America No. 1?

[yeti]

This article originally appeared in early 2005. Does anyone think the stats have improved since then?
--------------------------------------

America by the numbers

Michael Ventura, Information Clearing House, 02/03/05

No concept lies more firmly embedded in our national character than the notion that the USA is "No. 1," "the greatest." Our broadcast media are, in essence, continuous advertisements for the brand name "America Is No. 1." Any office seeker saying otherwise would be committing political suicide. In fact, anyone saying otherwise will be labeled "un-American." We're an "empire," ain't we? Sure we are. An empire without a manufacturing base. An empire that must borrow $2 billion a day from its competitors in order to function. Yet the delusion is ineradicable. We're No. 1. Well...this is the country you really live in:

• The United States is 49th in the world in literacy (the New York Times, Dec. 12, 2004).
• The United States ranked 28th out of 40 countries in mathematical literacy (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Twenty percent of Americans think the sun orbits the earth. Seventeen percent believe the earth revolves around the sun once a day (The Week, Jan. 7, 2005).
• “The International Adult Literacy Survey…found that Americans with less than nine years of education ’score worse than virtually all of the other countries’” (Jeremy Rifkin’s superbly documented book The European Dream: How Europe’s Vision of the Future Is Quietly Eclipsing the American Dream, p.78).
• Our workers are so ignorant and lack so many basic skills that American businesses spend $30 billion a year on remedial training (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004). No wonder they relocate elsewhere!
• “The European Union leads the U.S. in…the number of science and engineering graduates; public research and development (R&D) expenditures; and new capital raised” (The European Dream, p.70).
• “Europe surpassed the United States in the mid-1990s as the largest producer of scientific literature” (The European Dream, p.70).
• Nevertheless, Congress cut funds to the National Science Foundation. The agency will issue 1,000 fewer research grants this year (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004).
• Foreign applications to U.S. grad schools declined 28 percent last year. Foreign student enrollment on all levels fell for the first time in three decades, but increased greatly in Europe and China. Last year Chinese grad-school graduates in the U.S. dropped 56 percent, Indians 51 percent, South Koreans 28 percent (NYT, Dec. 21, 2004). We’re not the place to be anymore.
• The World Health Organization “ranked the countries of the world in terms of overall health performance, and the U.S. [was]…37th.” In the fairness of health care, we’re 54th. “The irony is that the United States spends more per capita for health care than any other nation in the world” (The European Dream, pp.79-80). Pay more, get lots, lots less.
• “The U.S. and South Africa are the only two developed countries in the world that do not provide health care for all their citizens” (The European Dream, p.80). Excuse me, but since when is South Africa a “developed” country? Anyway, that’s the company we’re keeping.
• Lack of health insurance coverage causes 18,000 unnecessary American deaths a year. (That’s six times the number of people killed on 9/11.) (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005.)
• “U.S. childhood poverty now ranks 22nd, or second to last, among the developed nations. Only Mexico scores lower” (The European Dream, p.81). Been to Mexico lately? Does it look “developed” to you? Yet it’s the only “developed” country to score lower in childhood poverty.
• Twelve million American families–more than 10 percent of all U.S. households–”continue to struggle, and not always successfully, to feed themselves.” Families that “had members who actually went hungry at some point last year” numbered 3.9 million (NYT, Nov. 22, 2004).
• The United States is 41st in the world in infant mortality. Cuba scores higher (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• Women are 70 percent more likely to die in childbirth in America than in Europe (NYT, Jan. 12, 2005).
• The leading cause of death of pregnant women in this country is murder (CNN, Dec. 14, 2004).
• “Of the 20 most developed countries in the world, the U.S. was dead last in the growth rate of total compensation to its workforce in the 1980s…. In the 1990s, the U.S. average compensation growth rate grew only slightly, at an annual rate of about 0.1 percent” (The European Dream, p.39). Yet Americans work longer hours per year than any other industrialized country, and get less vacation time.
• “Sixty-one of the 140 biggest companies on the Global Fortune 500 rankings are European, while only 50 are U.S. companies” (The European Dream, p.66). “In a recent survey of the world’s 50 best companies, conducted by Global Finance, all but one were European” (The European Dream, p.69).
• “Fourteen of the 20 largest commercial banks in the world today are European…. In the chemical industry, the European company BASF is the world’s leader, and three of the top six players are European. In engineering and construction, three of the top five companies are European…. The two others are Japanese. Not a single American engineering and construction company is included among the world’s top nine competitors. In food and consumer products, Nestlé and Unilever, two European giants, rank first and second, respectively, in the world. In the food and drugstore retail trade, two European companies…are first and second, and European companies make up five of the top ten. Only four U.S. companies are on the list” (The European Dream, p.68).
• The United States has lost 1.3 million jobs to China in the last decade (CNN, Jan. 12, 2005).
• U.S. employers eliminated 1 million jobs in 2004 (The Week, Jan. 14, 2005).
• Three million six hundred thousand Americans ran out of unemployment insurance last year; 1.8 million–one in five–unemployed workers are jobless for more than six months (NYT, Jan. 9, 2005).
• Japan, China, Taiwan, and South Korea hold 40 percent of our government debt. (That’s why we talk nice to them.) “By helping keep mortgage rates from rising, China has come to play an enormous and little-noticed role in sustaining the American housing boom” (NYT, Dec. 4, 2004). Read that twice. We owe our housing boom to China, because they want us to keep buying all that stuff they manufacture.
• Sometime in the next 10 years Brazil will probably pass the U.S. as the world’s largest agricultural producer. Brazil is now the world’s largest exporter of chickens, orange juice, sugar, coffee, and tobacco. Last year, Brazil passed the U.S. as the world’s largest beef producer. (Hear that, you poor deluded cowboys?) As a result, while we bear record trade deficits, Brazil boasts a $30 billion trade surplus (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• As of last June, the U.S. imported more food than it exported (NYT, Dec. 12, 2004).
• Bush: 62,027,582 votes. Kerry: 59,026,003 votes. Number of eligible voters who didn’t show up: 79,279,000 (NYT, Dec. 26, 2004). That’s more than a third. Way more. If more than a third of Iraqis don’t show for their election, no country in the world will think that election legitimate.
• One-third of all U.S. children are born out of wedlock. One-half of all U.S. children will live in a one-parent house (CNN, Dec. 10, 2004).
• “Americans are now spending more money on gambling than on movies, videos, DVDs, music, and books combined” (The European Dream, p.28).
• “Nearly one out of four Americans [believe] that using violence to get what they want is acceptable” (The European Dream, p.32).
• Forty-three percent of Americans think torture is sometimes justified, according to a PEW Poll (Associated Press, Aug. 19, 2004).
• “Nearly 900,000 children were abused or neglected in 2002, the last year for which such data are available” (USA Today, Dec. 21, 2004).
• “The International Association of Chiefs of Police said that cuts by the [Bush] administration in federal aid to local police agencies have left the nation more vulnerable than ever” (USA Today, Nov. 17, 2004).
  

