel Sharon of the U.S. Unfortunately, President Bush nominated Kissinger as chairman of the September 11 investigating commission. It's like picking a bank robber to investigate a fraud scandal. He later declined this job under enormous protests from the victims families.
Dov Zakheim
Dov Zakheim is an ordained rabbi and reportedly holds Israeli citizenship. Zakheim attended Jew's College in London and became an ordained Orthodox Jewish Rabbi in 1973. He was adjunct professor at New York's Jewish Yeshiva University. Zakheim is close to the Israeli lobby.
Dov Zakheim is also a member of the Council on Foreign Relations and in 2000 a co-author of the Project for the New American Century's position paper, Rebuilding America's Defenses, advocating the necessity for a Pearl-Harbor-like incident to mobilize the country into war with its enemies, mostly Middle Eastern Muslim nations.
He was appointed by Bush as Pentagon Comptroller from May 4, 2001 to March 10, 2004. At that time he was unable to explain the disappearance of $1 trillion dollars. Actually, nearly three years earlier, Donald Rumsfeld announced on September 10, 2001 that an audit discovered $2.3 trillion was also missing from the Pentagon books. That story, as mentioned, was buried under 9-11's rubble. The two sums disappeared on Zakheim's watch. We can only guess where that cash went.
Despite these suspicions, on May 6, 2004, Zakheim took a lucrative position at Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the most prestigious strategy consulting firms in the world. One of its clients then was Blessed Relief, a charity said to be a front for Osama bin Laden. Booz, Allen & Hamilton then also worked closely with DARPA, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is the research arm of the Department of Defense.
Judicial Inc's bio of Dov tells us Zakheim is a dual Israeli/American citizen and has been tracking the halls of US government for 25 years, casting defense policy and influence on Presidents Reagan, Clinton, Bush Sr. and Bush Jr. Judicial Inc points out that most of Israel's armaments were gotten thanks to him. Squads of US F-16 and F-15 were classified military surplus and sold to Israel at a fraction of their value.
Kenneth Adelman
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Adelman also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle, and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supported going to war against Iraq. Adelman frequently is a guest on Fox News, and often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. Through his racism or ignorance, he actually called Arabs "anti-Semitic" on Fox News (11/28/2001), when he could have looked it up in the dictionary to find out that Arabs by definition are Semites.
I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby
Vice President Dick Cheney's ex-Chief of Staff. As chief pro-Israel Jewish advisor to Cheney, it helps explains why Cheney is so gun-ho to invade Iran. Libby is longtime associate of Wolfowitz. Libby was also a lawyer for convicted felon and Israeli spy Marc Rich, whom Clinton pardoned, in his last days as president. Libby was recently found guilty of lying to Federal investigators in the Valerie Plame affair, in which Plame, a covert CIA agent, was exposed for political revenge by the Bush administration following her husband's revelations about the lies leading to the Iraq War.
Robert Satloff
U.S. National Security Council Advisor, Satloff was the executive director of the Israeli lobby's "think tank," Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Many of the Israeli lobby's "experts" come from this front group, like Martin Indyk.
Elliott Abrams
National Security Council Advisor. He previously worked at Washington-based "Think Tank" Ethics and Public Policy Center. During the Reagan Adminstration, Abrams was the Assistant Secretary of State, handling, for the most part, Latin American affairs. He played an important role in the Iran-Contra Scandal, which involved illegally selling U.S. weapons to Iran to fight Iraq, and illegally funding the contra rebels fighting to overthrow Nicaragua's Sandinista government. He also actively deceived three congressional committees about his involvement and thereby faced felony charges based on his testimony. Abrams pled guilty in 1991 to two misdemeanors and was sentenced to a year's probation and 100 hours of community service. A year later, former President Bush (Senior) granted Abrams a full pardon. He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Reagan Administration's State Department.
Marc Grossman
Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs. He was Director General of the Foreign Service and Director of Human Resources at the Department of State. Grossman is one of many of the pro-Israel Jewish officials from the Clinton Administration that Bush has promoted to higher posts.
Richard Haass
Director of Policy Planning at the State Department and Ambassador at large. He is also Director of National Security Programs and Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). He was one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the first Bush (Sr) Administration who sat on the National Security Council, and who consistently advocated going to war against Iraq. Haass is also a member of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.
Robert Zoellick
U.S. Trade Representative, a cabinet-level position. He is also one of the more hawkish pro-Israel Jews in the Bush (Jr) Administration who advocated invading Iraq and occupying a portion of the country in order to set up a Vichy-style puppet government. He consistently advocates going to war against Iran.
Ari Fleischer
Ex- White House Spokesman for the Bush (Jr) Administration. Prominent in the Jewish community, some reports state that he holds Israeli citizenship. Fleischer is closely connected to the extremist Jewish group called the Chabad Lubavitch Hasidics, who follow the Qabala, and hold very extremist and insulting views of non-Jews. Fleischer was the co-president of Chabad's Capitol Jewish Forum. He received the Young Leadership Award from the American Friends of Lubavitch in October, 2001.
James Schlesinger
One of many Pentagon Advisors, Schlesinger also sits on the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor, who supported going to war against Iraq. Schlesinger is also a commissioner of the Defense Department's National Security Study Group, at the Pentagon.
David Frum
White House speechwriter behind the "Axis of Evil" label. He lumped together all the lies and accusations against Iraq for Bush to justify the war.
Joshua Bolten
White House Deputy Chief of Staff, Bolten was previously a banker, former legislative aide, and prominent in the Jewish community.
John Bolton
Former UN Representative and Under-Secretary of State for Arms Control and International Security. Bolton is also a Senior Advisor to President Bush. Prior to this position, Bolton was Senior Vice President of the above mentioned pro-Israel thinktank, AEI. He recently (October 2002) accused Syria of having a nuclear program, so that they can attack Syria after Iraq. He must have forgotten that Israel has 400 nuclear warheads, some of which are thermonuclear weapons (according to a recent U.S. Air Force report).
David Wurmser
Special Assistant to John Bolton (above), the under-secretary for arms control and international security. Wurmser also worked at the AEI with Perle and Bolton. His wife, Meyrav Wurmser, along with Colonel Yigal Carmon, formerly of Israeli military intelligence, co-founded the Middle East Media Research Institute (Memri),a Washington-based Israeli outfit which distributes articles translated from Arabic newspapers portraying Arabs in a bad light.
Eliot Cohen
Member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board under Perle and is another extremist pro-Israel advisor. Like Adelman, he often expresses extremist and often ridiculus anti-Arab and anti-Muslim views. More recently, he wrote an opinion article in the Wall Street Journal openly admitting his rascist hatred of Islam claiming that Islam should be the enemy, not terrorism.
