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Guest Post: How The U.S. Will Become A 3rd World Country (Part 1)
Submitted by Ron Hera of Hera Research
How The U.S. Will Become A 3rd World Country (Part 1)
The United States is increasingly similar to a 3rd world county in several ways and is accelerating towards 3rd world status. Economic data indicate a harsh reality that obviates mainstream political debate. The evidence suggests that, without fundamental reforms, the U.S. will become a post industrial neo-3rd-world country by 2032.
Fundamental characteristics that define a 3rd world country include high unemployment, lack of economic opportunity, low wages, widespread poverty, extreme concentration of wealth, unsustainable government debt, control of the government by international banks and multinational corporations, weak rule of law and counterproductive government policies. All of these characteristics are evident in the U.S. today.
Other factors include poor public health, nutrition and education, as well as lack of infrastructure. Public health and nutrition in the U.S., while below European standards, stand well above those of 3rd world countries. American public education now ranks behind poorer countries, like Estonia, but remains superior to that of 3rd world countries. While crumbling infrastructure can be seen in cities across America, the vast infrastructure of the United States cannot be compared to a 3rd world country. However, all of these factors will rapidly deteriorate in a declining economy.
Unemployment and Lack of Economic Opportunity
Unemployment, which is a deep, structural problem in the U.S., is a fundamental challenge to economic opportunity. The U.S. labor market is in a long-term downward trend linked to globalization, i.e., offshoring of manufacturing, outsourcing of jobs and deindustrialization.
The U.S. workforce has declined by approximately 6.5% since its year 2000 peak to roughly 58.2% of working age adults and the U.S. now suffers chronic unemployment of 9.1%. Although the workforce grew in the 1980s and 1990s, as dual income families became the norm, the size of the workforce is shrinking due to a lack of economic opportunity.
Officially, long-term unemployment is 16.5% and the ranks of the long-term unemployed (those jobless for 27 weeks and over) include 5.9 million, 42.4% of those unemployed. However, prior to the Clinton administration, unemployment measures included workers who are now no longer counted as part of the workforce. Using the more accurate pre-Clinton criteria, unemployment exceeds 22%, only 3% below the worst point (24.9%) of the Great Depression. For countries with populations greater than 2 million, Macedonia leads the world with 33.8% unemployment, followed by Armenia at 28.6%, Algeria at 27.3% and the West Bank and the Gaza Strip both at 25.7%.
Compounding the unemployment problem is the fact that an entire generation of young Americans is being left behind in terms of economic opportunity. Student loans exceed $1 trillion while the labor force participation rate for those aged 16 to 29 who are working or looking for work fell to 48.8% in 2011, the lowest level ever recorded. Lack of economic opportunity among the youth, including millions of unemployed college graduates, is a political wildcard reminiscent of countries like Tunisia.
The structural decline of the U.S. labor market will continue as American workers are merged into a global labor pool in which they cannot yet directly compete for jobs with workers in countries like China and India. In China, for example, gross pay, in terms of purchasing power parity, is equivalent to approximately $514 per month, 57% below the U.S. poverty line. According to the Economic Policy Institute, the U.S. trade deficit with China alone caused a loss of 2.8 million U.S. jobs since 2001.
Falling Real Wages and Household Incomes
Workers earning more dollars are actually poorer in terms of purchasing power when the cost of living rises faster than wages,. In fact, if household income is adjusted for inflation, most American families have grown significantly poorer over the past ten years. In 2010, for example, real median household income fell 2.3%. Although the average wage has risen steadily in nominal terms, dwindling purchasing power is a reality for most Americans. When adjusted for inflation, the wages of most Americans have not kept up with the Consumer Price Index (CPI).
According to famed economist Milton Friedman, “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon.” In other words, prices rise when the money supply is increased faster than population or sustainable economic activity. Apparent economic growth created through credit expansion, i.e., by increasing the money supply, has a temporary stimulative effect but also causes prices to rise. True Money Supply is an accurate measure of inflation.
Although CPI is sufficient to illustrate declining real wages, CPI does not measure the cost of living in a realistic way. According to economist John Williams of Shadow Government Statistics, CPI systematically understates inflation.
The decline in real household income has set Americans back to 1996 levels, despite many households now having two incomes rather than one. Dual income families accounted for much of the increase in real median household income during the 1980s and 1990s, but, today, two incomes are barely better than one income was three decades ago. The decline in real wages was obfuscated in the 1980s and 1990s by growth in the workforce, e.g., by women entering the workforce. Real median household income rose while real wages declined because more households had two incomes.
As U.S. wages and household income continue to fall in real terms, both poverty and reliance on government assistance programs will continue to rise.
Growing Poverty
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, the poverty rate in the United States rose to 15.7% in 2011, with 47.8 million Americans living in poverty (1 in 6). The official poverty line, determined by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is $22,314 for a family of four. The number of families living in poverty has risen sharply since 2006 and continues to climb.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), commonly known as “food stamps,” serves 45.8 million households as of May 2011. The program now feeds 1 in 8 Americans and nearly 1 in 4 children.
Based on the outlook for employment and wages, both poverty and reliance on government assistance programs will continue to grow. However, the negative trends in employment, wages and poverty have not affected all Americans equally. In fact, the household income and wealth ofthe wealthiest Americans has increased sharply, despite the overall deterioration of the U.S. economy.
