America: What Did We Do Wrong?

[bilop]

Because it’s better than where they come from, and we let them in.

Just because the US is better than a lot of places doesn’t mean it isn’t worse that it used to be.

40 years ago a man could graduate HS, and get a job that would (if he worked hard) allow him to support a wife and family in a lower-middle class lifestyle. Today 2 HS graduates working have a hard time achieving that.

The hourly wage for male workers is lower today (inflation adjusted) than it was in 1979. Median Household Income is $4G lower than it was in 1999. We are approaching 50% of children born out of wedlock. It’s bad.

The working class family has collapsed, and the middle class is in jeopardy.

God Bless

 

[CrossofChrist]

Stats don’t lie and it’s clear that the Big Project of America has failed.

What went wrong? What factors have made us slip to second-rate, has-been?

What do you mean? Economically, spiritually, or something else? Help us out.

 

[Jeanne_S]

What a bunch of foolish nonsense. America is its people who have NOT failed in any way. We are a diverse melting pot of 400 million people and we prosper like no other country or peoples in history. There is no true poverty in this country, no run away communicable diseases, no wide spread sectarian violence or war, no starvation, and woman are equals. Our so called poor own cars, tvs, $400 cell phones and are so fat the biggest treat to them is type II diabetes. Everyone who wishes to avail themselves of it have health care that is the finest in the world. This country protects the world and maintains a level of stability and global peace that is unprecedented. Natural disasters are shaken off without violence or a break down in order. The government so called shuts down and life for 99.99% of America does not miss a beat.

I suggest those of you in perpetual self loathing about this country turn off the internet, shut off the TV and go out into the world and see how the other half lives. If you are obsessed with the moral transgression of America I suggest you compare it to the rest of the world or better yet mind your own beam before pointing out others specs. GOD BLESS AMERICA!

I agree with much of what you are saying.Yet,to not acknowledge that we as a society are very broken have devolved to a level,not seen since biblical times,is serious denial. Moral relativism,secularism,PC have led us down this ruinous path.To not call out these offenses,is a lack of charity,love for our neighbor. The first step n effecting change is to acknowledge that a change is needed.

 

[Timothysis]

I guess it will take a major disaster to drive it home, maybe like China, Russia and few other countries will stop accepting the US dollar fairly soon, this will only lead to other nations following suit, Most americans already realize the US dollar has been on its last leg for awhile, this latest news is just the last few nails in the coffin.

Are you not aware that foreign countries like Russia and especially China hold billions and billions in American dollars? If they were to “stop accepting the US dollar fairly soon,” they would wreak havoc upon their own economies, not to mention the global economy.

And “most Americans” couldn’t tell you 3 things about the value of the US dollar; to say that it is on its “last leg” shows that you don’t know much about it, either.

 

[Reep]

Stats don’t lie and it’s clear that the Big Project of America has failed. What went wrong? What factors have made us slip to second-rate, has-been?

You are not the first to recognize the failure of the experiment. It was 143 years ago that Lysander Spooner concluded that whatever we may think of the Constitution:

• “. . . this much is certain—that it has either authorized such a government as we have had, or has been powerless to prevent it. In either case, it is unfit to exist.”*

~ Lysander Spooner, No Treason: No. VI, The Constitution of No Authority (1870) 59.​

 

[mikekle]

Are you not aware that foreign countries like Russia and especially China hold billions and billions in American dollars? If they were to “stop accepting the US dollar fairly soon,” they would wreak havoc upon their own economies, not to mention the global economy.

And “most Americans” couldn’t tell you 3 things about the value of the US dollar; to say that it is on its “last leg” shows that you don’t know much about it, either.

This was on the nightly news, They said China announced its plan to phase out the use of the US dollar in their country, of course, they wont do it suddenly, it will be something done over a period of years.

 

[Thinking10]

I agree with Pat Buchanan on many of his views including those about the decline of America. Take a look through his column archives, there are many interesting views there. buchanan.org/blog/columns

 

[AnimalSpirits]

This was on the nightly news, They said China announced its plan to phase out the use of the US dollar in their country, of course, they wont do it suddenly, it will be something done over a period of years.

They said they were going to decrease their accumulation of foreign currencies, the USD included. Your nightly news station radically misinterpreted,

 

[Reep]

They said they were going to decrease their accumulation of foreign currencies, the USD included. Your nightly news station radically misinterpreted,

You got this announcement right, but it is still a huge economic story. If China stops buying US bonds, the only faithful remaining buyer will be the Federal Reserve, whose purchases are all made with fantasy money hot off their “printing press.” Unfortunately, the Fed is supposed to be “tapering” its buying, not increasing it. Just one more way America has “gone wrong.” We’ll leave the bill for our children to pay.