Mel Sembler
President of the Export-Import Bank of the United States. A Prominent Jewish Republican and Former National Finance Chairman of the Republican National Committee. The Export-Import Bank facilitates trade relationships between U.S. businesses and foreign countries, specifically those with financial problems.
Steve Goldsmith
Senior Advisor to the President, and Bush's Jewish domestic policy advisor. He also served as liaison in the White House Office of Faith-Based and Community Initiatives (White House OFBCI) within the Executive Office of the President. He was the former mayor of Indianapolis. He is also friends with Israeli Jerusalem Mayor Ehud Olmert and often visits Israel to coach mayors on privatization initiatives.
Adam Goldman
White House's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community.
Joseph Gildenhorn
Bush Campaign's Special Liaison to the Jewish Community. He was the DC finance chairman for the Bush campaign, as well as campaign coordinator, and former ambassador to Switzerland.
Christopher Gersten
Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary, Administration for Children and Families at HHS. Gersten was the former Executive Director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Husband of Labor Secretary.
Mark Weinberger
Assistant Secretary of Housing and Urban Development for Public Affairs.
Samuel Bodman
Deputy Secretary of Commerce. He was the Chairman and CEO of Cabot Corporation in Boston, Massachusetts.
Bonnie Cohen
Under Secretary of State for Management.
Ruth Davis
Director of Foreign Service Institute, who reports to the Office of Under Secretary for Management. This Office is responsible for training all Department of State staff (including ambassadors).
Daniel Kurtzer
Ambassador to Israel.
Cliff Sobel
Ambassador to the Netherlands.
Stuart Bernstein
Ambassador to Denmark.
Nancy Brinker
Ambassador to Hungary
Frank Lavin
Ambassador to Singapore.
Ron Weiser
Ambassador to Slovakia.
Mel Sembler
Ambassador to Italy.
Martin Silverstein
Ambassador to Uruguay.
Lincoln Bloomfield
Assistant Secretary of State for Political Military Affairs.
Jay Lefkowitz
Deputy Assistant to the President and Director of the Domestic Policy Council.
Ken Melman
White House Political Director.
Brad Blakeman
White House Director of Scheduling.
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
Well, I wonder if someone could gin up similar separate lists of Catholics, Protestants, German-Americans, Irish-Americans, Asian-Americans for comparison sake. And, surely there's a plot by the Vatican who has arranged to have six Catholics on the Supreme Court. I'm also a bit concerned about the increasing number of women holding executive level jobs.....surely that doesn't bode well for the rest of manman society.
I'm curious, Jockey......can you provide a link that ties Kissinger more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor....or is that more spew you copy from the web?
Back to reality....time to watch the Daily Show!
I'm curious, Jockey......can you provide a link that ties Kissinger more recently served as Serbia's Ex-Dictator Slobodan Milosevic's Advisor....or is that more spew you copy from the web?
Back to reality....time to watch the Daily Show!
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
Stop the Press! I just found out Jon Stewart is Jewish. Time to restock the bomb shelter! 2012 is just around the corner.
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
Your missing the point guys. Its nothing to do with with the religion. We are talking about people in high office who have higher allegiances to another country (Israel). As far as I am aware there is no one in high office in America who hold duel citizenship apart from Israelis and there are many more from the extensive list I gave that I haven't listed! How do you think Americans would react if their Head of Homeland Security were a dual national with citizenship in Iran, Lebanon or Saudi Arabia? Why is it Americans don't feel the same about Israeli dual citizenship? The only explanation shows how powerful the Israeli lobby has been in "adjusting" Americans acceptance of their special status.
The fact Israel is a self proclaimed Jewish state makes it difficult to separate the fact America is hugely influenced by people who represent another country. Just mentioning this fact opens up accusations of "anti-semitism" or "Jew hater". This is what these people conveniently hide behind. America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third. No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot serve the American people.
Here are some facts for you to ponder:
Israel holds the world's record for most defiance of UN Resolutions. Israel, exposed not only as having nuclear weapons using uranium stolen from the US but also for trying to sell nuclear weapons to other countries, has refused UN (and US) requests to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow the UN's inspectors access to the weapons facilities.
Israel has a history of rejecting UNSC Resolutions, over 50 by this count. This places Israel in violation of the one area of UN jurisdiction, international security, almost once a year for their entire existence. In addition, the US has vetoed over 40 UNSC Resolutions against Israel, each time as the only vote.
It is widely accepted in American politics any criticism of Israel is an act of political suicide.
The Federal reserve bank is owned by international Jews aligned to Israel.
The majority of the mainstream media including all major news feeds is owned by International Jews aligned to Israel.
Just before Christmas, the US President, Barack Obama, signed into law one of his country's biggest aid pledges of the year. It was bound not for Africa or any of the many struggling countries on the World Bank's list. It was a deal for 3 billion dollars to go to Israel in 2010 and a total of 30 billion dollars over the next decade. Hmmm?
The fact Israel is a self proclaimed Jewish state makes it difficult to separate the fact America is hugely influenced by people who represent another country. Just mentioning this fact opens up accusations of "anti-semitism" or "Jew hater". This is what these people conveniently hide behind. America needs leaders who will put America first, second, and third. No government can serve two masters, and a government that serves Israel cannot serve the American people.
Here are some facts for you to ponder:
Israel holds the world's record for most defiance of UN Resolutions. Israel, exposed not only as having nuclear weapons using uranium stolen from the US but also for trying to sell nuclear weapons to other countries, has refused UN (and US) requests to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty or to allow the UN's inspectors access to the weapons facilities.
Israel has a history of rejecting UNSC Resolutions, over 50 by this count. This places Israel in violation of the one area of UN jurisdiction, international security, almost once a year for their entire existence. In addition, the US has vetoed over 40 UNSC Resolutions against Israel, each time as the only vote.
It is widely accepted in American politics any criticism of Israel is an act of political suicide.
The Federal reserve bank is owned by international Jews aligned to Israel.
The majority of the mainstream media including all major news feeds is owned by International Jews aligned to Israel.
Just before Christmas, the US President, Barack Obama, signed into law one of his country's biggest aid pledges of the year. It was bound not for Africa or any of the many struggling countries on the World Bank's list. It was a deal for 3 billion dollars to go to Israel in 2010 and a total of 30 billion dollars over the next decade. Hmmm?
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
What a horribly depressing thought that some here, cheering the demise of everything America -- were born in the American Era and will die in the American Era. Their entire suffocatingly miserable lives will be spent in a world that is ruled at least in part (post-war USSR was also a force until 1989) by the superpower USA.
What an unfortunate draw for these unlucky souls.