No. 1? In most important categories we're not even in the Top 10 anymore. Not even close.

The USA is "No. 1" in nothing but weaponry, consumer spending, debt, and delusion.

Reprinted from The Austin Chronicle.

[NickHedge]

You made my case for me yeti. The people in this country are idiots who continually keep their head up their asses. Why? Because they are stupid. Not ignorant, but stupid. And it is by choice no less. I've never seen the level of idiotic behavior in my life. When you see illiterate southern or northerners raise a beer and shout that america is the greatest country in the world? It not only sounds stupid but looks stupid too. The reality shows ALONE prove this out. The people on those shows are an embarrassment to this country.

Once again, the reason this country is in the shape it is in is because of the people. Not the politicians, but the people. The politicians are guilty of playing on the stupidity. That is their crime. But the people have to take the blame for the overall problem. Slackness, laziness & complacency do have their penalties.

The people are not forced to be stupid. They have a choice. We all have a choice. I could choose to do things the easy way and forget everything that I have been taught, but I choose not to. I want to remember and I want to keep functioning. I want my brain to work.

I know exactly what your post is talking about. I have been in Indiana for about 3-4 weeks now for my job. I go out on the weekends and try to learn a little about my surroundings. In doing so I have run across some interesting places. One of which was so odd and unusual I still haven't grasped the entire experience yet.

Has anyone ever been to a GOODWILL OUTLET? Not your regular Goodwill store, mind you. But an OUTLET. Here's how it is done.

They have these long bins on wheels. Blue ones, 8 -10 feet long. Filled with JUNK! Their back room has a ton of these bins. They get stuff in from wherever (assuming other Goodwill Stores can't sell their stuff) and bring it in in 18 wheelers. Off load it into these bins that are rolled out onto the floor and the people pour in and start picking through these bins. They toss the stuff around and fill up their carts with junk. You have broken computer monitors and broken phones, broken glass objects, vcr tapes, broken toys, pictures, shoes, etc. It's all trash.

