That’s not the point, the point I’m making is that the US was in a position similar to Chinas 110 years ago, and it still ended up being a superpower, even if it didn’t want to be.
Wait, so now China is the richest country in the world? You’re not making any sense.
The bankers killed America. We did not save it because they still have the power to cover up their crimes and get away with the money. They will loot us again and again until we stop them.
I hope the Wikileak releases of the inside emails of bankers will wake people up. We should have put a bunch of them on trial . But when Bank of America’s insider memos come out, we will see how criminal the financial sector was and still is. Then maybe you will see it was not just a nexus of financial events that just randomly occurred , but a systematic gaming of the system for their own gain. This might be our last hope .We can save America but it will require some bloodletting. At least some jailing and serious regulation and policing would be good.
Nah, you can always pay half of them to kill off the other half.
Exactly.
History shows differently.
Really? How so?
You DO know why Russia and china are communist right?
By drawing distractions out via major events and wars, and “unexpected happenings”
History is replete of such examples wherein those in power distract the populace through devious means for their own benefit.
Funny though, we live in a time and country that is the “greatest on earth” with “so many freedoms” but its hard to see with so many of our country men in prison that rivals a third world country but refuse to see it.
Our CIA is involved covert operations and has been for many years with the full blessing of the state and we choose to ignore it, assuming it is for our benefit are they must have deserved it.
Any talk about the past when it comes any other country’s history is met with lessons, but anything to do with the past 50 years in regards to our own history is challenged as conspiracy theorist mumble jumble. Many refuse to allow introspective criticism as a means to bettering ourselves as a country.
We are the USA, were number 1 and leave it at that
How can we be on anything but a decline, if as a people, we don’t come together and recognize our failings, in order that we also grow together.
The natural consequence of a state in decline is to pass off all responsibility to the state.
The state needs to first get out of business way, and business’s without favors need to handle the risks.
Most small business’s do anyhow. It’s the mega corporations and investment banks that are robbing us blind and drunk on power with our governments blessing.
No handouts via exemptions and padding government pockets
If fuel skyrocketed due to decreased availability, it would be a blessing for many country’s, because they would all have to divert to local markets.
There would be a lot of pain, but there will still be a lot of pain anyhow.
If business’s had to pitch in, to maintain road infrastructure, policing, and local infrastructure, we would be better off. Smaller business’s are more personal with their people, while conglomerates are machines with no emotion.
msmith’s point and mine is that you can keep the poor divided against each other. You said history says this is wrong. Nothing you just posted shows where history shows we’re wrong.
Ever been to Mexico?
No, you’re not reading what I’m saying. The basis of my argument is that Chinas growing prosperity will inevitably propel it towards the status of a Superpower, much like the US.
We have also had a systematic de-industrialization of the country with all the out sourcing. They traded industrial capacity and all the knowledge, infrastructure and expertize that entails for numbers on a balance sheet that went mostly to the top 10%. The people who lost good paying jobs supplanted their lost income with credit which is now out of hand. Depending on where you want to start the decline which I put at Reagan’s feet with the abandonment of “the middle class is most important” to supply side, “the rich are most important” as Limbaugh says “the people who make the country work”. Not only are we in decline we are the walking dead now, there will only be the rich and the poor.
America was still “flying high” in the 1960’s, with the most high paid jobs in the world, the worlds strongest currency-backed by gold, and with the best/most manufactured goods in the world.
The “decline” of the United States actually began in the 1970’s with the beginning of the steady removal of trade tariffs.
The new immigration changes from the late 1960’s which brought in huge numbers (100 million±) of mostly unskilled untrained immigrant job seekers mostly from third world countries ( instead of Western European countries) causing massive government spending on welfare and government/health services did not help either.
From 1970 on, the steady annual loss of good manufacturing jobs combined with the annual addition of millions of immigrant job seekers/massive government spending combined to destroy the Golden Egg that the United States had for over a century.
.
And what we the top marginal tax rates during this period of “flying high”?
The “state” has already done that!!!, by dismantling tariffs, changing tax and trade laws, and allowing American corporations to move our factories and jobs to the cheapest places CommunistChina/asia/mexico of production, under the guise of “free trade”.
When the “state” got out of the way, business then moved its jobs to where(asia) the worlds lowest cost labor is and where business could maximize profits.
As long as we continue with “free trade” and as long as we do not return to the tariff system, then the US will continue to lose jobs, continue to lose manufacturing, continue to go deeper into debt and continue to lose the value of the US Dollar, and continue to decline. Nothing else will change this certain future.
Originally Posted by Susanann
America was still “flying high” in the 1960’s, with the most high paid jobs in the world, the worlds strongest currency-backed by gold, and with the best/most manufactured goods in the world.
Who cares?
Obviously, whatever it was was irrelevant, since in the 20th century up through the 1960’s, the United States was the richest, wealthiest, most powerful, nation in the world with the highest paid workers, the strongest currency, the most jobs, and the best made products in the world.
I can remember the 1940’s. 1950’s, and 1960’s, and taxes were not a concern to anyone I knew, the property taxes, sales taxes, FICA, state and federal taxes COMBINED! were minimal and for most people were a miniscule part of the average family’s budget which 1 wage earner in the family could easily pay. The combined sum of all taxes for the average family were for the most part insignificant.
Furthermore, American businesses, after taxes, were the wealthiest, most financially secure, and had the highest profits in the world back in the 1950’s/1960’s.
People who think about economics.
Obviously, that was all because we weren’t letting in any dark skinned immigrants, and not because the rest of the world’s industrial economies were reduced to rubble ten years earlier.
If only we were smart enough to force other countries to buy almost exclusively from us (possibly a periodic bombing of their industrial capacity and infrastructure?) we could continue to enjoy a near monopoly on the manufacture of goods and services for the world. That would keep all those good manufacturing jobs right here in the US and allow us to continue to grow despite ridiculously high income tax rates, because we could continually open up new markets and force our goods on an expanding group of countries (plus repeat customers as we bomb the shit out of them from time to time to ensure they need to buy new stuff from us).
Sadly, we just don’t have the will power or intestinal fortitude (or moral turpitude) to forge ahead on this path that would clearly be in our collective best interests. And now we’ve lost the window of opportunity with all these other countries getting in on a game that should be exclusively America’s private hunting range. 
-XT