What an unfortunate draw for these unlucky souls.
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jackspratt
- udonmap.com
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Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
What an unfortunate draw for some parts of the world, unlucky enough to suffer under the selective US hegemony. 
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
jackspratt wrote:What an unfortunate draw for some parts of the world, unlucky enough to suffer under the selective US hegemony.
" Some Guys Have All The Luck " Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
I wouldn't go that far to say that the US is becoming a 3rd world economy,
but when you take a closer look at the census report on income, poverty, health insurance,...
these numbers clearly show that there is something radically wrong in the US society:
the new census numbers just showed:
- 43.6 million US citizens were living in poverty in 2009
This is a new 51 record !!!!!!!!
The number of people living in poverty has climbed to 14.3 percent of Americans
the national poverty rate of 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008, was the highest since 1994.
these frightening numbers of poverty could even be higher:
-The number of people lacking health insurance rose from 46.3 million to 50.7 million
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/16/1 ... verty.html
but when you take a closer look at the census report on income, poverty, health insurance,...
these numbers clearly show that there is something radically wrong in the US society:
the new census numbers just showed:
- 43.6 million US citizens were living in poverty in 2009
This is a new 51 record !!!!!!!!
The number of people living in poverty has climbed to 14.3 percent of Americans
the national poverty rate of 14.3 percent, up from 13.2 percent in 2008, was the highest since 1994.
these frightening numbers of poverty could even be higher:
Were it not for federal intervention in the form of extended unemployment insurance benefits, 3.3 million more people would have fallen into poverty last year, said David Johnson, the chief of the Census Bureau's division on housing and household economics.
Food stamp benefits under the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program helped keep 2.3 million more people out of poverty.
-The number of people lacking health insurance rose from 46.3 million to 50.7 million
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2010/09/16/1 ... verty.html
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jackspratt
- udonmap.com
- Posts: 16926
- Joined: July 2, 2006, 5:29 pm
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
Jockey in an earlier post you said this (and I am using this only as an example of the absurdity of you statement about Israelis controlling the US Government)
- Chertoff, even when he was Secretary, was not, and has never been an Israeli citizen, and was probably not even entitled to it under the very broad citizenship laws of Israel.
And so it goes on with most of the names you list above. Not all Jews are Israelis, and in fact, not all Jews are entitled to be Israelis (as dual citizens or otherwise).
Don't believe everything you read on the conspiracy sites - it can turn you crazy.
- Michael Chertoff is not the head of US Homeland Security - Janet Napolitano is, and has been Secretary for the past 20 months -and is a Methodist. Chertoff was Secretary under Bush.Even the head of the US Homeland Security is Israeli!
- Chertoff, even when he was Secretary, was not, and has never been an Israeli citizen, and was probably not even entitled to it under the very broad citizenship laws of Israel.
And so it goes on with most of the names you list above. Not all Jews are Israelis, and in fact, not all Jews are entitled to be Israelis (as dual citizens or otherwise).
Don't believe everything you read on the conspiracy sites - it can turn you crazy.
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
All the statistics and anecdotal evidence shows that the US middle class is shrinking, the poor class is growing, and the wealthy are taking a proportionately bigger share of the wealth.
The wealthy, through their media and purchasing of politicians have framed the debate to fall upon the shoulders of the poor and middle class. Too much spending on entitlements, benefits, lazy people, etc.
On the surface this appeals to those of us who worked all our lives and see our promised easy retirement fading before our eyes. Social security benefits are now under fire and risk being reduced and in some cases abolished. It's not that there isn't enough money, it just that it's in the wrong hands. The wealthy have it and want a bigger share. They're going to continue to take it from us, the poor and middle class.
The Republican Party has long championed this transfer of wealth to the rich. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is left with the people who recognize the primary agenda of the Republicans, but have little else that they can agree upon. Consequently, they don't have the organizational power and most importantly, the money that gets poured into helping Republicans in the political process.
The wealthy, through their media and purchasing of politicians have framed the debate to fall upon the shoulders of the poor and middle class. Too much spending on entitlements, benefits, lazy people, etc.
On the surface this appeals to those of us who worked all our lives and see our promised easy retirement fading before our eyes. Social security benefits are now under fire and risk being reduced and in some cases abolished. It's not that there isn't enough money, it just that it's in the wrong hands. The wealthy have it and want a bigger share. They're going to continue to take it from us, the poor and middle class.
The Republican Party has long championed this transfer of wealth to the rich. Unfortunately, the Democratic Party is left with the people who recognize the primary agenda of the Republicans, but have little else that they can agree upon. Consequently, they don't have the organizational power and most importantly, the money that gets poured into helping Republicans in the political process.
America's Elites Further Separate Themselves From Everyone Else
Jonathan Weiler, Professor of International Studies, UNC Chapel Hill
Posted: September 29, 2010 04:35 PM
Last year at this time, I discussed the Great Disconnect -- the degree to which debates about pressing policy issues were being framed by the class perspectives of the people who shape those debates -- politicians, pundits, academics and the like. I wrote:
To borrow Christopher Lasch's phrase, what we've witnessed for thirty-odd years now is a revolt -- of the elites against the masses -- whether in journalism, or academia or in the corridors of political power. In this revolt, the elite professional strata most responsible for shaping our political and economic discourse have at once grown richer and, predictably, have increasingly articulated an ideological worldview justifying their privileged positions (Robert Frank's book, The Winner Take All Society, aptly captured many of these dynamics over a decade ago). The priorities they've articulated -- business-friendly economic policies (including a generally knee-jerk hostility to unionism and uncritical support for "free" trade), so-called moderation, centrism and prudence in addressing major social problems (with a tendency to focus on the necessity of individual behavioral changes and an aversion to significant government intervention in the economy except when it comes to bailing out major financial interests), a concern for bi-partisanship and civility in elite discourse -- make perfect sense for people who enjoy full material security and all of the perks associated with professional prestige and opportunity.
A year ago, the major substantive policy issue was health care reform and the contours of that policy discussion followed these class lines. A year later, the most significant public policy issue under discussion is the continued stagnation of the economy. But the class dimensions underlying the current debate are the same as the ones I wrote about a year ago. Paul Krugman uses the term "pain caucus" to describe the growing chorus of well-placed and well-respected people who believe that we have to cut spending even in the face of continued economic stagnation and growing immiseration. New data show that poverty is at a fifteen year high and inequality at an all-time high. And yet it has become a more-than-respectable mainstream view that we're too far in debt to spend more money. This version of respectability is deeply informed by class. It prioritizes appearance and comportment in the form of fiscal responsibility, though a very particular kind of fiscal responsibility that largely overlooks the reckless policies that have made the rich super-rich at the expense of everybody else (and it can't be said often enough -- David Cay Johnston's work makes clear that the explosion of wealth among the already very-rich is coming at the expense of everybody else). That's because when wealthy interests successfully lobby Congress to rig policies in their favor, often far from public view, they're playing an old gentleman's game. By contrast, when people plead for the government to help the poor, well they're just grubby free-loaders looking for a handout (and their advocates dirty hippies or "elitists" who think they "know better.")