 

[JB_Dugan]

** America: What Did We Do Wrong?**

Politically, we allowed “creeping socialism” to get a foothold in our government and economy. This started with Woodrow Wilson and expanded in the form of social programs under FDR. And…capped it off by electing THE most liberal, un-American, unqualified and clueless president in our history.

Spiritually we went wrong when American Bishops, clergy and liberal theologians misinterpreted the documents of Vatican II and began “modifying” the teachings of the Church to advance their own agenda.

 

[mikekle]

You got this announcement right, but it is still a huge economic story. If China stops buying US bonds, the only faithful remaining buyer will be the Federal Reserve, whose purchases are all made with fantasy money hot off their “printing press.” Unfortunately, the Fed is supposed to be “tapering” its buying, not increasing it. Just one more way America has “gone wrong.” We’ll leave the bill for our children to pay.

It is strange the nation many people see as the worlds greatest super power relies on other communist nations for its financial security, and without Chinese money, the US would have fallen long ago.

Maybe its time the US stand on it own and stop relying on someone else, sink or swim?

 

[HappyCatholic01]

Unless we just annexed Mexico, we do not have 400 million people.

We’d have 350 if we had not allowed abortion. And, regardless of bad loans and the rest of it, if those fifty million lost bodies were in the economy, that economy would be healthier.

There is no way housing prices would have fallen so far (triggering the 2008 recession), if the country had not eliminated thirty million potential home buyers.

Whatever happens with debts, war or otherwise, a country that loves and honors our LORD will be protected.

ICXC NIKA

Yep. Having the best fiscal policies and caring the environment isn’t going to matter one wit if we turn our backs on God and continue to slaughter the most vulnerable. Turning back to God can cure a host of manmade problems, and turning away from God can destroy the best laid man mad plans.

 

[AnimalSpirits]

You got this announcement right, but it is still a huge economic story. If China stops buying US bonds, the only faithful remaining buyer will be the Federal Reserve, whose purchases are all made with fantasy money hot off their “printing press.” Unfortunately, the Fed is supposed to be “tapering” its buying, not increasing it. Just one more way America has “gone wrong.” We’ll leave the bill for our children to pay.

1. There’s no reason to believe that China is looking into decreasing bond purchases. They are just interested in accumulating vast stores od USD.
2. Other countries, Japan in particular, buy US bonds. But more importantly, huge numbers of private investors purchase large numbers of bonds.

 

[manualman]

Your problem is that the US society is being restructured into plutocracy, where you have a narrow group of ultra rich (1%), a larger group running the business for the first group (lawyers etc. - 10%), a third group which is doing things useful for the society (about 40% and declining) and the remaining 50% (and growing) underclass on blue-collar jobs. These people used to be productive, but since their jobs have been exported to Asia, they are now a dependent on state aid to survive.

Hopefully I’m misunderstanding you here because on the face of it, this is perhaps the most revolting CAF post I’ve ever read (insincere troll posts excepted). Are you seriously denigrating the contributions of the 100 million+ of Americans who work blue collar jobs and essentially characterizing them as underclass leaches on the system? The mechanics, carpenters, factory assemblers, equipment operators, electricians, etc? There is still a universe of blue collar jobs out there that pay living wages, require serious skill and have at least as good a future career outlook as “lawyers, etc.” I daresay that most of them contribute more to the function of society than you do. Underclass, sheesh.

The real problem is not that too many people are blue collar workers (indeed society would collapse without them), but that we’ve become a society of spoiled narcissists. Everybody thinks he is entitled to his every desire. Democracy is fundamentally dependent on a virtuous citizenry. When the citizenry refuse to cultivate virtue, democracy will collapse and tyranny will step in. It hasn’t happened yet, but we are on the track. One sure step is when people see other people as an “underclass.” News flash, the entitlement attitude is at least as prevalent among the privileged as among the poor. They just have better connections for exploitation.

Sometimes people’s posts say more about the writer than the subject they are writing upon.

 

[weller2]

Are you seriously denigrating the contributions of the 100 million+ of Americans who work blue collar jobs and essentially characterizing them as underclass leaches on the system?

I’m saying that economic policies since Reagan have turned productive people into what Republicans call leaches – with no fault of their own. Let me explain.

I was responding to the claim that US economy would be better off with 50M extra workers. My response is that this is not the case, because US currently suffers from oversupply of labor, not shortage of labor, so 50M extra people would only make things worse.

The best proof of oversupply of labor is that companies like Wt can pay their workers less than a living wage, so they live on foodstamps (and other forms of state assistance). Since foodstamps are financed by the taxpayer, this has two main effecs. The first is that the taxpayer is effectively subsidizing Wt. The second is that this situation creates a group of people who have no assets, no opportunities to make their lives better, and cannot survive without state aid (despite working!). This is a textbook definition of an underclass.

I personally find that revolting – I have a firm belief that whoever works a full-time job, any job, should be able to feed a family. So in a properly managed economy, underclass is limited to people who are actually unwilling to work for any reason. That’s not the case in the US: you have millions of people who are willing to work, but the oversupply of labor means that they are offered rates below living wage.

