[Nomad77]

You have to live outside of the US to really see the problems within it.

http://voices.yahoo.com/why-united-state...html?cat=9

[j r]

(08-22-2012 09:57 PM)Nomad77 Wrote:  

You have to live outside of the US to really see the problems within it.

http://voices.yahoo.com/why-united-state...html?cat=9

The author of that piece doesn't know what "second world" means.

[kosko]

This article is 10 years late, the USA is already 2nd tier.

(08-22-2012 10:02 PM)j r Wrote:  

(08-22-2012 09:57 PM)Nomad77 Wrote:  

You have to live outside of the US to really see the problems within it.

http://voices.yahoo.com/why-united-state...html?cat=9

The author of that piece doesn't know what "second world" means.

This is true I had trouble talking this female serious using outdated terms that lost traction in the 70's.

The Iraq war is such a small pail in the bucket in terms of funny money and debt. Why does she not talk about the $13-16 Trillion dollars in bailouts The Fed pumped out on the taxpayers dole.

[vinman]

I can't really disagree with a lot of this.

[Rah]

That was not very well argued for a position with so much support to draw upon. She was just spouting off shit you might hear someone on the bus in San Francisco complaining about superficially. If the U.S. ever becomes 2nd world it will be for reasons far more complex than "Americans are too proud, they should hate themselves like I do".

[Sherman]

America will only go down if it loses its freedom. This is what has attracted people all over the world. The growing police state and obsession with terrorism is the greatest threat. Also, China’s rise in the world is an inevitable fact. With economic superiority, eventually comes military superiority.

[Nomad77]

There is a saying: arrogance comes before the fall. It's not about not liking yourself it's about being too arrogant to learn something new or fix something that is broken. And yes, you really have to live outside of the US to see exactly how America compares to other countries.

(08-22-2012 10:13 PM)Rah Wrote:  

That was not very well argued for a position with so much support to draw upon. She was just spouting off shit you might hear someone on the bus in San Francisco complaining about superficially. If the U.S. ever becomes 2nd world it will be for reasons far more complex than "Americans are too proud, they should hate themselves like I do".

[Nomad77]

The only current advantage we have left is building advance weapons and Internet based businesses like Google. And since we are outsourcing most of our software development these days it's only a matter of years before we lose that too. And when that's gone there won't be any rabbits to pull out of the hat.

[Capitán Peligroso]

While I agree with some of her points, she doesn't make a credible case for her thesis at all. America has one of the highest tax rates in the world? Riiiiiiiight. Social security is going bankrupt? If this is true, it's only because we don't have the political will to make minor changes to the tax code. Whatever.

[Rah]

(08-22-2012 10:31 PM)Nomad77 Wrote:  

There is a saying: arrogance comes before the fall. It's not about not liking yourself it's about being too arrogant to learn something new or fix something that is broken. And yes, you really have to live outside of the US to see exactly how America compares to other countries.

(08-22-2012 10:13 PM)Rah Wrote:  

That was not very well argued for a position with so much support to draw upon. She was just spouting off shit you might hear someone on the bus in San Francisco complaining about superficially. If the U.S. ever becomes 2nd world it will be for reasons far more complex than "Americans are too proud, they should hate themselves like I do".

There's volumes and volumes of criticisms to lay against the state of the U.S., which is why I don't think she did a very good job of it. It's not that I'm patriotic at this point, I guess I just don't really like reading a half-baked rant by some British immigrant hag. If I heard her going off on this on the bus I'd be defending America even though I want out.

[Nomad77]

I think the foundation upon which the country was created are great! It is still the best country in the world for small business. America still have many advantages BUT unless we acknowledge and start fixing the shit we won't have much left soon. We don't have any manufacturing base left. We have outsource a large percentage of our service jobs. Where are all of those lower end jobs going to come from? We all can't be doctors and engineers. The same way Roosh is talking about fat people in America it's the same way we have to start talking about our problems. Until we start seeing the reality we can't fix anything.