The Obama-appointed deficit commission reflects these dynamics well. Its nineteen members have deliberated behind closed doors on what a growing number of people believe will be a proposed package of "reforms" to include cuts in people's benefits. Of course, no one on the commission will be relying entirely on social security for their retirement income, whereas a growing proportion of Americans will.
This particular Brahmin version of fiscal rectitude also requires relative mumness about our profligate military spending, since the national security state and its relationship to American capital abroad benefits no one so much as it does our globalized political and economic elites (it sure doesn't serve ordinary American workers particularly well) and because men of affairs know that gentlemanly manliness requires a strong hand abroad (Especially when the class dimensions of our war-related casualties are so clear).
The new ideology of fiscal pruning in the face of tenacious and growing economic suffering is the economic version of American militarism. In both economic and military affairs, cloistered and coddled elites, whose personal security will never be threatened, continue to act with more and more "toughness" to put other people in harm's way in pursuit of abstract "principles" whose concrete benefits these elites can barely coherently explain. In economic policy, it's the specter of inflation, or an inevitable revolt by the bond market, though there's no evidence that either of these developments is at all likely in the near future. In military affairs, it's the perpetuation of multiple occupations and a global military presence presumably deployed to fight terror despite the fact that there is no good evidence that such a military effort is having any tangible, positive impact in that fight and plenty of evidence that it's only making things worse.
But that's how the Great Disconnect increasingly works -- that people of great means and material security continue to insist on policies that it's in everyone's interest that we adopt policies which will not, in any way, affect their personal circumstances, but will affect profoundly and adversely the circumstances of a growing swath of ordinary Americans.
Jonathan Weiler's second book, Authoritarianism and Polarization in American Politics, co-authored with Marc Hetherington, was published in 2009 by Cambridge University Press.
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
It is jealousy and ignorance that make people think that because the seemingly absurd riches that the very very rich hoard,in the developed Nations,is somehow unfair and detrimental to the welfare of that Nation!
These developed Nations are not the same as developing Nations that still ude Class and patronage to maintain the Wealth of their Nation and hold the poor in bongafge w/o opportunity to advance economicly!
The developed Nations thrive because opportunity is available to all those that are willing to sacrifice personal comfort zones,change locales if necessary and strive strive strive,rather than whine whine whine!
Those that are poor and strive in areas of education,work ethic,sacrifice of early living comforts can advance to great heights whether in employment or individual business!
In developed countries those that whine and want wealth distribution,that focus on the seemingly excessive wealth of others,are just to lazy or spoiled to strive!
Capitalism and the entrepenuership associated,is the reason these Nations have grown to be economic power Nations affording opportunity for anyone accepting the challenge and willing to evolve out of their old cultural or lifestyle concepts!
Communist and socialistic nations do not succeed without the support and assistance of the Capitalistic Nations.
To expect people to accept the forceful taking of their assets to be given to those that are not willing to ''strive'',is an abhorrent idea to all that are victims,who at any economic level,will resist absolutely!Many will simply stop investing or producing to avoid excessive taxation,causing a shrinkage of jobs and opportunity!
When will those of ''free developed''Nations realize and accept that they do not have the right or,in fact,the need to take from others!!
Holding on to old historical injustices that happened to their forefathers or kin,is just an excuse to focus on the negative rather than take the opportunities ,for them as individuals,that exist now!
When the striving entrepenuers join the ranks of the disgruntled,all opportunity diminishes!
The ''trickle down effect'' is much maligned by the selfish ''do-gooders''that are really seek accolades from their convinced minority population by attempting and succeeding to convince that group,that the rich are the ''bad guys'' and that their being rich,somehow,hurts the less affluent,rather than having a sincere desire for a good bottomline result!
Fearmongering about the demise of a developed Nations status as a developed Nation,is just more of this so called ''liberal''(a misnomer for sure,leftist being the proper name)propaganda to setup their agenda.They show their ignorance of the fact that developed Nations means advances acheived in opportunity for the population to individually overcome economic hurdles that are close to impossible in systems of non-developed countries!
These fearmongering leftists are actually trying to erode the foundation of the developed country by attacking the wealthy,whether they realize it or not!
These developed Nations are not the same as developing Nations that still ude Class and patronage to maintain the Wealth of their Nation and hold the poor in bongafge w/o opportunity to advance economicly!
The developed Nations thrive because opportunity is available to all those that are willing to sacrifice personal comfort zones,change locales if necessary and strive strive strive,rather than whine whine whine!
Those that are poor and strive in areas of education,work ethic,sacrifice of early living comforts can advance to great heights whether in employment or individual business!
In developed countries those that whine and want wealth distribution,that focus on the seemingly excessive wealth of others,are just to lazy or spoiled to strive!
Capitalism and the entrepenuership associated,is the reason these Nations have grown to be economic power Nations affording opportunity for anyone accepting the challenge and willing to evolve out of their old cultural or lifestyle concepts!
Communist and socialistic nations do not succeed without the support and assistance of the Capitalistic Nations.
To expect people to accept the forceful taking of their assets to be given to those that are not willing to ''strive'',is an abhorrent idea to all that are victims,who at any economic level,will resist absolutely!Many will simply stop investing or producing to avoid excessive taxation,causing a shrinkage of jobs and opportunity!
When will those of ''free developed''Nations realize and accept that they do not have the right or,in fact,the need to take from others!!
Holding on to old historical injustices that happened to their forefathers or kin,is just an excuse to focus on the negative rather than take the opportunities ,for them as individuals,that exist now!
When the striving entrepenuers join the ranks of the disgruntled,all opportunity diminishes!
The ''trickle down effect'' is much maligned by the selfish ''do-gooders''that are really seek accolades from their convinced minority population by attempting and succeeding to convince that group,that the rich are the ''bad guys'' and that their being rich,somehow,hurts the less affluent,rather than having a sincere desire for a good bottomline result!
Fearmongering about the demise of a developed Nations status as a developed Nation,is just more of this so called ''liberal''(a misnomer for sure,leftist being the proper name)propaganda to setup their agenda.They show their ignorance of the fact that developed Nations means advances acheived in opportunity for the population to individually overcome economic hurdles that are close to impossible in systems of non-developed countries!