To top it off it is sold by the pound - $1.39 a pound. You wheel your cart up to the register and roll it over a scale that is in the floor. If you are carrying things in your hand they have a scale on the counter. Except for books, they are not sold by the pound. Books are .50 cents each.

I went in the first time and just walked around since I had never been in a place like that before and watched the people. What I saw were two things right off the bat. 95% of the people were Mexican and the rest were poor white trash. The common denominator between the two groups were that all of them were dead. If you look them in the eyes they have nothing back there. Just zombies. But the energy level was so high that it sucks whatever you have right out of you. I was in there 30 minutes and left with a migraine headache beginning. The pure negativity of it all. Zombies grabbing at junk and wandering around like they were doing the thorzene shuffle. I can't explain it any better than that.

I went back a 2nd time to see if that was some kind of fluke, but no, it was the same. A giant store filled with long blue bins, filled up with all kinds of junk with people sifting through the bins of junk. Same reaction in the end, drained and the worst feeling of emptiness I have ever felt before.

I told a co-worker later that I could easily see that type of shopping in the near future for all of us once we are brought down to a welfare state. That may be our new Walmart. But the people had nothing going on upstairs at all. It's a scary thought. I have never witnessed anything like it in my life.

You can make the people say the country is #1 but that doesn't make it so. They can demand you say it by intimidating the people and coercing them but that doesn't make it so either. If the powers that be are trying to raise a country of blind devotees who will chant whatever they are told then it works. But then all you have are blind devotees that are totally useless in the end.

Let's see, how did that manchurian candidate quote go again? "Raymond Shaw is the kindest, bravest, warmest, most wonderful human being I've ever known in my life".

[---]

just because the population has been psychically brutalised doesn't detract from the fact that the country still has a very strong manufacturing base, access to raw materials and energy, which in a stripped down global economy could/would still function for all intents and purposes unilaterally/independently,in what is also geographically highly defensible location .

America is No.1, yes

[NickHedge]

I would normally agree with that argument except in the very stubborn sense that there is very little that is still produced in this country. Most manufacturers have left. They leave this country due to the fact that they don't want to pay the wages necessary for the people to live a somewhat decent existence. I am a single man working a regular job in aircraft maintenance. I maintain a house where I spend very little time throughout the year because my job requires that I travel. I live on the road for the most part. So I have to cover the bills of a house, PLUS I have to maintain myself while on the road until I get reimbursed once a month. That is taking into account that the company (which is American) can reimburse me as they are supposed to. I can't exist for $7.50 an hour, 40 hours a week. Can't be done. I make under $20 an hour and I don't have that many outstanding bills but I do have them. I don't have health insurance so I have to cover my own. But it is very hard to try to put back anything so that I can think about retiring later. I don't do 401K's or IRA's, those are rip offs. But I will tell you this much, I know for a fact that if my company can hire cheaper, they will do it. But they can't hire illegals because of the FAA. They would if they could. This is what I know.

What companies do exist here in this country are paying such low wages that the only people who will work for them are illegals. Or people who can afford to. That is the question in the end....what job can you afford?

We may have resources, raw materials and energy but you have so much politics being played that they never get utilized the way they need to. Do we need to refer back to JP Morgan and what he did with Tesla? Morgan was not about to give away electricity when he could slap up a meter and charge everyone for it. Same thing only magnified today. The people don't have the access to resources because of the elites controlling them. And if they do get access to them they pay a very exorbitant price for them. Most often times more than what the item is worth.

As far as a defense system? This country is stretched very thin if what you are referring to is a militaristic defense system. We can't be all over the world and here too, we don't have the bodies for that. We have over 20,000 troops in Haiti right now. You don't hear about it on the MSM but that doesn't change the fact that we are there. How many troops are in Afghanistan?, Iraq?, Pakistan?, Europe? Middle East? We are in those places because we maintain bases in those places. But how many troops are here? Could we defend ourselves if we had too? I doubt it. But then I would also consider that on purpose as well.

We don't enjoy the #1 status that we used to. Most all the other countries in the world hate us, see us as bullies and self appointed police. They see us as obnoxious, fat, lazy, imbecilic bags of flesh. The only thing that other countries want from us when we visit them is to stimulate their economies and then get the hell out.

I experienced that once when I was planning a trip out of the country and while at the Travel Agent the message that I was given in trying to decide where I wanted to go and for how long was that Americans were not that popular abroad. In talking to people from other countries I have heard the same thing.