Increasing Concentration of Wealth
Alan Greenspan, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, warned that, “Ultimately, we are interested in the question of relative standards of living and … trends in the distribution of wealth, which, more fundamentally than earnings or income, represents a measure of the ability of households to consume.” In other words, concentration of wealth undermines the consumer base of the economy, causing GDP to decline and resulting in unemployment, which reduces living standards. Obviously, the total wealth of society is reduced when wealth is highly concentrated because there is a lower overall level of economic activity. Economic data from several sources, including the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), show that wealth and income in the United States have become increasingly concentrated with the wealthiest 1% of Americans owning 38.2% of stock market assets, e.g., shares of businesses.
For the wealthiest 1% of Americans, household income tripled between 1979 and 2007 and has continued to increase while household wealth in the United States has fallen by $7.7 trillion. The Gini Coefficient illustrates the growing disparity in income distribution.
In terms of the Gini Coefficient, the United States is now at parity with China and will soon overtake Mexico, a still developing country. It should be noted, of course, that the U.S. remains a far wealthier country overall. If the current trend continues, however, the U.S. will resemble a 3rd world country, in terms of the disparity in income distribution, in approximately two decades, i.e., by 2032.
Welcome to the 3rd World
The United States is quickly becoming a post industrial neo-3rd-world country. Partly as a consequence of worsening unemployment and lack of economic opportunity, falling real wages and household incomes, growing poverty and increasing concentration of wealth, the U.S. government faces a historic fiscal crisis. Dominant corporate influence over the U.S. government, particularly by large banks, weakening rule of law at the federal level and destructive tax policies are compounding the economic problems facing the United States. Barring fundamental reforms or a hyperinflationary collapse of the U.S. dollar (due to the fiscal problems of the U.S. government), the deterioration of the U.S. economy will continue and accelerate. As the U.S. economy continues its decline, public health, nutrition and education, as well as the country’s infrastructure, will visibly deteriorate and the 3rd world status of the United States will become apparent.
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The US does not practice Capitalism. There is no free market. 9 federal cabinet departments and over 100 federal agencies and commissions control the economy. The Federal Register alone contains over 73,000 pages of detailed government regulations. More than forty dollars of every one hundred dollars of output are appropriated by the government against the will of the individual citizens who produce that output. Interest rates are artificially manipulated by a secretive, private bank with a monopoly on fiat money. There is absolutely nothing free or capitalistic about it.
Hey, I'd argue you've got some of the most free markets in the world. That is the problem, without regulation, big fish eat little fish until all thats left is one fish that starves... Take a look at any introduced invasive species and see where letting the dominate player do it's thing will get you. Extintion event for an ecosystem.
In human environments, good government are supposed 'govern' this process, you guys choose to call it socialism.
Another saying comes to mind.. the people get the government they deserve... Seriously, George Bush twice? And then Obama. Bravo...
Welcome to the life of a little fish.
Monopolies are created and sustained by government regulations, not the free market.
Do you not believe there is such a thing as a natural monopoly?
I concur.
I think the final state of any market is either monopoly, duopoly or so close to it that the difference is meaningless.
there is a thing called anti-trust
has been used in heroic times
Monopolies are broken up by government. By definition, no one else has the power or influence to do so (unless the business or market it's in fails).
An absence of regulation is more likely to give rise to monopoly.
Are you suggesting that regulations are to blame for consolidation in the Banking sector? What about telcos? Aerospace? Autos? Supermarkets? Online retailers? Steel? Resources and mining?
If it's capital intensive, it will become a monopoly eventually....
weird comment nesting... yes antitrust. A rare white beast, last seen some 10 years ago in the US....
Can't have capitalism with a central bank any more than you can have communism with unregulated markets.
We have had a central bank since 1913. As such, we have not had capitalism since 1913. Markets remained fairly free, until recently, but that is because we had a mixed market. Mixed markets work to the extent that they incorporate capitalist and free market features. Those features have been slowly stripped away over the last three decades.
Hobbleknee
What you describe is the essence of "capitalism".
The so-called capitalist economy is centered around profits.
At its core, all “capitalist” profit is based on one form or another of limited access, whether to markets, resources, or labor.
It is the ability to turn a good or service into cash flow. And this, in turn depends upon the power to exclude - the power to deny customers a valuable product , rivals from a market.
Without property “rights”, patents, licenses, captive markets, or captive labor, profits diminish. There is a built-in bias toward monopolization of resources and production, and labor arbitrage - and the symbioses with government, … all done to establish and protect privileged access.
“Capitalism is not about free competitive choices among people who are reasonably equal in their buying and selling of economic power, it is about concentrating capital, concentrating economic power in very few hands using that power to trash everyone who gets in their way.”
-David Korten
Those who rail simply against “gubmint” are succumbing to a fraudulent paradigm. They are missing the point how the TOTAL economy (public and private) is geared to impoverish nearly all of us.
Nearly all of us are being ruined by a combination excess militarism, unbridled plutocracy, rampant public and private corruption, neglected infrastructure, debt and currency debasement.
?
Unfortunately some at ZH advocate a self-contradictory overly simplistic and rather egotistical creed of anarchism. Judging by some of the above remarks, they also mix in an arrogant (nationalist, racist, sexist etc.) disdain for their fellow human beings.
To quote one anti-government ZH poster.
“In a free market there are NO RULES, that is the definition of free. If you want an example of a free market without any rules (free of Laws, judges, lawyers, regulations, employment and consumer protection legislation) see the brilliant free - black - market in illegal drugs.”
What you're experiencing now, is CAPITALISM UNLEASHED.
No, this is Socialism mixed with endless Government bailouts. Both increase until the system blows itself up. If you don't see the difference, or don't understand it you will. Big changes are coming.
You are not explaining yourself correctly. The idea you are having is to be saying that socialism for corporations but capitalism for working peoples is always destroying. When banks are making money they are being capitalists but when banks are losing monies they are being socialists.