These fearmongering leftists are actually trying to erode the foundation of the developed country by attacking the wealthy,whether they realize it or not!
Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
3rd world, unlikely. But as has been echoed by others, globalisation has hit the less wealthy in the developed world more than the rich. In UK, since Thatcher, wealth has become more polarised; the jobs of those who produced have been lost to foreign countries; more recently 'competition' has started to erode even the office jobs. Government jobs are privatised (good thing you may think) but those companies then outsource the work abroard where possible, as indians will work for 25% of the price. That happened to me. Also, how many call centres are based abroard to save money?
The rich benefit through ownership of large companies, but these companies employ less and less people in their home countries. The only new jobs are in low paid service delivery; unfortunately the pay is not enough to even pay the rent. Hence the boom in benefit dependency. I see it in UK, sure the same affects USA. It is always POSSIBLE to succeed through hard work, brains and an element of luck, but it is becoming harder all the time.
Rather than pay someone to do nothing, it must be better for the country to provide work at a living wage, even if 'theoretically' it is inefficient.
When i was young, never had any trouble finding a job until Thatcher turned up. Now, 75% of my immediate family do not have properly paid employment - and not for want of trying.
The rich benefit through ownership of large companies, but these companies employ less and less people in their home countries. The only new jobs are in low paid service delivery; unfortunately the pay is not enough to even pay the rent. Hence the boom in benefit dependency. I see it in UK, sure the same affects USA. It is always POSSIBLE to succeed through hard work, brains and an element of luck, but it is becoming harder all the time.
Rather than pay someone to do nothing, it must be better for the country to provide work at a living wage, even if 'theoretically' it is inefficient.
When i was young, never had any trouble finding a job until Thatcher turned up. Now, 75% of my immediate family do not have properly paid employment - and not for want of trying.
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firsttimebangkok
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- Joined: March 18, 2010, 11:32 am
End of the United States.......
In February, the board of commissioners of Ohio's Ashtabula County faced a scene familiar to local governments across America: a budget shortfall. They began to cut spending and reduced the sheriff's budget by 20 per cent. A law enforcement agency staff that only a few years ago numbered 112, and had subsequently been pared down to 70, was cut again to 49 people and just one squad car for a county of 1,900 sq. km along the shore of Lake Erie. The sheriff's department adapted. "We have no patrol units. There is no one on the streets. We respond to only crimes in progress. We don't respond to property crimes," deputy sheriff Ron Fenton told Maclean's. The county once had a "very proactive" detective division in narcotics. Now, there is no detective division. "We are down to one evidence officer and he just runs the evidence room in case someone wants to claim property," said Fenton. "People are getting property stolen, their houses broken into, and there is no one investigating. We are basically just writing up a report for the insurance company."
If a county without police seems like a weird throwback to an earlier, frontier-like moment in American history, it is not the only one. "Back to the Stone Age" is the name of a seminar organized in March by civil engineers at Indiana's Purdue University for local county supervisors interested in saving money by breaking up paved roads and turning them back to gravel. While only some paved roads in the state have been broken up, "There are a substantial number of conversations going on," John Habermann, who manages a program at Purdue that helps local governments take care of infrastructure, told Maclean's. "We presented a lot of talking points so that the county supervisors can talk logically back to elected officials when the question is posed," he said. The state of Michigan had similar conversations. It has converted at least 50 miles of paved road to gravel in the last few years.
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Welcome to the ground level of America's economic crisis. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5 per cent. One in 10 homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments. Home sales are at record lows. While the economy has been growing for several quarters, the growth is anemic - only 1.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year - and producing few new jobs.
Even with interest rates at unprecedented lows, there is anxiety about the possibility of a double-dip recession. Sales of existing homes are at their lowest level in 15 years, and new home sales plummeted this summer to the lowest levels on record. Property and sales tax revenues have shrunk. And nowhere is this more apparent than at the local government level, where officials are being forced to roll back the everyday hallmarks of modern civilization.
Cincinnati, Ohio, is cutting back on trash collection and snow removal and flling fewer potholes.
The city of Dallas is not picking up litter in public parks. Flint, Mich., laid off 23 of 88 firefighters and closed two fire stations. In some places it's almost literally the dark ages: the city of Shelton in Washington state decided to follow the example of numerous other localities and last week turned off 114 of its 860 street lights. Others have axed bus service and cut back on library hours. Class sizes are being increased and teachers are being laid off. School districts around the country are cutting the school day or the school week or the school year - effectively furloughing students. The National Association of Counties estimates that local governments will eliminate roughly half a million employees in the next fiscal year, with public safety, public works, public health, social services, and parks and recreation hardest hit by the cutbacks. A July survey by the association of counties, the National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors of 270 local governments found that 63 per cent of localities are cutting back on public safety and 60 per cent are cutting public works.
In August, the U.S. Congress passed a US$26-billion stimulus extension bill, aimed in part at saving teacher jobs. But it's a finger in the dike. Jacqueline Byers, director of research for the counties association, said many local governments have yet to confront the full impact of the real estate crisis on government revenues because they do tax assessments only every third year. A fundamental transformation is under way. "When we come out of this recession we're going to see government functioning very differently," says Byers. "We are seeing more public-private partnership than we ever had for things like recreation and parks. We are seeing some of them privatize libraries. They lease the library to a private corporation that employs the workers who don't carry retirement or health benefits." Or they could wind up like Hood River County, Ore., which in August closed its three libraries altogether.
Some governments are looking for creative ways to replace plummeting property and sales tax revenues. Facing a US$1-billion budget shortfall, Montgomery County in Maryland appealed for corporate sponsors to step up and adopt porta-potties in its public parks. In the end, the privies were saved by a combination of park employees taking early retirement, a few private sponsorships, and a negotiated discount from the supplier, Don's Johns. Meanwhile, Montgomery County's school system, banking on its reputation for high standards and test scores, took the unusual step of selling its curriculum to a private textbook publisher, Pearson, for US$2.3 million and royalties of up to three per cent on sales. As part of the deal, county classrooms can be used as "showrooms" - which critics said effectively turns students and teachers into salesmen for a corporation. But the superintendent, Jerry Weast, told the Washington Post, "I tend to look at this from the perspective that we are broke."
These cuts in infrastructure and education are more than just a temporary belt-tightening in response to a recession. They threaten long-term damage to American's economic foundation - a foundation that has long been eroding. When the eight-lane Interstate 35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145, the American Society of Civil Engineers warned that the infrastructure deficit of aging postwar highways and bridges amounted to US$1.6 trillion. More than a quarter of America's bridges were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Steam pipes have exploded in New York City and the levees failed in New Orleans.