[j r]

The terms first, second and third world were meant to refer to the United States and its democratic capitalistic allies; the Soviet Union, China and its allies; and all the other nuetral and non-aligned countries. Saying that the United States is going to be a second-world country doesn't make any sense, unless this chick thinks we're going to have some sort of Marxist revolution.

The terms have come to be used in reference to economic development, but there are more precise measures to go by. The UN has a human development index and ranks counties into four categories: very high, high, medium and low human development. The U.S. is currently number 4 and in the very high category with a .91. Even for the U.S. to fall from very high to high, it would have to fall below 43 other countries to around .78, putting it with countries like Uruguay and Romania.

The World Bank ranks countries by GNO and puts them into four categories: high, upper medium, lower medium, and low income. The United States has a per capita GNI of $48,450, making it 14th. The highest upper medium income country is Latvia, with the world's 58th highest GNI at $12,350. Even Mississippi the state with the shittiest economy in the union has a per capita GDP of about $33k, higher than Japan and the EU average.

The idea that the Unites States is going to drop out of the highest income and development categories in the next fifty years is far-fetched. Any catastrophic affects to the U.S. economy would also likely affect the global economy. And even if absolute economic development slowed down across the world, the relative position of the United States would remain roughly the same.

[WestCoast]

Suffering from insomnia due to a dreadful work week. This may get me a lot of hate, and i'm in a bad mood, but I'm sick and tired of all the USA bashing. Get the fuck out then? You wouldn't even have that option if you were poor born in say Bangladesh, good luck.

I stopped reading that article when she said "health care and $125 USD" in the same sentence. This tells me she is making her wages in the USA and or a western country. Then is simply living abroad, and then complaining about outsourcing when... That's all she is doing herself? The low level thinking is staggering.

All you really need to take away is that "middling salary in the USA can be moved abroad" therefore "wages will converge more on a global scale". Okay? So what's the point... All it means is in the future, those poor places get soe, more cash due to expatriation.

The biggest hypocrisy is staring at all of us when we open this forum... 1) forward thinking still done in the USA, look at innovation 2) you're likely writing from a Mac product/tablet/ high end computer... USA innovation again.

Final conclusion, yes for average people... leaving makes sense for "red pill guys", most of whom don't have the balls to do so. $40K in Thailand trumps 40K in manhattan but it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out.

How about we start a thread called "If the USA goes down what can I do to position myself". Mental masturbation is not productive if there are no action steps, reminds me of social science classes where people complain about race/class issues. We can all agree they are there. But what action steps can be done TODAY?

I've grown tired of the captain complainers like the author of that article.

[Nonpareil]

Love that one of her reasons is school shootings, and not what they're a symptom of; a ridiculously feminized culture that gives every possible advantage to women at the expense of men and with the unleashing and normalizing of the female mating strategy (bigger, better, richer), has effectively removed access to women from a very large percentage of men. You just don't see too many high school quarterbacks who are swimming in pussy taking a Luger to school.

Of course, being a woman, I expect her to either be unable to put two-and-two together, or to ignore it entirely.

[jackson.henley]

Frankly if you look at parts of Western Europe, it ain't that different, esp regarding school shootings in the last 15 years (and that's WITH gun control laws in place).

[porscheguy]

These anti-American diatribes from expats overseas are tiresome. She sits on her ass in a country where her merely average US based salary lets her live like royalty while the poorest people in her country don't have regular access to running water. And then she wants to lecture me?

She says America has a racism problem, meanwhile she's in a country whose one school shooting was due to Muslim separatists. In addition, most of Thailand's neighbors are already featured on Genocide Watch, and Thailand with their Muslim separatist problem will probably be there in a few years as well.

She points out that government subsidized healthcare in Thailand gives access to the poorest people for less than $1 for a doctor visit. Too bad the bottom 20% in Thailand still have to choose between going to the doctor or eating.