JLee can't seem to understand that capitalists game the system. He's not quite an idiot, but he does tend to ignore a great deal of what is going on.
Another huge reason we are becoming a Third World country is due to a combination of immigration and multi-culturalism/political correctness. We are importing lots of low skilled Third World types in a misguided attempt to grow our economy at any cost. In reality, these people cost more in services/entitlements than they produce in wealth. There's nothing more full-of-shit than a politician who claims that these people will "save Social Security"; in reality, they are exacerbating the size and cost of every social program we have. This sucks fiscal resources that we could actually use to maintain infrastructure and make this country a better place to live. Further, thanks to multicuturalism, we don't even try to assimilate them anymore. This is especially a problem for illegals coming from Mexico, who think they can one day reclaim the Southwest--and its looks increasingly like they will. To put a cherry on top, we have a dual set of laws and standards in this country: one for Whites/Asians; another for every other minority group. To top it off, our Government and Justice system increasingly sides with the illegals over the interests of native citizens. Deep down, most people know how this experiment is going to end. Problem is that many of us have been too thoroughly brainwashed to even deal with the problem (and possible solutions) honestly.
To who's advantage is it to destroy socialism in this way?
They don't see it as destroying Socialism--just accelerating it's acceptance by importing more "clients". Socialism can thrive in a society where most are impoverished. In the minds of the politicians, this just makes the people more dependent on them for the occasional handout.
I'm no fan of multiculturism, but not for the reasons you state.
Large scale immigration is benefical to you however... these are young people who form families with high birthrates. This is important (structurally) for the long term tax base. It's a ponzi remember, always need that new money comin in.
Just a shame you guys are all going to have to learn spanish. Not that I've got anything against spanish, just means that I'll end up watching way more TV with subtitles.....
That kind of assumes that the families will be revenue sources vs. revenue sinks. If they eat up more in benefits (or other social costs like prisons) than they generate in wealth, then how do they benefit society exactly?
Yes, thats true.
If they are able to access benefits (education, healthcare, fair access to employment), they should be revenue positive in time. Nobody immigrates to go live in a slum, and raise kids to live in a slum. But you are right, that is how it often turns out. The real 'hope' is that putting their kids through your education system, imprints them with a similar value set.
If you've got sh*t education, or poor uptake of it, you'll end up with a multi-generational 'broken' culture. Then you're boned... Gotta get the kids into schools...
Just remember, you've got Nil chance of increasing future revenue from a 75 yo, it's all down hill from about 65 on average... and the game needs future revenue growth...
Many people talk incessantly about the "Miltary-Industrial Complex". But there is also a a Bureaucratic-Education-Welfare complex that exists. It survives by creating more need and clients. That is why I'm not surprised that families stay on the dole for generations and become ever more dysfunctional. Its in the best interests of the bureaucrats to keep 'em that way. Remember, a dysfunctional person needs more services (including special education)--not less.
Also, from what I've read, many of the Muslim immigrants to Europe have no problem staying (and raising big families) on the dole. It just allows the men more time to attend mosque--which is just dandy in their culture. It also has the side benefit over eventually bankrupting and overwhelming the host country--eventually turning it Islamic.
You are right about the existence of the Bureaucratic-education-Welfare complex. You should know (maybe you already do) that critiques of this complex have come from the Left as well. 'De-schooling Society' by Ivan Illich. And 'The Dialectics of Enlightenment' by Adorno and Horkheimer are two titles that come to my mind. I bring this up just to say that we can find alies all over the place when we look for them.
uh...education is only as good as the students in it.
Nothing else really matters.
Nobody immigrates to live in a slum; they tend to create conditions similar to where they left however. That is because it wasn't the magic of geography that was to blame for the slum - it was THEM.
It always has been PEOPLE who create their culture, not the other way around.
"Access benefits"? WTF...yeah they access the fuck out of every benefit they can find, which is how they never turn revenue positive.
You're a fucking white supremacist clown.
Jared Diamond - professor of GEOGRAPHY and EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY at UCLA, winner of the National Medal of Science, winner of the MacArthur Foundation fellowship, winner of the Phi Beta Kappa Award in Science, winner of the Pulitzer Prize - says the EXACT OPPOSITE of what you just posted. Geography has EVERYTHING to do with the fate of particular societies and their success. YOU FUCKING IDIOT.
Who you gonna trust? The klansman that wants to sterilize minorities, or the FUCKING AWARD WINNING SCIENTIST? If anyone is interested in learning the TRUTH about geography and how it affects the fate of society, go read Guns, Germs and Steel - its 500 pages of award winning SCIENCE, instead of 3 or 4 sentences of racist tripe from a klansman.
Max Fischer, Civis Mundi
Well, if a PROFESSOR said it, it must be immutable truth! Winner of prizes awarded by an echo chamber of his non-working academic peers, even. I feel dizzy, where's the fainting couch.
Back in the 20's and 30's, it was your precious professors that were expounding eugenics and forced sterilizations.
You fucking blind tool.
You guys are fucking miserable freaks around here.
Max Fischer, Civis Mundi
Brilliant riposte,
Now run and tell your dear professor how you valiantly defended his honor but need more training before you don the big boy pants again.
Your post has NOTHING credible to respond to - your irrelevant garbage from the 1920's has NOTHING to do with Jared Diamond or my post. Furthermore, getting in an argument with human pigs is not how I wanted to start my morning.
<BOOT STOMP, ARM STRETCHED>
WHITE POWER!!
Denigration of the superior opponent when intelligent discourse is beyond your means. De-humanization of the target to balm your weak little conscience.
It's not your race, your eductation or your land of birth that have anything to do with it. You're just plain inferior.