Despite its position as the world's unrivalled superpower, international comparisons show the U.S. slipping on a number of fronts. On education, the United States has been falling behind, in everything from science and engineering to basic literacy. The U.S. once had the world's highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees; now it ranks 12th, according to the College Board, an association of education institutions. (Canada is now number one.) In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use; it now ranks 15th out of 30 nations, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "We have been involved for three decades now in paring back public commitments and public spending, and that started with the Reagan revolution. We are living with the outcomes and consequences," says Michael Bernstein, an economic historian at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, prolonged rates of high unemployment are taking a toll on families today, and will for years to come. Studies have shown that the longer a person is unemployed, the more difficult it is to find a job - partly because skills deteriorate, and partly because employers become suspicious of why someone hasn't worked for a year. "The United States is expanding its underclass of a whole group of individuals who will become less employable, less integrated, more subject to criminal and other deviant behaviour - and probably become part of the larger problem of structural poverty in America as well," says Sherle Shenninger, director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Arianna Huffington sees an even starker big picture emerging from the reams of bad economic news. "As we watch the middle class crumbling, for me this is a major indication that we are turning into a Third World country," said Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, in an interview. "The distinguishing characteristic of the Third World country is you have the people at the top and the rest - you don't have a thriving middle class," says Huffington, whose new book is entitled Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream.
America is moving "from the Jetsons to the Flintstones," she argues. "The American dream was already based on the idea you could work hard and do well and your children will do better. Now we are confronted with downward mobility across the board. You have the phenomenon of unprecedented numbers of college grads who can't get jobs." The current public sector cutbacks in education and infrastructure will only make things worse, Huffington says. "You are both hurting people in the present, and basically undercutting your economic growth and prosperity in the future."
But the problem isn't simply a product of the current recession or the 2008 financial crisis. It is now well understood that for years Americans lived beyond their means on borrowed money.
The real estate bubble enabled many homeowners to borrow against in?ated house prices, giving families the feeling that their wealth was increasing. It was all a mirage. Low interest rates and easy credit allowed consumers to spend enthusiastically, masking the fact that the standard of living and incomes were stagnating, and public and private investment was lagging.
Over the past decade, private sector job growth was sluggish. Combined with recession job losses, there are now only as many private sector jobs as there were in early 1999, a decade ago, while the population continues to grow. And incomes stagnated for a full decade - the longest such period since the U.S. Census Bureau has been keeping track of household income.
"There is certainly a serious erosion of both the American social contract and the American dream for a great majority of Americans," says Shenninger. "There is a worrying trend that the private sector has not been able to generate jobs for now more than a decade."
While business productivity increased - workers created more output per hour of work - that did not follow the traditional model of translating into higher wages. "Eighty to 90 per cent of productivity gains went to corporate profitability - which means that in order to make up for the gap in demand, working families resorted to relying on rising housing prices and debt," says Shenninger. Workers lost the ability to bargain for wage increases as they competed with lower-wage workers in Europe, Asia and other emerging markets. Meanwhile, corporate earnings exploded.
Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan administration trade official and president of the Economic Strategy Institute, says the scope of the problem came into focus for him one day last year when he read, in the same newspaper, that China was launching a new 240-mile-an-hour high-speed train, and then an article about city leaders in Pittsburgh considering a tax on university tuitions in order to fund the municipal employees' retirement pension plan. "I thought, the Chinese are building world-record trains and we're taxing kids who go to school!" says Prestowitz. "We've been in decline for quite some time - we haven't recognized it and have been fooling ourselves. But we've gotten to the point it's hard to not see."
There are numerous theories about the path America took to get where it is. Prestowitz blames the American approach to trade and globalization. A former trade negotiator who worked on NAFTA and advised Ronald Reagan's commerce secretary, he argues that at the root of the problem is a long-term American naïveté about global trade, a case he makes in his book The Betrayal of American Prosperity.
American jobs are being lost not only to low-wage competition from emerging economies, but to strategic policies by foreign governments to dominate critical sectors of the economy, or to keep their currency values low to promote exports. "Other countries recognize the importance of economies of scale and promote the development of certain industries, whether solar panels, or semiconductors, and we don't," says Prestowitz.
High-tech plants and research labs of companies such as Intel, Applied Materials, General Electric and BP have been moving to China because the Chinese are offering subsidies in the form of free energy, free infrastructure, reduced taxes and discounted utilities. Prestowitz made the argument earlier this year to a meeting of White House economists who were debating the administration's funding for alternative energies such as battery technologies. "My position was, if you spend all this money and not do anything about currency manipulation by China, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, if you don't do anything about the investment incentives being offered to companies like Applied Materials, if you don't deal with all those things and just give money to some battery company - forget it, that's money down the rathole."
Prestowitz accuses successive American administrations of sacrificing trade issues to geopolitics. "The highest priority for the U.S. government is national security. We need a base somewhere or a vote at the UN, and we make an economic concession," he says. Exhibit A: "The Obama administration has bent over backwards to avoid calling China a currency manipulator," he noted.Huffington blames politicians' domestic economic policies: first, Republicans for tax cuts and deregulation that favoured top earners and corporations, and now Democrats for failing to undo the damage. As a candidate, Barack Obama accused George W. Bush of ignoring the middle class, she notes. But now Huffington criticizes Obama for campaigning on prioritizing the middle class and then failing to do so in the White House. "What happened is he picked an economic team whose primary focus has been Wall Street and who dramatically underestimated the depth of the crisis," she says. "The emphasis has been on fixing Wall Street, which was bailed out without any strings attached, and which turned around and cut lending instead of lend more."
Shenninger points in part to foreign policy: waging expensive wars overseas rather than spending the money at home. "Our priorities are horribly distorted," he says. "We spent billions on new energy plants in Iraq and most of the money got siphoned off. We are spending billions of dollars trying to build schools in Afghanistan. But we are not willing to borrow at historically low rates to keep teachers at work or improve public infrastructure at home."
Whatever the causes, the way out is not clear. While some critics are calling for a major program of reinvestment in public infrastructure and reviving parts of the U.S. manufacturing base, the politics do not favour it. In a speech in Milwaukee on Monday, Obama asked Congress to pass a US$50-billion infrastructure spending program to refurbish roads, runways and railways. But concerns about government deficits among Republicans and some Democrats make it unlikely that any large spending package could pass Congress - especially after the gains the GOP is widely expected to make in the mid-term elections on Nov. 2.