A bully who controls a neighborhood block isn't necessarily #1 because he controls all the other people in the neighborhood. He rules by intimidation and force, which we do. That doesn't make us great, that makes us a bully who rules by intimidation and force.

[April]

[---]

Quote:I would normally agree with that argument except in the very stubborn sense that there is very little that is still produced in this country. Most manufacturers have left.

not according to the statistic's Friedman cites in "the next hundred years". He states quite explicitly that the argument that America is beleaguered and in the throws of endemic decline is a misnomer. When I look around the world through the web, I find myself tending to agree.

As I said just because that the population is being ransacked, it does not necessarily follow that the military industrial combine is in bad shape in any way.

Friedman's stats about raw materials, manufacturing base, energy reserves and geopolitical position all in reference to North America are quite enlightening and diametrically oppose to much of the conjecture found through this field. jmo

America = number one

[NickHedge]

Yes, well you have to agree that "statistics" are often times not all that they are held up to be. Just because someone quotes numbers doesn't make it so. You also have to contend that the web is not the most reliable of places either. I travel a great deal for my job and have cris-crossed the country several times and have seen first hand the unemployment and places where businesses used to be. Companies are moving out. It's about the bottom line and when companies think bottom line they think cheap.

Example: GM supposedly just paid back their bail out money. Supposedly. When you get right down to what they did, they sacked 65,000 jobs and eliminated the pensions that went along with them. This is a US based company. That's alot of people. They didn't make the money to pay the bail out - they cut jobs and pensions to do it. There's a difference.

I tend to go with things that I see first hand, before I will take the word of someone I have read. This society wants everyone paying attention to polls and stats and I don't live my life according to that. I go by what I see in real life. Information is one thing, but you have to put it in its proper perspective. Consider it yes, but look around you and see if what you are seeing is the same as what someone wrote about in the paper or a book.

It's easy to give an opinion (we all know I do it), and we know that the think tanks purposely put out flawed information, we also know that if the government has their way we will be educated with flawed information. We have to look around us and make our own decisions. I see plenty of towns that "used to be" and those on their way to "used to being", and those that are just "barely hanging on" and those that are "doing pretty well".

The town I am in right now USED to have United Airlines Maintenance Facility here. It employed thousands and thousands of people. A purpose built building made just for that company. Then 911 hit and United moved back to California and cut their personnel substantially. The building stood empty because not just anyone could move into and use it. It finally was taken over by a company a few years ago. But it does not employ the numbers that United did. It hurt this city when United packed up and left. United had no loyalties to this town. Sure they got some deals for building here but when it came time to their personal profits and what was good for them, they packed up so fast it made people's heads spin. I still run into guys along the way that used to work here. They all say the same thing, that one day they went to work and the company had moved away, it happened that fast. This is the way business is done in this country. No loyalty to the workers.

Remember, the two most important things to a corporation is their bottom line and their PROJECTED PROFITS. If they don't meet those two things, then employees have to go and/or the company has to move to cheaper locations. It's all about the politics and the money. People and their needs are quite incidental.

[---]

here you go...