Your initial post is a non sequitur. There's NOTHING intellectual to respond to, YOU FUCKING PIG.
This is EXACTLY what happens EVERY time you try engage PIG-SHIT klansmen. They post a non sequitur, drive the conversation straight into the ditch, and then mock you for not wanting to crawl in the mud with them.
Max Fischer, Civis Mundi
It's a good book... So is Collapse.
Good perspective on geography as IT determines the number of domesticated plants and animals available. Those of you who haven't read it, have no business arguing against it. Strict opinions are forced to adjust to the fact that the horse, for instance, moving along an east west axis, went a looooooong way in determining who has guns, and who brings germs, and who gets the bitches. I do this book no justice.
The laundry list of external factors, that most of you dumbasses have no clue about, go a long way to describe events that INFLUENCED why things are the way they are.
THAT SAID, and after reading his work a few times over, I was and STILL AM under no illusion that white men can jump... NO MATTER HOW MANY basketball hoops you put in dillville, USA.
I am under no illusion that the Japanese will dominate NBA play, if they'd only go black-top baby. If for any reason the Japanese deem it necessary to do so, they'd look to genetics... AND black top. Especially them.
People are different, bitches. In more ways than "culture." SO FUCKING WHAT.
And then there's the scarcity bitches up top thread... Talking as if its some natural phenomenon OMG there's no FOOD! SHELVES EMPTY, NO they're FULL! Before ANYONE talks about "scarcity" in our system, one needs to understand that much of it is manufactured... Farm subsidies / mandatory crop reduction/destruction, planned obsolescence of products, privatization of water, rare mineral destruction. "Peak oil" a phrase we'd eventually hear regardless of the argument. Even patents influence scarcity. The list goes on and on into EVERY FUCKING THING. Most scarcity, to include perceived scarcity, within our economic model is largely manufactured or influenced. And politics, within this model, are often the tool to maintain this "profitable scarcity." Food ain't scarce, bitches. It will just always cost too much for some.
Then all these fucking arguments about SYMPTOMS of a system that needs eternal growth while constantly "balancing" the conflict between technology and labor.
The only reason most jobs exist is because they haven't been AUTOMATED YET. Women the problem? Increase in labor force? If I could find a fucking hamster that never sleeps to do your job I would. And if I won't, the next corporation will. Now if I could just find a way not to have the feed the som-bitch....
The system is reaching breaking point... Forget the Chinese, their cheap labor will get automated too........ All our unemployment problems were INEVITABLE. And if labor wasn't in direct conflict with technology there is NO TELLING.................
A woman took my job........ wtf zh.
Why don't you and the Wonder-Commie from down-under get a room? You could engage each other with some award winning and probing analysis, all tax-payer funded one way or another.
obama won a nobel peace prize... what's your point?
The Nobel peace prize was a fucking joke. It has nothing to do with peer-reviewed SCIENCE, nor the various SCIENTIFIC awards won by Diamond. Not all awards are the same, Mr Savage.
You're a lawyer from the South, right? Got a little "confederate" in you?
Max Fischer, Civis Mundi
I not sure that peer review has too much to do with SCIENCE either, practically speaking... but keep touting your ad hominems and appeals to authority/bandwagon arguments...
Maybe people would take you more seriously if you didn't come out of the gates name calling and spouting obscenities? That's a typical Leftist tactic. And if you're as educated as you claim to be, you'd know that every Academic has a theory and they can always find cases to support it, while ignore those that don't. The TRUTH is that many things are true and false simultaneously. Conquest can radically change a culture--regardless of geography. Look at Rome, Japan, and the Arab world (before and after 1000AD). There are very few one-size-fits-all rules, especially from a historical standpoint. In fact, I can only think of one: If you want peace, be prepared for War.
Well there's an important point here: geography actually impacts the natural selection, evolution, and thereby quality of people who reside in those places. Geography as well as some random mutations here or there are responsible for the human races.
So it's all interconnected. Given enough time, most "warm" places turn to shit because they allow too many people of inferior quality to breed, while cold places favor robust people with skills, etc.
That's a generalization, though, reality is probably far more complex.
You are blaming "multiculturalism" for the actions of the monoculture of banker/politicians? Those "services" are THEIR doing. It doesn't matter if other cultures move in or not (hell, incorporation of other cultures during the free market period of this country produced demonstrably excellent results, and those integrated communities are all "Americans" now, hardly even identifying with their homelands). When people become reliant on free public services, and transfer that reliance down through the generations, you get the same effect. Look at the Cockneys versus West Londoners. Same genetic stock, enormous divergence in IQs, reliance on government programs, etc.
I would add that saving social security through immigration is a joke because the immigrants themselves become old someday. One doesn't stay a 24 year old laborer forever. Therefore it's a ponzi scheme.
I don't care for either illegal Mexicans or their enablers, but let's be honest, I'd rather live amongst them than niggers anyday.
Seced, bitchez!
when governments fear the people, there is liberty...when the people fear the government, there is tyranny...
Did you mean "secede"?
I don't feel thirdy.
Thirdy is different from dirty, and I do get dirty.
Can the US still be AAA and 03rd world at the same time?
Err AA+ (for now)
You are asking if it is possible for a nation to have a good credit rating by paying its bills all the time, while having great disparity between haves and have nots. Sure.
If 1% of the population made 90% of the money and paid 90% of the taxes, and the government ran balanced or at least not horrifically imbalanced budgets, I think it could be AAA and have great disparity.
Third World means not siding with NATO nor USSR; it would be difficult for America not to be on America's side.