Republicans are calling for aggressive spending cuts. When Democrats pushed through their spending bill for local governments, Republicans called it a "bailout" of pro?igate local governments that overindulged public sector unions with generous salaries and benefits. House Republican whip Eric Cantor called Obama's latest call for infrastructure spending "another play called from the same failed Keynesian playbook," adding, "We need to cut spending immediately and end the environment of uncertainty that continues to impede real private-sector job creation and growth." The GOP members on the House budget committee have identified US$1.3 trillion in potential cuts to federal spending. House minority leader John Boehner calls federal spending "a job killing agenda." " We have to remember that, even when spending is not at record-setting levels, each dollar the government collects is taken directly out of the private sector," Boehner said in a recent economic speech. He added: "I'm not afraid to tell you there's no money left. In fact, we're broke."
But where does that leave people like the good citizens of Ashtabula County, Ohio? How can they be safe from criminals without a fully staffed local police force, TV station WKYC asked a local judge in April. "Arm yourselves," came the reply from Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey. "Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, because we're going to have to look after each other."
And so they did. In July, a group of farmers removed the safeties from their shotgun triggers and surrounded a trailer in which a suspected house robber was hiding while they waited for the county's last, lone squad car to arrive.
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If a county without police seems like a weird throwback to an earlier, frontier-like moment in American history, it is not the only one. "Back to the Stone Age" is the name of a seminar organized in March by civil engineers at Indiana's Purdue University for local county supervisors interested in saving money by breaking up paved roads and turning them back to gravel. While only some paved roads in the state have been broken up, "There are a substantial number of conversations going on," John Habermann, who manages a program at Purdue that helps local governments take care of infrastructure, told Maclean's. "We presented a lot of talking points so that the county supervisors can talk logically back to elected officials when the question is posed," he said. The state of Michigan had similar conversations. It has converted at least 50 miles of paved road to gravel in the last few years.
Related Links
Post-racial America?
America is angry
How did America become the new Canada?
America's more friendly face
Why America turned on Obama
Welcome to the ground level of America's economic crisis. The U.S. unemployment rate is 9.5 per cent. One in 10 homeowners are behind on their mortgage payments. Home sales are at record lows. While the economy has been growing for several quarters, the growth is anemic - only 1.6 per cent in the second quarter of this year - and producing few new jobs.
Even with interest rates at unprecedented lows, there is anxiety about the possibility of a double-dip recession. Sales of existing homes are at their lowest level in 15 years, and new home sales plummeted this summer to the lowest levels on record. Property and sales tax revenues have shrunk. And nowhere is this more apparent than at the local government level, where officials are being forced to roll back the everyday hallmarks of modern civilization.
Cincinnati, Ohio, is cutting back on trash collection and snow removal and flling fewer potholes.
The city of Dallas is not picking up litter in public parks. Flint, Mich., laid off 23 of 88 firefighters and closed two fire stations. In some places it's almost literally the dark ages: the city of Shelton in Washington state decided to follow the example of numerous other localities and last week turned off 114 of its 860 street lights. Others have axed bus service and cut back on library hours. Class sizes are being increased and teachers are being laid off. School districts around the country are cutting the school day or the school week or the school year - effectively furloughing students. The National Association of Counties estimates that local governments will eliminate roughly half a million employees in the next fiscal year, with public safety, public works, public health, social services, and parks and recreation hardest hit by the cutbacks. A July survey by the association of counties, the National League of Cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors of 270 local governments found that 63 per cent of localities are cutting back on public safety and 60 per cent are cutting public works.
In August, the U.S. Congress passed a US$26-billion stimulus extension bill, aimed in part at saving teacher jobs. But it's a finger in the dike. Jacqueline Byers, director of research for the counties association, said many local governments have yet to confront the full impact of the real estate crisis on government revenues because they do tax assessments only every third year. A fundamental transformation is under way. "When we come out of this recession we're going to see government functioning very differently," says Byers. "We are seeing more public-private partnership than we ever had for things like recreation and parks. We are seeing some of them privatize libraries. They lease the library to a private corporation that employs the workers who don't carry retirement or health benefits." Or they could wind up like Hood River County, Ore., which in August closed its three libraries altogether.
Some governments are looking for creative ways to replace plummeting property and sales tax revenues. Facing a US$1-billion budget shortfall, Montgomery County in Maryland appealed for corporate sponsors to step up and adopt porta-potties in its public parks. In the end, the privies were saved by a combination of park employees taking early retirement, a few private sponsorships, and a negotiated discount from the supplier, Don's Johns. Meanwhile, Montgomery County's school system, banking on its reputation for high standards and test scores, took the unusual step of selling its curriculum to a private textbook publisher, Pearson, for US$2.3 million and royalties of up to three per cent on sales. As part of the deal, county classrooms can be used as "showrooms" - which critics said effectively turns students and teachers into salesmen for a corporation. But the superintendent, Jerry Weast, told the Washington Post, "I tend to look at this from the perspective that we are broke."
These cuts in infrastructure and education are more than just a temporary belt-tightening in response to a recession. They threaten long-term damage to American's economic foundation - a foundation that has long been eroding. When the eight-lane Interstate 35 bridge collapsed in Minneapolis in 2007, killing 13 people and injuring 145, the American Society of Civil Engineers warned that the infrastructure deficit of aging postwar highways and bridges amounted to US$1.6 trillion. More than a quarter of America's bridges were rated structurally deficient or functionally obsolete. Steam pipes have exploded in New York City and the levees failed in New Orleans.
Despite its position as the world's unrivalled superpower, international comparisons show the U.S. slipping on a number of fronts. On education, the United States has been falling behind, in everything from science and engineering to basic literacy. The U.S. once had the world's highest proportion of young adults with post-secondary degrees; now it ranks 12th, according to the College Board, an association of education institutions. (Canada is now number one.) In 2001, the U.S. ranked fourth in the world in per capita broadband Internet use; it now ranks 15th out of 30 nations, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. "We have been involved for three decades now in paring back public commitments and public spending, and that started with the Reagan revolution. We are living with the outcomes and consequences," says Michael Bernstein, an economic historian at Tulane University in New Orleans.
Meanwhile, prolonged rates of high unemployment are taking a toll on families today, and will for years to come. Studies have shown that the longer a person is unemployed, the more difficult it is to find a job - partly because skills deteriorate, and partly because employers become suspicious of why someone hasn't worked for a year. "The United States is expanding its underclass of a whole group of individuals who will become less employable, less integrated, more subject to criminal and other deviant behaviour - and probably become part of the larger problem of structural poverty in America as well," says Sherle Shenninger, director of the economic growth program at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank.
Arianna Huffington sees an even starker big picture emerging from the reams of bad economic news. "As we watch the middle class crumbling, for me this is a major indication that we are turning into a Third World country," said Huffington, founder of the Huffington Post, in an interview. "The distinguishing characteristic of the Third World country is you have the people at the top and the rest - you don't have a thriving middle class," says Huffington, whose new book is entitled Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream.