Quote:There is a deep- seated belief in America that the United States is approaching
the eve of its destruction. Read letters to the editor, peruse
the Web, and listen to public discourse. Disastrous wars, uncontrolled
deficits, high gasoline prices, shootings at universities, corruption in
business and government, and an endless litany of other shortcomings—all
of them quite real—create a sense that the American dream has been shattered
and that America is past its prime. If that doesn’t convince you, listen
to Europeans. They will assure you that America’s best day is behind it.
The odd thing is that all of this foreboding was present during the presidency
of Richard Nixon, together with many of the same issues. There is
a continual fear that American power and prosperity are illusory, and that
disaster is just around the corner. The sense transcends ideology. Environmentalists
and Christian conservatives are both delivering the same message.
Unless we repent of our ways, we will pay the price—and it may be too
late already.
It’s interesting to note that the nation that believes in its manifest destiny
has not only a sense of impending disaster but a nagging feeling that the
country simply isn’t what it used to be. We have a deep sense of nostalgia for
16 t h e n e x t 1 0 0 yea r s
the 1950s as a “simpler” time. This is quite a strange belief. With the Korean
War and McCarthy at one end, Little Rock in the middle, and Sputnik and
Berlin at the other end, and the very real threat of nuclear war throughout,
the 1950s was actually a time of intense anxiety and foreboding. A widely
read book published in the 1950s was entitled The Age of Anxiety. In the
1950s, they looked back nostalgically at an earlier America, just as we look
back nostalgically at the 1950s.
American culture is the manic combination of exultant hubris and profound
gloom. The net result is a sense of confidence constantly undermined
by the fear that we may be drowned by melting ice caps caused by global
warming or smitten dead by a wrathful God for gay marriage, both outcomes
being our personal responsibility. American mood swings make it hard to
develop a real sense of the United States at the beginning of the twenty- first
century. But the fact is that the United States is stunningly powerful. It may
be that it is heading for a catastrophe, but it is hard to see one when you
look at the basic facts.
Let’s consider some illuminating figures. Americans constitute about 4
percent of the world’s population but produce about 26 percent of all goods
and services. In 2007 U.S. gross domestic product was about $14 trillion,
compared to the world’s GDP of $54 trillion—about 26 percent of the
world’s economic activity takes place in the United States. The next largest
economy in the world is Japan’s, with a GDP of about $4.4 trillion—about
a third the size of ours. The American economy is so huge that it is larger
than the economies of the next four countries combined: Japan, Germany,
China, and the United Kingdom.
Many people point at the declining auto and steel industries, which a
generation ago were the mainstays of the American economy, as examples of
a current deindustrialization of the United States. Certainly, a lot of industry
has moved overseas. That has left the United States with industrial production
of only $2.8 trillion (in 2006): the largest in the world, more than
twice the size of the next largest industrial power, Japan, and larger than
Japan’s and China’s industries combined.
There is talk of oil shortages, which certainly seem to exist and will undoubtedly
increase. However, it is important to realize that the United States
produced 8.3 million barrels of oil every day in 2006. Compare that with
17 the dawn of the american age
9.7 million for Russia and 10.7 million for Saudi Arabia. U.S. oil production
is 85 percent that of Saudi Arabia. The United States produces more oil
than Iran, Kuwait, or the United Arab Emirates. Imports of oil into the
country are vast, but given its industrial production, that’s understandable.
Comparing natural gas production in 2006, Russia was in first place with
22.4 trillion cubic feet and the United States was second with 18.7 trillion
cubic feet. U.S. natural gas production is greater than that of the next five
producers combined. In other words, although there is great concern that
the United States is wholly dependent on foreign energy, it is actually one of
the world’s largest energy producers.
Given the vast size of the American economy, it is interesting to note
that the United States is still underpopulated by global standards. Measured
in inhabitants per square kilometer, the world’s average population density
is 49. Japan’s is 338, Germany’s is 230, and America’s is only 31. If we exclude
Alaska, which is largely uninhabitable, U.S. population density rises
to 34. Compared to Japan or Germany, or the rest of Europe, the United
States is hugely underpopulated. Even when we simply compare population
in proportion to arable land—land that is suitable for agriculture—America
has five times as much land per person as Asia, almost twice as much as Europe,
and three times as much as the global average. An economy consists of
land, labor, and capital. In the case of the United States, these numbers
show that the nation can still grow—it has plenty of room to increase all
three.
There are many answers to the question of why the U.S. economy is so
powerful, but the simplest answer is military power. The United States completely
dominates a continent that is invulnerable to invasion and occupation
and in which its military overwhelms those of its neighbors. Virtually
every other industrial power in the world has experienced devastating warfare
in the twentieth century. The United States waged war, but America itself
never experienced it. Military power and geographical reality created an
economic reality. Other countries have lost time recovering from wars. The
United States has not. It has actually grown because of them.
Consider this simple fact that I’ll be returning to many times. The
United States Navy controls all of the oceans of the world. Whether it’s a
junk in the South China Sea, a dhow off the African coast, a tanker in the
18 t h e n e x t 1 0 0 yea r s
Persian Gulf, or a cabin cruiser in the Caribbean, every ship in the world
moves under the eyes of American satellites in space and its movement is
guaranteed—or denied—at will by the U.S. Navy. The combined naval
force of the rest of the world doesn’t come close to equaling that of the U.S.
Navy.
This has never happened before in human history, even with Britain.
There have been regionally dominant navies, but never one that was globally
and overwhelmingly dominant. This has meant that the United States
could invade other countries—but never be invaded. It has meant that in
the final analysis the United States controls international trade. It has become
the foundation of American security and American wealth. Control of
the seas emerged after World War II, solidified during the final phase of the
European Age, and is now the flip side of American economic power, the
basis of its military power.
Whatever passing problems exist for the United States, the most important
factor in world affairs is the tremendous imbalance of economic, military,
and political power. Any attempt to forecast the twenty- first century
that does not begin with the recognition of the extraordinary nature of
American power is out of touch with reality. But I am making a broader,
more unexpected claim, too: the United States is only at the beginning of its
power. The twenty- first century will be the American century.
That assertion rests on a deeper point. For the past five hundred years,
the global system has rested on the power of Atlantic Europe, the European
countries that bordered on the Atlantic Ocean: Portugal, Spain, France, England,
and to a lesser extent the Netherlands. These countries transformed
the world, creating the first global political and economic system in human
history. As we know, European power collapsed during the twentieth century,
along with the European empires. This created a vacuum that was
filled by the United States, the dominant power in North America, and the
only great power bordering both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. North
America has assumed the place that Europe occupied for five hundred years,
between Columbus’s voyage in 1492 and the fall of the Soviet Union in
1991. It has become the center of gravity of the international system.
Why? In order to understand the twenty- first century, it is important to
understand the fundamental structural shifts that took place late in the
19 the dawn of the american age
twentieth century, setting the stage for a new century that will be radically
different in form and substance, just as the United States is so different from
Europe. My argument is not only that something extraordinary has happened
but that the United States has had very little choice in it. This isn’t
about policy. It is about the way in which impersonal geopolitical forces
work...

