You do understand, I hope, that many, probably most, rich Americans do not meet the description in your second sentence; and that even those who do are still capable of doing society more harm than good.
Is the US in serious trouble, trouble so bad that our survival as a nation is very much in question?
That’s also a defining tendency of Chinese civilization. One of the most common names for China in Mandarin Chinese is Zhongguo, which means “central country”.
It was a defining tendency of Greek civilization. They called all non-Greeks barbarians, because non-Greek speech sounded like babble to them.
My point is, you see that kind of idea pop up in a lot of very different civilizations. It’s not unique to America.
Is it really such a good thing to think of one’s own culture as the last great hope for human civilization, and all others as inferior in some way? People who talk this way when visiting foreign countries seem rather obnoxious. It’s a natural, human thing to do, but so are murder and rape.
And I hope you understand that there are a lot of wealthy people who do not work for investment banks and do not show up drunk on TMZ.
The reason crime seems to be down is because our jails are all full. We can’t build jails fast enough. We actually have more criminals but crime is down because we lock them away. We house more prisoners then any other country in the world.
I think the media encourages crime by showcasing it so much. On cable they even have reality shows like ‘Inside the Walls’. The favorite shows in jail are the ones where they learn the tools of forensic science and how to be better criminals. Also the ones they may have been filmed like on Cops. Actually a lot of shows are about crime. Law and Order, CSI, Criminal Minds is one of my favorites. Then there is World Dumbest Criminals, NCIS, Forensic Files, Cold Case files, The First 48 and these are just the ones that pop in my head.
Crime is up and our new federal prison is full of white collar criminals. A friend of mine that owns a local pizza joint delivers pizza to the prison. On the taxpayers dime.
Crime is big business all the way around.
Wrong.
Right, I’m pretty well-to-do and I’m a software engineer working, at least some of the time, on ecologically-friendly transportation projects. My wife is an elementary schoolteacher. I lean generally liberal politically.
I think you should read the data. Pretty amazing we beat out China.
I love that whenever you get called on something you made up you provide a cite that supports (maybe) some other completely different point you made.
Crime rates have been falling pretty steadily over the past several decades. Here’s a graph (on Wikipedia, but from the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics) that shows it: Crime rates.
Yes, the NUMBER of prisoners incarcerated has been increasing, but the RATES of crime have been decreasing.
This. I’m an American national, not an American communicant. America is my land of birth, but any religion of Americanism is bullshit.
You are correct, The crime rate did go down. The three strikes law is working in keeping repeat offenders in prison for life. Without one in 17 of our male population behind bars our crime rate would be much higher is what I was trying to say.
In 2006, ((($68,747,203,000))) was spent on corrections.
“The average annual operating cost per state inmate in 2001 was $22,650, or $62.05 per day; among facilities operated by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, it was $22,632 per inmate, or $62.01 per day.”
Housing the approximately 500,000 people in jail awaiting trial who can’t afford bail costs $9 billion a year. To ease jail overcrowding over 10 counties every year consider building new jails. As an example Lubbock County, Texas has decided to build a $110 million megajail to ease jail overcrowding. Jail costs an average of $60 a day nationally. In Broward County, Florida supervised pretrial release costs about $7 a day per person while jail costs $115 a day. The jail system costs a quarter of every county tax dollar in Broward County, and is the single largest expense to the county taxpayer.
States spend an estimated 7 percent of their budget on corrections.
The cost of medical care for inmates is growing by 10 percent annually.
Article from Wikpedia.
Actually, yes. Especially so when economists often cannot agree when using the same data.
We’ve gone from actually building things to shuffling paper for those who do the building. You’ve supported my assertion.
What I will add is how much Americans don’t talk, and listen, to each other, especially our ‘leaders.’ I’m told the health summit tomorrow is already bogged down by one party arguing about the size and design of the table, whether there will be cameras in the room during lunch, and a demand they receive a complete tour of Blair House before anything starts. It’s the same party that has done no work in the Senate while the House has passed along almost 300 bills to them for debate.
When petty, political partisanship trumps the business of the country, when so many Americans believe the bullshit, when so many of those same Americans refuse to believe documented facts (preferring the mantra of media nutjobs), when it’s more important to put tax dollars into tax incentives into companies hoping they will hire the unemployed rather than paying the people directly, it really is hard to think this too shall pass.
There was a time when America flooded the world with products and innovation now all we produce are “financial instruments” “bundled assets” “derivatives” nothing but fancy ways of moving fake assets and paper profits around in circles. Folks money is illusionary it doesn’t really exist with out tangible things like goods, factories, industrial capacity to back it up. All we have now are numbers on balance sheets. I remember George Will stating how good it was for us to loose jobs overseas because Americans shouldn’t be doing that kind of work anyway.
If they take down the Statue of Liberty, it’ll be to reuse the copper. They didn’t replace the Colossus of Rhodes with anything else.
Indeed, the Hummer is a representative symbol of American strength.
GM to shut down Hummer after China deal fizzles
I find it curious that some people here seem to think America can (will?) simply default on its debt without consequences.
Do you think the deal fell through because of American debt or because demand for Hummers have been plumeting ever since gas prices spiked a few years back?
People keep saying “we don’t make anything” but that is factually incorrect.
You have it backwards. People became rich because they invented and created important things. Or they enjoyed great success in their careers. Paris Hilton gets to enjoy being a professional imbecile because her great grandfather created the Hilton Hotel chain.
Attitudes like yours are the greatest threat to our countries economic future IMHO. Its this overwhelming sense of entitlement combined with a disdain and contempt for hard work. Your attempt to paint all successful businesses as corrupt investment banks or all wealthy people as idiot hieresses just provides you with an excuse to never accomplish anything. Rich People are a permenant, corrupt, impenetrable social class who want nothing more than to keep the good, decent, hardworking, common folk down. So guess what? You don’t have to study hard in school because school is a waste of time and money. You don’t have to work hard at your job because you are essentially a slave or indentured servent. And it’s perfectly ok to punish successful companies economically because they only got rich by stealing from the good, decent, hardworking, common folk
I would suspect it fell through because someone realized they were buying a dud.
Did your question have a point? The comment I made about America defaulting on debt without consequence had nothing to do with Hummer’s demise, not sure why you conflated the two.
Well don’t hold out on us… what is American furnishing the world with? How do those figures compare with the past?
Take a look at the list of countries by GDP sector. What country has the largest industrial sector in the “composition in million dollars” table?
Hint: United States=2,696,880, People’s Republic of China=1,208,272.
It’s not a symbol of America. It’s a truck sold by a private company. A truck that has become less popular since gas prices started to go up a couple of years ago.
GM tried to sell off a brand that wasn’t doing well, and when it couldn’t, it decided to get rid of that brand. That’s something companies do. We’ve had automobile brands go away before. Plymouth went away in 2001. Geo went away in 1998.
You see the disconnect there? We’re not a meritocracy. Don’t pretend we are.