I never said the US was perfect, but I'd rather be dirt poor in the US, which usually means I'll still have access to running water, as opposed to Thailand, where being dirt poor means you get to be on TV ads with Sally Struthers.

[soup]

Women and men are lost in America. We need someone who can inspire people to be the best.

[kosko]

Comparing the USA to Somalia does not make any sense. You can only compare the USA to other OECD nations and in that group it is a bottom feeder and in its lowest tier.

Also @JR I can put little faith in shoddy metrics used by USA institutions. Just like a take with a boulder of salk any numbers that come out of China I equally understand the USA fluffs and distorts its own data also.

How the hell are personal and combined household incomes in America nearly the same?

In Canada there is a clear 30-40K difference between median personal and household incomes yet America data goofs up the numbers so bad you can't even tell the two apart.

How about BLS goofing around with unemployment numbers?

or how CPI messes up inflation?

Its all bullshit.

And GDP even though it is a worldwide agreed number is heavily flawed it should not be used especially in the the case of the of the USA. No where else I can think off where a house burning down or a car getting stolen and pushed into a river get counted as positive ticks in the economy/GDP.

Nobody talks about how 40% of Americans are under-employed, or how wages were higher in the 60's, or how "GDP" never actually was pushed into positive territory in 2010 and American has been in a economic depression since 2008. The "double dip" noise was non-sense it has still been shrinking.

Still are pluses though. America feeds the world. It may be with shady corn and soy but it is a Agriculture powerhouse when nations like China play a balancing act with the ability to feed their populations consistently. For the areas it dominates: Agriculture, donuts, weapons, Cotton, Refined oil, America leads the globe.

Also the ability to capitalize ideas and turn them into money. No other nation can you take a thought and turn it into cash. Even though this can have its drawbacks as negative ideas which are at no benefit to society or the economy can receive the same treatment as an idea for a iPhone it still is a pegg that America has over the world.

There are still many advantages in the USA which is why even myself is smelling the opportunities there to hustle vs Canada. But nobody is fooling around here 50 years is a long time.. in 50 years I don't even think there will be a USA *in theory* aka its constitution will have been re-vamped (v 2.0) or nulled.

But in the end iPhones, Five Guys, Corn on the Cob, Hanes T-shirts, and Lockeed Martin isn't going to wake up America from its economic and social comma. Serious investments in REAL things is the only way and the small circle which holds power and wealth in the country has no interest in doing that.

[j r]

(08-23-2012 06:31 AM)kosko Wrote:  

Comparing the USA to Somalia does not make any sense. You can only compare the USA to other OECD nations and in that group it is a bottom feeder and in its lowest tier.

Also @JR I can put little faith in shoddy metrics used by USA institutions. Just like a take with a boulder of salk any numbers that come out of China I equally understand the USA fluffs and distorts its own data also.

Neither the UN or the World Bank are U.S. institutions. And the United States has some of, if not the best, statistical agencies in the world. Inflation and employment numbers aren't goofed around with. They're defined by a certain methodology and reported on using that methodology. Maybe there's a better methodology to use, but that's a technical issue.

My post was meant to bring some objective measures into the conversation. The original article was some journalist chick who decided to spout off on a bunch of topics that she doesn't seem to know much about. She makes a prediction that America will move from one category to the another in the next 50 years, but she couldn't even get her categories right.

If you're going to make claims about America heading for some kind of fall, then you need to back it up with actual metrics. Otherwise, like Rah said, you end up sounding like some person on a bus ranting about how you used to be able to make a phone call for a dime.

[Blackhawk]

(08-23-2012 06:31 AM)kosko Wrote:  

Nobody talks about how 40% of Americans are under-employed, or how wages were higher in the 60's, or how "GDP" never actually was pushed into positive territory in 2010 and American has been in a economic depression since 2008. The "double dip" noise was non-sense it has still been shrinking.