read the stats for yourself

---

for your perusal:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Influen...on_History

[jack]

(04-27-2010 06:40 PM)NickHedge Wrote:  I would normally agree with that argument except in the very stubborn sense that there is very little that is still produced in this country. Most manufacturers have left. They leave this country due to the fact that they don't want to pay the wages necessary for the people to live a somewhat decent existence. I am a single man working a regular job in aircraft maintenance. I maintain a house where I spend very little time throughout the year because my job requires that I travel. I live on the road for the most part. So I have to cover the bills of a house, PLUS I have to maintain myself while on the road until I get reimbursed once a month. That is taking into account that the company (which is American) can reimburse me as they are supposed to. I can't exist for $7.50 an hour, 40 hours a week. Can't be done. I make under $20 an hour and I don't have that many outstanding bills but I do have them. I don't have health insurance so I have to cover my own. But it is very hard to try to put back anything so that I can think about retiring later. I don't do 401K's or IRA's, those are rip offs. But I will tell you this much, I know for a fact that if my company can hire cheaper, they will do it. But they can't hire illegals because of the FAA. They would if they could. This is what I know.

What companies do exist here in this country are paying such low wages that the only people who will work for them are illegals. Or people who can afford to. That is the question in the end....what job can you afford?

hey Nick you finally wrote a post that didn't cause me to cringe - hats off to u

I think we still make things - it's just either made thru automated means or inmates

Quote:We don't enjoy the #1 status that we used to. Most all the other countries in the world hate us, see us as bullies and self appointed police. They see us as obnoxious, fat, lazy, imbecilic bags of flesh. The only thing that other countries want from us when we visit them is to stimulate their economies and then get the hell out.

this sure seems to be true, which is why I get bothered by u adding to it.

Quote:A bully who controls a neighborhood block isn't necessarily #1 because he controls all the other people in the neighborhood. He rules by intimidation and force, which we do. That doesn't make us great, that makes us a bully who rules by intimidation and force.

this is true as well, but I still feel it necessary to point out - this is the administrators doings not the average citizens




.

[---]

i recorded the beginning of the chapter for you

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AtMTiA9jWXE

[---]

http://www.fas.org/spp/military/docops/usaf/2025/

[Deathaniel]

Like the reference to manufacturing by inmates or automated... and thats how it should be, but don't be too fooled into believing that as most consumer goods over 70 % are made in China and Taiwan, most items stamped MAde in USa were just assembled here...

No thr real issue is the base citizenery, I watched Idiotcracy on recommendation of this site and laughed my ass off as it shows what may if america survived becomes in a few hundred years.

as for natural resource, it's not as plenty as onewould assume and minerals take miners or people to maintain the machines to drill/ mine.... and the quality of your wood.... too many natural disasters later and thats all gone. Not it's that in times of old North americans were pioneers , used to roughing it, and adapting/ surviving while Europe with it's old cities, and small size had it's comforts, and the rest of the world sucked and hod no power (electricity ect... civilization of merit). so it was easy for america to be number one as it's people were amongst the best, and hardiness, but since ww2 that has changed as we became a media controlled environment, and dumbed down with luxury, now on the fifth generation most are functionally retarded. and the current schooling programs r'n going to change it and most are children of other wasted generations, and so it's now the blind leading the blind!