Will Become?!? This has been an official Chiquita Banana Republic since the SCOTUS gave the election to Dubya ten years ago, unoficially since that little stunt in Tehran worked out so well for Mr GE Shill SAG President that hates unions all of the sudden in '81. SSDD
Quick! Criticize 2 Democratic presidents lest you become unbalanced.
(part 4) Europe becomes Japan. Japan becomes Atlantis.
I vote to crash the buck then!
"Barring fundamental reforms or a hyperinflationary collapse of the U.S. dollar (due to the fiscal problems of the U.S. government), the deterioration of the U.S. economy will continue and accelerate."
I am planning to go to US for a sightseeing in 2012 with my wife. I like reading ZH. But seriously, it is safe to visit US (New york, Florida, Washington)?
I understand that it is a police state nowadays, but even Germany in 30s had tourists coming and leaving the country.
If you happen to meet any law enforcement officers during your travels, just kowtow to them like they're the second coming of Jesus and you'll be all right. You'll have a sick, nasty feeling in the pit of your stomach while you pretend to worship the uniformed jackboots, but they'll leave you alone. Don't give them a single reason to suspect you of even jaywalking.
They want you to open your bag at the airport? Do it cheerfully, like it's a privilege.
They want you to turn your electronic device off on a bus? Do it graciously, like it's the most reasonable request in the world.
They want you to take off your shoes before you enter City Hall? Do it courteously, and show concern that others might find the stink of your feet objectionable.
So long as you don't run afoul of "the law" - especially NYPD, and any Federal police in Washington DC - you ought to be just fine.
I agree with you, but didn't the Jews in Germany think the same thing?
At what point do you say no?
Once you've got the fuck out of there.
Heavens yes, and if some fat policeman gets in your way use your cockney charm to let him know he's being an ass!
OI! MOVE YOUR SLAB YOU FILTY TOSSER!
The resultant light electrical shocks you feel immediately afterward is how we say Hello in the USA.
What do you want to see in those places that you can't see somewhere else?
In the 30s, Germany (like China now?) was on a charm offensive and looking to make a good impression to offset the bad rep. The US seems to revel in its bad rep nowadays. To quote a country song I remember hearing: "We'll put a boot in your ass; it's the American way."
Seriously, I always enjoy visiting the US but the occasional idiot working at immigration can be a bad start. There are areas of New York City that are unsafe but you would be unlikely to find yourself in one of those areas unless you really want to visit Bedford-Stuyvesant but even there it is becoming increasingly gentrified in recent years.
I also enjoy visiting Greece but wouldn't want to be in Syntagma Square on the day of a riot. So, if there is a complete collapse of the USD in 2012, I would avoid going to the US.
You will get a distorted view of the US if those are the only three places you visit. They are all good places to take photographs, but everyone you will meet is from somewhere else. Aside from that, the police state is less of a concern once you are 100 miles inland. Fly into Pittsburgh and drive to Houston. Or fly into Atlanta and drive to Denver. If you want some idea of what most of the US is about, get off the coast.
Nope. More than half of Americans live near the coast.
and are all fucked up and removed from reality. It's not "Reelfoot Lake Shore", but instead "Jersey Shore" for a reason.
rumour has it the Tennessee Turnpike has TSA-gropers, a policy of "if you see something, say something" while driving along might just get you pulled over up ahead - don't cut anyone off or give the ole stinkeye if someone does you, hmm. . .
Why go sightseeing in a big city? Small town and rural America is beauty of nature. Big cities are monuments to man. Visit
Deerfield, Massachusetts, Newport Rhode Island, the Rocky Mountains, The California coast and Hurst's Castle. Take a sleeper
compartment cross country. Visit Mount Vernon and Jefferson's Monticello. See the Fla. Keys, Williamsburg Museum. South West
cliff dwellings, You get the idea.
I cannot recommend East St. Louis highly enough! Check it out and have fun!
2032? Way to go out on a limb.
Here's a prediction. The Sun will continue to shine for approximately 5 billion years. Give or take a few million.
Darwinist Communist Pig!!! The sun shines & rises because Jesus tells it to, everyone knows America is the center of the universe and the sun & everything else moves around America.
I thought the geocentric theory was bogus, but the "Amero-centric" theory takes the cake.
http://m.youtube.com/#/watch?desktop_uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2F...
God Bless America
The (god bless America) U.S. military will annihilate any nation's defense, but controlling a country militarily is nothing compared to controlling its currency. If you can control a nations currency, you contol the nation.
It is both military and currency. military got to ensure that e.g. oil can only be bought with a certain fiat currency. the best fiat is worth nothing when you cannot buy essential stuff with it. and the best military brings no obscene wealth to the plutocrats if it fights for such absurd things like 'freedom' or whatever.
With this government and financial system, we don't deserve to be a 4th world country.
Mmm...
We don't desreve any resources we don't have, and can't trade for, I can tell you that.
Asians are fucking killing it!
That's it! We need an Asian President!
Yeah and watch everyone cry and complain when the President says we have to be more like Singapore. Good luck...
+1
I totally agree lets go for an asian prez in '12. This could complete our cycle of turning Japanese. This idea has legs man.
maybe i missed it, but i am surprised to not have seen anything on zh about the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2012: http://www.businessinsider.com/the-new-national-defense-authorization-ac...
George Washington may be on the case. That is one scary piece of legislation they are cooking up this year. But I am biased because there are two seperate supplemental amendments to the bill that could cut all the funding for my sailor/soldier support job/career/employment. Cut some other parasite off. I'm a parasite with a beneficial symbiosis.
you are right, george washington is on it: http://www.zerohedge.com/contributed/senate-passes-bill-allowing-indefin...
The US will become a third world country? Of course it will! That was pretty much assured when the 1965 immigration act was passed. You take a first world country and replace it with a third world people, and in a generation or two you get a third world country! How could it happen any other way?
is there a bigger dumbo than you on this forum?