Sure we've been talking about this. We've been talking about this since the 1960s. But it's demographically based. The US is STILL dealing with its post-WWII Baby Boom. Senior Citizens aren't able to do as productive work as when they were younger, and as a result take salary cuts and transition to work that makes them counted as "under-employed" if they can find work at all that they can still do. When the largest generation of your country's population becomes old, your "unemployed" and "under-employed" stats go up. The Gray Wave problem is well understood. China is up for it next, and you're going to see their economy fall as well.

The thing is, the only solution is untenable. We would have to accelerate how quickly our elderly die off after they stop being productive, or even as they decline in being productive.

So short of murdering literally millions of people in the name of economic policy, all the US can do is endure until they die of natural causes a decade or so from now. The US Depression was predicted to be 2012-2024. It started a little bit earlier. It may end a little earlier or a little later. We'll see when we get there. Life spans increases could stretch the predictions later.

And when we come out on the other side... demographically it's going to be pretty sweet again.

Assuming you survive the Super Flu outbreak that's also predicted to develop from having so many weakened old immune systems incubating all sorts of horrific diseases at once.

[speakeasy]

Fresh off the press:

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-...6289.story

[Excelsior]

I co-sign all posts made by j r and Blackhawk in this thread. The United States has some serious problems, but they are not described well by this article's author or by many of those who sympathize with her. These predictions regarding the cominc apocalypse for the United States are, at best, tinfoil hat predictions. They do not have a factual basis and just can't be taken too seriously.

The USA will have its struggles in the coming 50 years, and in some metrics it will (and actually already has) lose some ground to other nations who are improving in those areas. As Blackhawk quite wisely illustrated, this has been predicted, and is far from unexpected.
In the end, however, there is no compelling reason to believe that the coming years will see the United States turn into Romania or Latvia, as so many of those of a similar mind to this author seem convinced. It simply isn't going to happen.

(08-23-2012 09:45 AM)Blackhawk Wrote:  

So short of murdering literally millions of people in the name of economic policy, all the US can do is endure until they die of natural causes a decade or so from now. The US Depression was predicted to be 2012-2024. It started a little bit earlier. It may end a little earlier or a little later. We'll see when we get there. Life spans increases could stretch the predictions later.

And when we come out on the other side... demographically it's going to be pretty sweet again.

Precisely. I wrote about this in the other recent "50 year prediction" thread we had. Once we endure this coming demographic shift, there could be a small demographic dividend yielded due to the decrease in dependents (read: the passing of the boomer generation that, at the moment, controls 80% of the wealth in this society). That more favorable dependency ratio could theoretically create a small economic boom for a time,and may be augmented by immigration which, in turn, will help to produce an even more favorable dependency ratio.

If this is in turn combined with the coming of far less favorable dependency ratios in nations that we compete with (ex: The EU/Japan/Korea, all of which have far older populations and many fewer young people to replace them, or China, which is headed for a similar demographic wall), the boom could be extended. The USA will be far healthier demographically than other industrial powers, and this could allow it to take a clearer global economic lead. This could all come to pass anywhere from 12 to 20 years from now (were I a betting man, I'd expect to see it no sooner than the late 2020's).

What you would see could resemble the favorable situation the USA found itself in post-WW2, where the erosion or outright destruction of other industrial powers left America the prime industrial power and subsequent beneficiary of a massive boom time.
What we could see in the middle of this century is similar to that American "golden age", with our competitors weakened by demographics instead of warfare.

[Samseau]

Quote:

The idea that the Unites States is going to drop out of the highest income and development categories in the next fifty years is far-fetched. Any catastrophic affects to the U.S. economy would also likely affect the global economy. And even if absolute economic development slowed down across the world, the relative position of the United States would remain roughly the same.

This 100% percent. I agree that the USA is in for some really tough times ahead. Bankruptcy (i.e. hyperinflation), wars, major political upheaval, and long depressions.


So what? The rest of the world is gonna suffer anything the USA suffers or greater. When Rome fell, it wasn't like the rest of the world picked up the slack and started making a good living for everyone. It was called the dark ages for a reason.