BUt there is hope some are still true to the ideals of self sufficiency, and are not under the media filter, are not over burdened with weak emotions, and false concern and have made sure they are able to survive with or without the nanny state, so is Any country in North america better then, any where outside of europe/ australia, you bet! but number 1.... naugh. personally i'd nerver live in america... i often joke when over seas and asked if I'm american and say Hell no I'm canadian the better half of North America" and twice it has got me instantaneous acceptance and promotions. so thats a good litmus for me as to world opinion on USA beyond my own bias of any country which taxes but doesn't offer health care... but thats a diff posting!

[NickHedge]

I appreciate the video nik, but I still have to stand fast on the point that I made. You do have to admit that "numbers do not lie, but liars will use numbers". It means that the numbers themselves do not lie, but that people who wish to lie can manipulate their calculations so that the numbers are misleading and support their assertions.

In our current society (I can speak about this one since I live in it), we are bombarded with the economists and their numbers, the pollsters and their numbers and the politicians and their numbers. The economists and pollsters work for the government so they are going to put out numbers that reflect the desire of the government at that particular moment.

Example: "Unemployment is down!!! There were fewer people signing up for unemployment benefits this past month". Well that may be true BUT what about the people who are still unemployed? What about the ones who just fell off the unemployment rolls because their benefits ran out? Those numbers aren't considered because they are not part of the agenda. The agenda is to make it look like unemployment is dropping. It's not, just fewer people signed up. The numbers still continue to grow in unemployed.

Example: Rasmussen, Zogby, Gallup, Quinnipiac, Pew, (take your pick, there are many pollsters, I have only listed a few) all are constantly bombarding us on TV & in the news with their polls on how Americans "supposedly" feel about whatever question they are putting forth to them.

What makes the polling flawed is that great time and effort are put into the structuring of the question in order to receive the desired answers. In other words to manipulate numbers. They just won't call up a person and ask a question. It is not that simple.

Numbers don't lie, liars use the numbers.

I tend to agree with Deathanyl in that there is very little manufactured in the US but there is more ASSEMBLED here. However, with that being said I would like to expand on an aspect of that just a little more.

In the aircraft industry your tools are your livelihood. You are only as good as the tools you have and KNOW how to use. I am very serious about the tools I use. Because there are so many and you have to know the difference between them, who makes them, where they are made, what materials are used in making them, helps you make an educated decision in how to buy and what to buy. I would rather pay more for a very good tool instead of paying $5 every two weeks for a cheaper version that breaks or bends. But not every mechanic feels or thinks like that. There are many mechanics out there that just buy whatever and they pay more for tools than I do and wonder why they are always buying tools.

My point here is that because I have to know these things makes me take a closer look at how things are manufactured in this country. These companies would have you think that they make their own tools when that simply is not true. There are a FEW tool manufacturers that make all the tools. A manufacturer can make Dewalt tools on one line and right beside it can be making Craftsman tools. The difference in these tools are the materials that go into them and how they are forged, etc. Most people have no clue about this. It is a very convulted business with a few companies making many different lines of tools. They are inside AND outside the country, but the manufacturers tend to be in the US. Most cheap tools are all made in China.

Onto debt....

The US has 17 different countries holding our debt. The two countries that hold the most of it are Japan and China. but there are 15 other countries who do have our debt. We are beholden to Japan and China and we have to do what they say for the most part because they can call in the debt anytime they choose. They own us. How can we be #1 under those circumstances? I want to know how anyone can come to that conclusion knowing how things really are?

It's like the mafia and your local business that everyone frequents because it has everything. What the people don't know is that your local business is paying protection money to the mafia. Why? Becuase the mafia says they will or the store will meet with disaster. So the store pays. But to the people of the neighborhood the store cheers for itself by saying "We're #1!". No their not, they are owned and operated by the mafia who can do whatever they want to that store at anytime they want. Just because the store says it is #1 doesn't make it so. No matter how many people say so.

I also want to know how anyone (especially people outside the US who do not live here) can say they know what is going on with the US. Now, we do have people who live in the US who are clueless about what is going on in their own backyard. But there are those of us who do pay attention and are not scared to look around ourselves and see what is happening. The system is breaking down. It's a fact. More and more people are unemployed. More and more smaller companies are closing up. Prices are going up. Gas just jumped $0.20 cents over night last night. Oil is dropping in price, why did the gas go up 20 cents?