America is moving "from the Jetsons to the Flintstones," she argues. "The American dream was already based on the idea you could work hard and do well and your children will do better. Now we are confronted with downward mobility across the board. You have the phenomenon of unprecedented numbers of college grads who can't get jobs." The current public sector cutbacks in education and infrastructure will only make things worse, Huffington says. "You are both hurting people in the present, and basically undercutting your economic growth and prosperity in the future."
But the problem isn't simply a product of the current recession or the 2008 financial crisis. It is now well understood that for years Americans lived beyond their means on borrowed money.
The real estate bubble enabled many homeowners to borrow against in?ated house prices, giving families the feeling that their wealth was increasing. It was all a mirage. Low interest rates and easy credit allowed consumers to spend enthusiastically, masking the fact that the standard of living and incomes were stagnating, and public and private investment was lagging.
Over the past decade, private sector job growth was sluggish. Combined with recession job losses, there are now only as many private sector jobs as there were in early 1999, a decade ago, while the population continues to grow. And incomes stagnated for a full decade - the longest such period since the U.S. Census Bureau has been keeping track of household income.
"There is certainly a serious erosion of both the American social contract and the American dream for a great majority of Americans," says Shenninger. "There is a worrying trend that the private sector has not been able to generate jobs for now more than a decade."
While business productivity increased - workers created more output per hour of work - that did not follow the traditional model of translating into higher wages. "Eighty to 90 per cent of productivity gains went to corporate profitability - which means that in order to make up for the gap in demand, working families resorted to relying on rising housing prices and debt," says Shenninger. Workers lost the ability to bargain for wage increases as they competed with lower-wage workers in Europe, Asia and other emerging markets. Meanwhile, corporate earnings exploded.
Clyde Prestowitz, a former Reagan administration trade official and president of the Economic Strategy Institute, says the scope of the problem came into focus for him one day last year when he read, in the same newspaper, that China was launching a new 240-mile-an-hour high-speed train, and then an article about city leaders in Pittsburgh considering a tax on university tuitions in order to fund the municipal employees' retirement pension plan. "I thought, the Chinese are building world-record trains and we're taxing kids who go to school!" says Prestowitz. "We've been in decline for quite some time - we haven't recognized it and have been fooling ourselves. But we've gotten to the point it's hard to not see."
There are numerous theories about the path America took to get where it is. Prestowitz blames the American approach to trade and globalization. A former trade negotiator who worked on NAFTA and advised Ronald Reagan's commerce secretary, he argues that at the root of the problem is a long-term American naïveté about global trade, a case he makes in his book The Betrayal of American Prosperity.
American jobs are being lost not only to low-wage competition from emerging economies, but to strategic policies by foreign governments to dominate critical sectors of the economy, or to keep their currency values low to promote exports. "Other countries recognize the importance of economies of scale and promote the development of certain industries, whether solar panels, or semiconductors, and we don't," says Prestowitz.
High-tech plants and research labs of companies such as Intel, Applied Materials, General Electric and BP have been moving to China because the Chinese are offering subsidies in the form of free energy, free infrastructure, reduced taxes and discounted utilities. Prestowitz made the argument earlier this year to a meeting of White House economists who were debating the administration's funding for alternative energies such as battery technologies. "My position was, if you spend all this money and not do anything about currency manipulation by China, South Korea, Singapore, Taiwan, Malaysia, Thailand, if you don't do anything about the investment incentives being offered to companies like Applied Materials, if you don't deal with all those things and just give money to some battery company - forget it, that's money down the rathole."
Prestowitz accuses successive American administrations of sacrificing trade issues to geopolitics. "The highest priority for the U.S. government is national security. We need a base somewhere or a vote at the UN, and we make an economic concession," he says. Exhibit A: "The Obama administration has bent over backwards to avoid calling China a currency manipulator," he noted.Huffington blames politicians' domestic economic policies: first, Republicans for tax cuts and deregulation that favoured top earners and corporations, and now Democrats for failing to undo the damage. As a candidate, Barack Obama accused George W. Bush of ignoring the middle class, she notes. But now Huffington criticizes Obama for campaigning on prioritizing the middle class and then failing to do so in the White House. "What happened is he picked an economic team whose primary focus has been Wall Street and who dramatically underestimated the depth of the crisis," she says. "The emphasis has been on fixing Wall Street, which was bailed out without any strings attached, and which turned around and cut lending instead of lend more."
Shenninger points in part to foreign policy: waging expensive wars overseas rather than spending the money at home. "Our priorities are horribly distorted," he says. "We spent billions on new energy plants in Iraq and most of the money got siphoned off. We are spending billions of dollars trying to build schools in Afghanistan. But we are not willing to borrow at historically low rates to keep teachers at work or improve public infrastructure at home."
Whatever the causes, the way out is not clear. While some critics are calling for a major program of reinvestment in public infrastructure and reviving parts of the U.S. manufacturing base, the politics do not favour it. In a speech in Milwaukee on Monday, Obama asked Congress to pass a US$50-billion infrastructure spending program to refurbish roads, runways and railways. But concerns about government deficits among Republicans and some Democrats make it unlikely that any large spending package could pass Congress - especially after the gains the GOP is widely expected to make in the mid-term elections on Nov. 2.
Republicans are calling for aggressive spending cuts. When Democrats pushed through their spending bill for local governments, Republicans called it a "bailout" of pro?igate local governments that overindulged public sector unions with generous salaries and benefits. House Republican whip Eric Cantor called Obama's latest call for infrastructure spending "another play called from the same failed Keynesian playbook," adding, "We need to cut spending immediately and end the environment of uncertainty that continues to impede real private-sector job creation and growth." The GOP members on the House budget committee have identified US$1.3 trillion in potential cuts to federal spending. House minority leader John Boehner calls federal spending "a job killing agenda." " We have to remember that, even when spending is not at record-setting levels, each dollar the government collects is taken directly out of the private sector," Boehner said in a recent economic speech. He added: "I'm not afraid to tell you there's no money left. In fact, we're broke."
But where does that leave people like the good citizens of Ashtabula County, Ohio? How can they be safe from criminals without a fully staffed local police force, TV station WKYC asked a local judge in April. "Arm yourselves," came the reply from Ashtabula County Common Pleas Judge Alfred Mackey. "Be very careful, be vigilant, get in touch with your neighbors, because we're going to have to look after each other."
And so they did. In July, a group of farmers removed the safeties from their shotgun triggers and surrounded a trailer in which a suspected house robber was hiding while they waited for the county's last, lone squad car to arrive.
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Re: Is America becoming a 3rd World economy?
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