If US became close to a super power it was cause of that immigration act where the best of all worlds came to the US and produced the tech revolution of 1990s. It is another matter that greed took over after that.
You're wasting your fucking time man. It's racist fucks like this that make me root for utter collapse of society because they are incapable of the sophistication and intelligence necessary to have any chance whatsoever for survival. Plus tens of millions have wanted them dead for so many hundreds of years and haven't had the pleasure. Yet.. Tick tock tick tock..
Truth is somewhere in between. Mexico, for example, was once a fairly pleasant and prosperous country, and in some areas still is.
The entire human race is degenerating, white people included.
As far as America, good luck trying to get whites, Jews, blacks, Mexicans, Cubans, Puerto Ricans, Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Indians, Pakistanis, Filipinos, Arabs, Persians (feel free to insert ethnicity here) to work together on anything.
Your logic astounds me (madam?) Are you suggesting that the US only became a superpower after the collapse of the USSR? Are you assuming that the best and brightest wouldn't have been allowed in without the Immigration Act? I mean, it COULD be true...that's what Ted Kennedy said when he sponsored it... Are youimplying that SteveJobs, Bill Gates and their crowd were immigrants? I demand to see birth certificates. sarc/
I would go so far as to say that since WWII, the German's brought in under Operation Paperclip were the most beneficial. Everyone else wasmore or less trying to escape their hell-holes of origin and unfortunately brought their baggage with them.
You don't see Mexican engineers or opthamologists sneaking under the fence?
I see Eva Longoria.
"Fundamental characteristics that define a 3rd world country include..."
Hah. ZH erudition strikes again.
What about at title that says "How the US is already a 3rd world country, for 25% of it's population"....
And many 3rd world countries remain so and are run by oligarchs, dictators, and/or drug lords who sell out their countrymen for a piece of the international corporate ripoff and US military protection. What is practiced abroad cannot be separated from what is practiced domestically.
stone free bitchez... stone free bad dub but whatever
The US is already a third world nation I mean all one has to do is journey to urban areas. the disguise of keynesian shadow is hindering your sight. When the sun finally shines on the US, it will be like when you're at a bar after hours, drunk, talking to a chic that you think is hot, but then the lights come on.....
At one time in the USA there were millions of self trained mechanics that could take a crap car into a hot-rod, and up from there. Not much now at all. In a consumer society the hot car owners are thieves/drug dealers that get someone else to build it for them.
In Mexico we have the worst of the senior system of employment that can trash a 30,000 mold and then demand that we make all new inserts in a few days to avoid calling to account the hammer mechanics that destroyed their customer and caused difficulties for the slobs in the USA that have to re- do all of it.
There are several pockets of really good mechanics in the USA. I use them as I cannot spare the time to do it myself.
Bless them as they might be called upon in the practical engineering arts to save most anyone else that relys upon JIT and all of the consumerist implications of that religion.
Will? I thought we are already.
Atlas didn't shrug. He got fucking demolished with a sledge hammer and then ground into dust.
Actually Atlas got raped and robbed while he was busy holding up the world.
I went to US first time 1977 and loved it, it was a fantastic place, specially California.
Today I go to extremes to avoid traveling through it, and since I can, never visit family or relatives there again.
KGB opened a branch in US and it scares the crap out of me.
Fucking ripping my shit off. Let me write one of these guest post.
We already have our Puppet Kenyan Dictator in place
Isn't this the neo-feudalist world the counter reformationist have been praying for?
Us oil production peaking in 1970 explains most of these charts. Declining EROEI makes it impossible to grow without increasing debt.
I think the charts would look alot different if society (Gov as well as citizens) had lived within its means the whole time. Debt has ruined our money and impoverished us.
Seems more like an Aristocracy in disguise.
American port Cities will finally be able to use all those empty Chinese shipping containers for something useful, like housing. Visit Reading, Pennsylvania for a glimpse of America's future -- or just rent the movie Idiocracy.
WTF. Will? Try Is
http://vegasxau.blogspot.com
An interesting discussion of Tipping points in civilization is available through study of history :
WHy Ancient Egypt fell
Why Athens fell
Why Rome fell
Why Constantinople fell
Why Arab civilization fell
Why Mandarin China fell
Why Europe nation states fell after having risen to World supremacy
Why the USA is now falling
All these countries/civilizations have similar traits in triggering their decline. Its not just fate, external factors, natural tsunamis and invasions from outside (The Santorini syndrome/The mythical fall of Troy). They exist but are not determining. Its always the inner decay, the inevitable entropy factor. What defines the time line of periods of dominance and fall is an interplay of external factors and internal factors. Not least of all the decaying of the tree of knowledge within society; when greed and lust for power makes it die as useless appendix of another age, as if ethics and sense of balance are not relevant when supreme unequivocal power allows the elite to feel immortal and unattainable by life's vicissitudes; a cruel game that does not concern the happy few, only the plebes below. Then we reach tipping point time and again. As the elites have fully dug their own grave, having isolated themselves from their eventual saviours in their bunkers, Trojan/Constantinople's walls. Fascinating how man is predictable in fall and unpredictable in his rise. Asymmetric genius of man : unpredictable wisdom fed on irrepressible urge for emancipation and inevitable folly of hubris and decadence. Until the cycle rebegins, some place else in some distant poor region, where people are so hungry for the fruits of tree of knowledge that their own misery is fuel for their future magnificence. Life, liberty and pursuit of...
