Comments on: The myth of America’s decline

By: jambrytay

jambrytay — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 21:42:23 +0000

Sorry woodchuck, I know facts aren’t as much fun as hype.

By: WouldChuk

WouldChuk — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 10:53:38 +0000

Banners may change but the one at the top of the page now advertises a “High Yield” savings acct … 0.75% … what more needs to be asked before even a really stupid somebody would reply, (like Yosemite Sam might…) “Boy, I say boy, I say, if that yield is what you call ‘high’ sumpthins really wrong in ‘River City,’ just saying.

By: WouldChuk

WouldChuk — Sun, 15 Apr 2012 10:45:28 +0000

Jambrytay boy… “puke!” What planet are you on?

By: jambrytay

jambrytay — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 16:15:42 +0000

i agree with his theme. we’re not nearly in as dire of a shape as most people believe.

we have problems for sure, but hand-wringing seems to be overdone. we have a lot of debt (this is a problem) but we mostly owe ourselves this debt.

we’re still the #1 or #2 manufacturer in the world (ranking depends on whose data you believe) and we’re far more productive that china who by some rankings are ahead of us in manufacturing.

we get ourselves all worked up over the demise of the middle class, but the reality is that the % of households in the lower and middle classes has fallen over the long term and the % of households in the upper income groups has grown over the long haul, i.e. we’re becoming more prosperous.

folks like to point to china or india as kicking our butt economically. look at where they were 20 years ago. they couldn’t go down, the only direction they had was up. china and india are like teenagers with big feet and tall parents, all they can do is grow. to compare us to them is to compare a start up company to a fortune 500 company.

yes, we have problems, but i dont think we’re nearly as bad-off as many people want to believe. for whatever reason, people like to wallow in bad news.

By: chrismartin

chrismartin — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 15:32:01 +0000

Is this guy serious? First of all he contradicts himself ¬–China wishes America well…and then he quotes a guy who says they see the world through their anti-imperial and anti-colonial pasts. What blows my mind about this so called writer is Saudi Arabia wishing America well as he suggests they would never want to upset our economic balance – has he not heard of the 1973 oil crisis? He talks about a non-corrupt American administration, really? Maybe he is speaking of an America that exists in another dimension. Going on he explains America will land softly in some sort of parity with other emerging nations ¬–does this guy have any clue how big the US military is and how it has been used? He talks about America strength as a consumer market, is this guy serious…how can you consume if your income continues to decline. Then he goes on to talk about failing at the polls, you can’t seriously think we have honest elections in America, The Federal Reserve and the powers that shaped it on Jekyll Island make all those decisions. He talks about –absolute decline as a distant prospect when earlier in his article it is a soft landing, again this guy is all over the map with this propaganda. Truman resilient? They bankrupted Japan before Pearl Harbor then dropped atom bombs on them, is he serious? He says the American economy is sputtering but not crumbling, maybe he should get out and take a drive through a middle class neighborhood or even the ghetto sometime, people have lost hope, real unemployment is twice what the government actuaries suggest. American manufacturing mounting a comeback, I just cannot take this guy seriously, it is obvious he has been put up to this by some agenda for which he serves, this article and this book is appalling and deceiving.

By: txgadfly

txgadfly — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:33:51 +0000

The power elite in the USA clearly has the good wishes of almost all rivals of the American People. This is because it would be very hard to our rivals to implant a regime less friendly to the well being of the vast bulk of the American population. And it would be difficult to install a less “democratic” election or representation system. Our ballots have no real choices, and any true alternative to current policies is not allowed on the ballot or on the media.

Of course the USA is in steep decline. Just ask almost anyone born here who has looked for a job in the past 5 years. The “American” aristocracy, many born in other countries, still rules without serious challenge. So what? They share very little commitment to the American people. They are our rulers for the moment, and will never be dislodged by the political mechanisms now in effect. Our elections are sham elections.

You cannot maintain an Empire structured on the progressive degradation of you primary population. Empires degrade other populations, not their own. Our power elite looks more like an ever growing parasite.

By: WouldChuk

WouldChuk — Fri, 13 Apr 2012 06:12:21 +0000

Hmmmmmmm. Maybe so. Seems to be a “doldrums” kind of decade though. If I am one of the “average guys” on the street, and I talk to others, we all seem to conclude that if somebody is benefiting from everything happening, it ain’t us. When the opportunity to “have” opportunity goes away, hope fades. I think that is where we are in the US of A–not despair, but the sick feeling that opportunity that clearly isn’t around, won’t be coming around either. And, there’s nothing we can do about it. Washington? What a joke. I’d be ashamed to show up in any social gathering and admit I am a congress person. If we worked for them as well as they work for us … they’d have fired us a long time ago.