The State of America

[Dayuhan]

What upsets me is that, IMO, the hoi polloi suffers due to serial mismanagement by the political class as a whole....over the course of several administrations.

I suspect that the hoi polloi also suffer to a large degree from their own inattention, vacillation, and inclination to hop on the bandwagon of whatever member of the political class can toss out the moment's most superficially appealing line of twaddle. Democracy has a way of handing people the government they deserve and demand.

Wall Street, Main Street, and DeeCee all have a substantial slice of blame to carry for The Way Things Are (which is neither as dire as some would pretend nor as rosy as some others would pretend). The tendency of each to point the finger exclusively at the others is as unproductive as it is understandable.

[Surferbeetle]

I suspect that the hoi polloi also suffer to a large degree from their own inattention, vacillation, and inclination to hop on the bandwagon of whatever member of the political class can toss out the moment's most superficially appealing line of twaddle. Democracy has a way of handing people the government they deserve and demand.

Wall Street, Main Street, and DeeCee all have a substantial slice of blame to carry for The Way Things Are (which is neither as dire as some would pretend nor as rosy as some others would pretend). The tendency of each to point the finger exclusively at the others is as unproductive as it is understandable.

We are indeed here today for some of the reasons you mention.

Perhaps these are some steps out of the mess we presently find ourselves in...

Starbucks’ Schultz Says 100 Leaders to Halt Campaign Giving, By Leslie Patton, August 24, 2011 3:31 PM EDT, at Bloomberg News

Rove, Burton Political Groups Are Subject of IRS Complaint, September 28, 2011, 5:25 PM EDT, at Bloomberg News

The Moment of Truth, The National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, USG

What Does A 'Post-American World' Look Like?, Fareed Zakaria interviewed on US NPR, Published: June 30, 2011

[slapout9]

Hi Beetle, we don't have a service economy....not even close. Click on the link below to see why. Scroll done to #6 to see a true defenition of a service economy which we don't have as opposed to a service sector economy which we are growing into(and that is bad!). This was a big theory when I was in college back in the 70's and so as not to disapoint anybody did I mention it is based on Systems Theory



http://coevolving.com/blogs/index.ph...rvice-economy/


Fuchs may know this but I think it was a German econcomist that invented the idea, was nominated for a nobel prize but I don't think he won it.

[Bob's World]

Many things German don't work in America. Forestry is one classic example. When the US realized 100 years or so ago that forests were not an endless resource and required management we turned to the experts in Germany for advice.

Their answer was simple and logical: Cut down all of the wild forest and replace it with efficient plantations of even aged, mono-cultured stands of manageable trees. Maximize the volume/profit per acre, etc.

So we set about cutting down the old growth forests with American industry. We also wanted to make our national forests accessible to all for multiple use, so we scattered the timber sales throughout the forest so as to promote a vast road network to service the sales. In a matter of decades we came to realize that more miles of forest road than interstate freeway was a problem to maintain, and that checkerboards of clearcuts were destroying the "deep forest" ecosystem and ecology that affected fish and farming as much as it did elk and owls.

What made sense in a densely populated state like Germany simply did not work in a vast continental nation such as the US. We will be recovering from that error for several generations yet to come.

So direct lifts that work well one place may be highly unsuited to another. Someone needs to pass that to the team leading the design for Afghanistan...