College of Political Knowledge
Subject: American Government
With the 2012 election season quickly approaching all those candidates, or should I say, all those presumed candidates are trying to find the best hook to excite the American voter…the socialist tag is waning…..so what could they blame on Obama that would start the masses jerking off to vote?
I have it! American is in DECLINE and it is Obama’s fault!….his policies and those of the liberals are destroying our once great nation….sounds good? You betcha and it will make a helluva hook for Americans that listen to Limbaugh, Beck and other such notables…..
But the question remains…..Is America In Decline?
I believe it is! And it has been since the 90’s with all the terrible decisions made by our leaders…… And now you would like to know why, right?
After 30 years of some vague policies that have done little to improve life for most Americans….we are now entering into a period where , if things do not change, the Middle Class will be gone for as it is today, it is disappearing slowly…..
Millions of Americans see corporate power as the obstacle to progress and the negation of the democratic ideal of government of the people, by the people and for the people. They see that their vote means little and in most cases….NOTHING to the elected representatives……that their (the people’s) desires and concerns are seldom met, if at all……
Chrystia Freeland writing for Reuters:
Global capitalism isn’t working for the American middle class. That isn’t a headline from the left-leaning Huffington Post, or a comment on Glenn Beck’s right-wing populist blackboard. It is, instead, the conclusion of a rigorous analysis bearing the imprimatur of the U.S. establishment: the paper’s lead author is Michael Spence, recipient of the Nobel Prize in economic sciences, and it was published by the Council on Foreign Relations.
Spence and his co-author, Sandile Hlatshwayo, examined the changes in the structure of the U.S. economy, particularly employment trends, over the past 20 years. They found that value added per U.S. worker increased sharply during that period – 21 per cent for the economy as a whole, and 44 per cent in the “tradable” sector, which is geek-speak for those businesses integrated into the global economy. But even as productivity soared, wages and job opportunities stagnated.
This conclusion is a very big deal – Spence is telling us that global capitalism is working the way it should, but that the American middle class is losing out anyway. Since global capitalism is the best way we’ve come up with so far to run our economy, that creates quite a dilemma.
Spence is honest enough to admit that he has no easy answers. But he has posed the right question. American politicians in both parties are focused on a budget debate that is superficial, premature and ultimately about something pretty easy to figure out. Instead, we should all be working on the much bigger problem of how to make capitalism work for the American middle class.
Political games and partisan bullshit is bringing about the decline and the American people have NO one but themselves to blame!
Sad to say, my friends, America is in decline…..and if we fall….how long will the rest of the world stand? I am NOT preaching American Exceptionalism here but that so much of the world depends on the US for so much….how long can it last if the the US fails in a big way?
Yes, for once I agree with you almost 100%. I certainly agree that global capitalism is probably currently the best economic system around – for sure until something better comes along – if it ever does.
However, just look at those (relatively few) countries whose economies are surging forward despite the global economic downturn. What do China, India, Brazil and others have in common? They ALL have a huge new middle class and it is THEY who drive the economy (and just about everything else that’s successful in the countries in question). America is different. Yes, it IS in decline and so is its middle class. Is the middle class in decline because America is in decline? In my opinion – NO! America is in decline because its middle clas is in decline and THAT is directly attributable to the overbearing power of the wealthy and the corporations (the two of which are actually synonymous). ALL countries need their wealthy – in a capitalist society at least, but they must NOT be allowed to acquire disproportionate power.
For “one man, one vote” to be effective, you have to ensure that it is also a case of “one vote equals another and you CANNOT do that when the wealthy few (however much they supposedly spend in the economy) are responsible for and even own those who get elected.
At the risk of being boring (I know, I know – what else is new, eh?) it is your electoral SYSTEM that is the problem and the American economy may rise and fall, but the overall trend will ALWAYS be downward unless you take the big money out of the election process. Only then will you have a chance of your leaders being elected on the basis of MERIT, rather than wealth.
America has always decried “class” and the aristocracy (rightly so in my opinion), but in truth YOU have a far more serious problem with YOUR “aristocracy” (the wealthy who would sell their own children to hang on to their riches) than the UK EVER did with its hereditary systems of old.
Cool and there was no but…..anywhere….I am so impressed…..LOL
the electoral system IS the problem and the uncontrolled wealth of corporations used to elect people….and that is both parties….we have NO true representation in Washington…..
The ONE point I don’t entirely agree with is that last one… in many cases the world is only dependent on America for fixes for the problems that America helped in large measure to create in the first place – from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan to… wherever – the hand of American “foreign policy” can be seen as (in retrospect) anything but an influence for good – either at home OR abroad.
Oh crap…there was a but…..
But (my turn)….the policies of the Clinton group has made a lot of the other countries prosperity….not solely but it did not hurt…..
…and your point is? (never made me a dime that I’m aware of…)
Made outsourcing more lucrative…..
Frankly, I think that’s irrelevant. If you’re not good enough then you can’t be a world leader – it’s as simple as that. The US has NEVER understood trends in the world at large (America thinks it runs and dictates everything and it just doesn’t!) and that old idea of insularity always comes to the fore. You CANNOT carry on making the same old products with a new superficial look – the Japanese (for instance, but there are others) are light years ahead in automitive technology from where the US was in 2007/2008 and THAT was the problem for that industry in the US.
The UK did exactly the same more thirty or forty years ago – refusing to invest the capital that was needed and allowing daft, arrogant and often stupid (frequently even vindictive too) unions to control the industry. NOW, we don’t HAVE a motor industry at all to speak of, it’s as simple as that, and frankly serve us right for being damned so mean and so weak and stupid!
You CANNOT dwell in the past, or that’s where you get stuck. The US, like everyone else needs to move on and deal with reality, not some pie in the sky idea of “the good old days”, because they weren’t good, they were f*cking awful – just not as awful as the abyss into which you are staring right now if your politicians can’t get their act together and control the economy in a SENSIBLE way instead of all the partisan crap you are getting!
The problem there is that unions have not had a good position to control anything in the last 30 years….and now we get to the main cause of all these problems…lack of education and a economic system that is more and more on paper shuffling and NOT on actually making anything…..
I’ll agree with that – except the unions bit. Unions are, in my opinion, TOTALLY unnecessary EXCEPT when the economy is doing badly (which is FAR too often). However, the problem with unions is that they (just like the politicians and the corporations) don’t give sh*t about the people, but (again, like politicians), they pretend otherwise. Those in major unions who have significant power are (at best) interested only in two things – themselves and some twisted (and long discredited) ideological view of their own of society.
The Us has never been a massive union society…the auto industry and steel were about the only ones and at best only about 40% of workers were members…..so I agree with your observations on unions….as they are in the US it is NOT to the benefit of the worker only the leadership….