If you can't afford gas, you can't afford to go to work, if you can't afford to go to work you cannot afford to live in a house/apt/condo/trailer/etc. You can't afford to buy food, pay bills, etc. What happens then? The country is in bad shape.

Rome fell due to the government imploding on itself, Britain never fell it just slipped into the shadows. It never failed. The US government is in the process of imploding in slow motion. I am listening to radio callers right now saying "THE US IS GREAT, but we are in bad shape". People will not admit it, they can't, because if they do they admit defeat. It's a catch 22. It's easier to fiddle while the city burns. Continue partying and don't worry about it. Ignore the obvious and it will go away.

I do want to weigh in on Deathanyl speaking about the movie "Idiocracy". I didn't laugh when I watched it, I was depressed. The reason being is because it was all too real for me. I know people like that and situations like that in this country. That movie was made as a comedy but it should be classified as a horror movie. It was anything but funny, it was quite sad indeed. We aren't going to be there we are already knocking at the door and walking in.

This is an excellent thread and I thank yeti for taking the time to post it. I wish we had more threads like this.

[Deathaniel]

(04-28-2010 04:32 PM)NickHedge Wrote:  I do want to weigh in on Deathanyl speaking about the movie "Idiocracy". I didn't laugh when I watched it, I was depressed. The reason being is because it was all too real for me. I know people like that and situations like that in this country. That movie was made as a comedy but it should be classified as a horror movie. It was anything but funny, it was quite sad indeed. We aren't going to be there we are already knocking at the door and walking in.

This is an excellent thread and I thank yeti for taking the time to post it. I wish we had more threads like this.

Agreed to yeti for this post!

Agreed some parts are there already in how the movie shows america. and it is sad i agree, i menyt I laughed as It is Scary true.

i used to work in telecommunications and after katrinia alot of us from the north were sent down to help with the clean up, me being one of them and my years of experience and that i worked all over canada in the three main types of tech, made me a crew leader, and part of what we did beyond fixing designated area was train 3 new crew in a 1 week peroid.

My first week i got 3 cubans, there english sucked but they learned how to do thejob and maybe even still have a job down there for all i know, i know for the next 2 months we were all down there i saw 2 of them often.

In the third week i got 1 american and two mexicans, the mexicans were slower then the cubans in learning but by the end of the week they were good enough to do basic lines man work and I&R (611 work). the american got another two weeks with me and still had to call me for help on jobs after daily!!!

am i saying all cubans are smarter...? no but they definably weigh better, and learn quicker, but i chalk it up to a better primary education and understanding of how things work. as a side note the American i had was not even a local, and had the reading skills of my 8yr old....

I lost the battle on my home front fro home schooling but the schools in Canada arn't too bad yet, They still pass kids so they don't "feel "bad if they fail (a grade) which i don't approve of, but if by 8 each of my kids can't read I plan to give them extra help. too many parents in america can't read! yet alone kinow how there own kids are doing, and large segments of america do consider smartness, and education "GAy" thats a big problem!!!

As for traveling there.... i admit i have not been in america other then miami in two years, and i know it's not fair to judge america via Miami... but this is a diverse crowd from all over, do an experiment in your area, hit up malls, mayor transit terminals, be lost and ask simple questions if your shy, and you'll be amazed how few know anything about life, history, or how to survive.

Anyone here know of rick mercier? he used to do a segment getting to know Americans, and he even got Governors on simple common sense shit, so if the dumb are in charge woe is you!!!

[---]

Quote:I appreciate the video nik, but I still have to stand fast on the point that I made. You do have to admit that "numbers do not lie, but liars will use numbers". It means that the numbers themselves do not lie, but that people who wish to lie can manipulate their calculations so that the numbers are misleading and support their assertions.

In our current society (I can speak about this one since I live in it), we are bombarded with the economists and their numbers, the pollsters and their numbers and the politicians and their numbers. The economists and pollsters work for the government so they are going to put out numbers that reflect the desire of the government at that particular moment.

um..ok. ..one could say much the same to contend the stats given in the original post.. You can take a horse to water but...

AFAIC the stats Friedman cites, speak for themselves - they are a MACRO view.


"I can speak about this one since I live in it" - ah ! ok! !

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(04-28-2010 07:04 PM)Deathanyl Wrote:  i used to work in telecommunications and after katrinia alot of us from the north were sent down to help with the clean up..

Before this happened were you already convinced the world was about to end?