It is always the HUMAN factor that defines decay of civilization, not technology; the latter feeds its rise as long as the human value systems are strong but cannot prevent its fall, inevitably getting vitrified and sterile in the process of human value decay for those who had created it, but not for those who can refind it, often from distant lands.
Immigration is a source of human riches if they be hungry for learning and advancement; especially if it changes the VITRIFIED minds sets of the elites. New ideas, new energies and resurgence of age old values like belief in democracy, the republic and general good. Best recipe for Renaissance. Have a pomegranate while you're at it, or an apple and an I-pad.
EXCELLENT post.
FYI: Look at the graph here: http://freemansperspective.viscountmedia.com/2011/07/rulerships-last-sta...
Thanks, FP, another benefit of Immigration is an infusion of confidence and self-trust brought by a risk taking and hard working individual. Traits as these are becomming hard to find.
Competition Bitchez !
falak pema
The problem lies with the "human factor", but a vague concept of "strong" human values is not a fix.
Humans organize. There are benefits to organization. And pitfalls. Those who head organizations tend to use the organizations they head to accrue privileges and power to the detriment of the rest of the population. As heads, they become isolated, even paranoid, further compounding and self-justifying the tendency to wreak havoc on others and on the environment.
The "anarchist" solution is to have no organizations with power. Impossible to realize, and impossible to enforce.
The "benevolent" dictator solution fails for "power corrupts' and absolute power corrupts absolutely".
The only possible solution seems to be for some democratic check on the power to abuse of a few. The US Founding Fathers took a good stab at it (limited government and all), but I doubt we have reached the zenith end of history for the development of good governance.
It is a human conundrum. Whether there will be a human solution to organization remains to be seen.
I don't pretend to know the answer; all I'm saying is that the 'human factor' is a constantly adjustable, unpredictable variable, which makes deterministic evalution of human systems totally meaningless. We are in existential limbo until the end of human race. It's our destiny.
If you allow 40 million illegals into the country with a 3rd grade education....adn you allow them access to the social welfare of your country...you will have higher levels of poverty..unemployment...and the big sound bite of the day....wealth spread...the Governemnt will not cut expenses...so we go until we crash...II think it will be hyperinflation..but gold and silver will win in the end....that is if you can survive the street wars..gangs...mobs..
Heard this one last week:
Q. What's the difference between the locals in Miami and the locals in Cancun ?
A. All the locals in Cancun can speak english.
The US is already a 3rd world country. Just come to Manassas Park, Va. where I live for an example of that. Better bring your Spanish to English dictionary first though.
Exactly. You can't have a first-world country with a third-world population.
Karl Marx would be proud
2032? Seriously? At the rate Commrade Obama is destroying the nation I seriously doubt we have 20 years to wait, it's proabably closer to 5!
But whatever, lets stick our heads back up our asses and pretend everything willl be allright and keep sliting our throats, that'll work... /sarc
Don't forget that the fundamental reason for this, and it isn't limited in anyway to the US, is the global oil production peak and the fact that we hit natural ressources constraints in general, so that growth will stop anyway.
And regarding this, if there is a slightest chance in a transition (maintaining some form of equivalent "funtionalitities"), this would mean for the US pushing its "technical infrastructure" in a very general sense (cars fleet, buildings, roads etc included) towards much less dependencies on energy and especially oil in OPEX terms.
And for this, the only valid policy (baring wars for the remaining bits) is of course high volume based taxes on fossile fuels and maybe some other non renewable raw materials.
How many Americans for instance know that the US went through its oil production peak in 1970 ?
North sea in 2000 ? Mexico in 2005 ? etc ..
Huh? You're pulling my tit, right? The only constraint I know of is man-made! It's called "government regulation"!
We have more untapped reserves in the US than Saudi Arabia, we are prevented from accessing it by punk politicians too fearful of their own shadows who are completely incapable of saying screw off to a bunch of tree-hugging snail-darter kissing resource-hating job-killing eco-terrorists!
Wow! looks like you really know who is to blame.
"We have more untapped reserves in the US than Saudi Arabia"
Lol, yet another typical American airhead ...
You went from 10 millions barrel a day in 1970, to 5 now, and it's a done deal.
Oh sure everything has been made up to cover the thing up, nonetheless a done deal.
The American people will prosper wildly, once they are set free of the abomination on the Potomac.
"Capitalism will commit suicide"-Karl Marx
atleast we will be the best 3rd world country......so we have that going for us
. . . which is nice.
It's enough to make me want to cry ...
Well the US already has a Third World government.
Governments and those who work for governments have absolutely no incentive or desire to be effective or efficient, you are see the results right before your eyes.....
I'm movin' on to the 4th World.
http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/third-world-success
Apt example for this thread. In a few years internet trolls will be making similar jokes at our expense.
Went to wal-mart......DIDN'T GET KILLED FOR WAFFLE BATTER!
I can haz a laf !
3rd world nation? You're joking right? No wonder everyone still wants to come to US for job opportunities. Sensationalize more, please.
and none of the deteriorations cited are due to incompetence....the cumulative results were all planned thanks to your local rockefeller-mic-yale-cia axis of evil.....
Life on the Federal Debt Plantation doesn't have an optimistic future. As long as we are addicted to that fake money. there is nowhere to go, but down.
http://georgesblogforum.wordpress.com/2011/11/02/the-daily-climb-2/
Someone here has some serious woman issues...hahahaha
I'd say your past experiences with women more than likely have more to do with you and your personality than than they had to do with all those "nasty, lying bitches" as you would call them....I mean Jesus man...what...did one of them make fun of you for having a small dick ...or for being a terrible fuck or something?
Also...I'd like to know what the going "rental price" is for a woman these days....what does $50.00 get you (I know inflation is a bitch too) I figured I'd ask...as you are a self-professed "renter of women" ...and after reading your posts I understand why. Afterall, what self-respecting woman would get within 50 feet of you...unless she was being paid (and paid well I'd hope) to have to deal with your nastly little ass.
I always get a kick out of people like you....the little guy with the big mouth....talking loud as hell but not saying a goddamn thing of any real import. All that ever really comes out of your mouth are the typical stereotyplical slurs, race baiting, homo-phobic slams, and chest pounding.....
We know...we know....you have all the answers to our nation's problems. All we need to do is be more like you....close-minded, regressive, resentful of otherness...and childish.
If you were not so completely ridiculous...I would not have even bothered writing anything - I just figured I'd say somethign to see if I could get you to respond with somemore of your sage wisdom.
Honestly though.... you are just another BIG MAN internet loudmouth. You probably keep your little fucking mouth shut when you are around real women....you would never pop that stupid shit off when there was an actual person there to bust you in your cunt mouth....hahahaha Stupid fucker
Someone here has some serious woman issues...hahahaha
I'd say your past experiences with women more than likely have more to do with you and your personality than than they had to do with all those "nasty, lying bitches" as you would call them....I mean Jesus man...what...did one of them make fun of you for having a small dick ...or for being a terrible fuck or something?
Also...I'd like to know what the going "rental price" is for a woman these days....what does $50.00 get you (I know inflation is a bitch too) I figured I'd ask...as you are a self-professed "renter of women" ...and after reading your posts I understand why. Afterall, what self-respecting woman would get within 50 feet of you...unless she was being paid (and paid well I'd hope) to have to deal with your nastly little ass.
I always get a kick out of people like you....the little guy with the big mouth....talking loud as hell but not saying a goddamn thing of any real import. All that ever really comes out of your mouth are the typical stereotyplical slurs, race baiting, homo-phobic slams, and chest pounding.....
We know...we know....you have all the answers to our nation's problems. All we need to do is be more like you....close-minded, regressive, resentful of otherness...and childish.
If you were not so completely ridiculous...I would not have even bothered writing anything - I just figured I'd say somethign to see if I could get you to respond with somemore of your sage wisdom.
Honestly though.... you are just another BIG MAN internet loudmouth. You probably keep your little fucking mouth shut when you are around real women....you would never pop that stupid shit off when there was an actual person there to bust you in your cunt mouth....hahahaha Stupid fucker
It's not women issues - it's issues with the system that force men into debt slavery to women with no way out. There are legal ways out, but getting there is like crawling through a minefield. Yes, the women can take the man back to court dozens of times and every time the court will side with the women against the man - regardless of facts. The breadwinner always loses, it's their golden rule. It's expensive in terms of attorney fees, stressfull, and you risk losing contact with your child(ren). And some women will say anything in a court to have that happen. The courts do this because they get 5% of the child support as a processing fee and another 50% reimbursed from the Federal Government (it might be 30% now, I haven't kept up). So in other words on a thousand dollar "support" payment you make, the "state" gets $550 back. Child Support is a hoax - it's supporting the woman and the State - not the child.
I wouldn't make too much fun of it. If it ever happened to you, you'd be singing a different tune. Remember in Califorinia there have been stories of woman randomly accusing men of being the Father and a Judge assigning you Child Support without a DNA test to prove your innocent. All the expenses you pay to clear your name and any Child Support previously paid is lost forever and unrecoverable....that's how broken things are.
be fair JLee and include your FULL rant about how women are given to men by the Lord, and are to be subordinate to the Man, do what they're told and submit, same for any children she bears.
we've been around the story a few times, some of us have it down now.
while I agree the courts are broken too - go figure, it's amrka, all the legal system is stacked against the chattel, but the courts intervene where the men who "father" children then bail - which is more the norm than the story you describe. it's either go for the father to support what he helped create, or the taxpayer gets to foot the bill, or the kids live in poverty.
ALL of the above happens, daily.
you lads really should just be honest and "rent" - or learn to be self-sufficient. . . or take up with each other, since you're all on the same page.
Cathartes Aura - You are a provocateur, filled with endless incorrect statements, and not worth my time. Good bye.
thanks, I can handle that label.
Nounprovocateur m. (plural provocateurs)
provoking thought in a world of endless memorised verbiage adopted as "truth" isn't a bad thing, IMO.
for the record:
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/guest-post-there-no-shame#comment-1868244
it's not you at your "best" but it's you, yes?
Know what I want to see here at ZH? More articles detailing the collapse. I don't need any more articles showing me we are in the crapper. I've know that for years.
Here's what I want. How do we know when to go into a bunker mentality? How will events unfold? Anyone read "The Patriot"? Very plausible, scary as hell. So what happens? Occucrappers start bombing banks? Banks hire guards and get extra police? Martial law? Mass riots to the point of anarchy? Do these events unfold locally or do they spread? At what point do the riots get organized? Does the military turn on it's citizens or the gov't?
Do the sheeple ever undersatnd that we have to remove the current governing bodies to fix this, or do they target the "rich" they are so jealous of? See, most of these occucrappers can't grasp that the majprity of the rich aren't financial manipulators. They are doctors, CEO's, business owners, accountants, lawyers or blue collar types who managed to save and be frugal. They ARE what drives the productive part of the economy. They are what holds this house of cards up. Yet this administration has put a target on the back of every single successful person. For every Goldman Sachs douche bag, there are 1000 other "rich" who busted their ass to achieve and benefited society at large with the most recent popular example being Steve Jobs. Will society ever admire those who worked hard to achieve, created something of value including goods, services and jobs? It's doubtful since gang thig mentality is what occupies the White House and what is being sold by the media.
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