And then you wonder that you have crime, drug epidemic and what not. Duh. If your prospects are limited to foodstamps and slaving below the living wage for the rest of your life, then sooner or later you’ll either start taking meth or decide to rob someone richer. Or both.

Up to 1970s a blue-collar worker could feed wife and several children from one full-time job. This is not the case now.

 

[manualman]

That’s certainly better, but is by no means what you wrote. You lumped all blue class workers together.

Some of your points have merit, but there is a flip side that bears as much or more blame. Many of those folks whose entire career consists of punching in and out as a Walmart career have been TRAINED by society and system to prevent them from doing better. Their “community organizers” have lectured them to believe that society OWES them safe and quality housing, food, medical care and cell phones as basic human rights. When they lack these things, it’s because somebody else is actively depriving them of their human rights. It’s somebody else’s fault if they lack because it’s somebody else’s DUTY to provide.

The entire system has been altered away from a culture of diligent work that seeks to better ones self AND the client (be that employer or direct client) to one in which people are trained to find ways to merely GET the most from the other guy.

I’ve lived in the blue collar culture. I’ve worked retail, been a janitor, been a chimney sweep, been a land surveyor’s assistant. These fields really are full of people who feel that their major obligation is to show up and sluggishly do the minimum amount of work possible until it’s time to clock out. Such guys never do break out or get ahead, and bemoan their fate in the system. Opportunities ARE out there in the blue collar field though for people who bring a genuine work ethic. A janitor who shows aptitude and interest CAN move up to maintaining and fixing equipment, and then to overall building maintenance and planning. That’s not a perpetual min wage work track. A high school grad with some math aptitude CAN become a survey crew chief eventually. These aren’t tracks to riches, but they ARE tracks to living wages. It’s the attitude of "I’m here, so you owe me that dooms many to perpetual status on the bottom rung. Having moved out of the blue collar field, I can also tell you that this happens in the white collar world. It’s a cultural problem and a BIG one.

So I’m not real up on blaming one segment of society or politics for our problems. The problems are deeper than such surface distinctions. Our whole culture has changed to one of selfishness instead of mutual service and mutual gain. Yeah, the corporate types are greedy, self-interested and short sighted. But so are the regular guys on the line.

I’m glad you don’t really think the way your original post read! But I do hope you start to look at it rather deeper than partisan politics can address the issue.

 

[manualman]

Up to 1970s a blue-collar worker could feed wife and several children from one full-time job. This is not the case now.

Way too broad, by the way. I know of equipment operators, electricians and plumbers who make more than the average professional engineer. And blue collar trades are perhaps the easiest way to actually start your own business based on the skills you master. It’s not all bad news on that front. It’s worst for those who feel that their major obligation is to show up, punch in and nominally do what they are told.

 

[mikekle]

That’s certainly better, but is by no means what you wrote. You lumped all blue class workers together.

Some of your points have merit, but there is a flip side that bears as much or more blame. Many of those folks whose entire career consists of punching in and out as a Walmart career have been TRAINED by society and system to prevent them from doing better. Their “community organizers” have lectured them to believe that society OWES them safe and quality housing, food, medical care and cell phones as basic human rights. When they lack these things, it’s because somebody else is actively depriving them of their human rights. It’s somebody else’s fault if they lack because it’s somebody else’s DUTY to provide.

The entire system has been altered away from a culture of diligent work that seeks to better ones self AND the client (be that employer or direct client) to one in which people are trained to find ways to merely GET the most from the other guy.

I’ve lived in the blue collar culture. I’ve worked retail, been a janitor, been a chimney sweep, been a land surveyor’s assistant. These fields really are full of people who feel that their major obligation is to show up and sluggishly do the minimum amount of work possible until it’s time to clock out. Such guys never do break out or get ahead, and bemoan their fate in the system. Opportunities ARE out there in the blue collar field though for people who bring a genuine work ethic. A janitor who shows aptitude and interest CAN move up to maintaining and fixing equipment, and then to overall building maintenance and planning. That’s not a perpetual min wage work track. A high school grad with some math aptitude CAN become a survey crew chief eventually. These aren’t tracks to riches, but they ARE tracks to living wages. It’s the attitude of "I’m here, so you owe me that dooms many to perpetual status on the bottom rung. Having moved out of the blue collar field, I can also tell you that this happens in the white collar world. It’s a cultural problem and a BIG one.

So I’m not real up on blaming one segment of society or politics for our problems. The problems are deeper than such surface distinctions. Our whole culture has changed to one of selfishness instead of mutual service and mutual gain. Yeah, the corporate types are greedy, self-interested and short sighted. But so are the regular guys on the line.

I’m glad you don’t really think the way your original post read! But I do hope you start to look at it rather deeper than partisan politics can address the issue.

Its only going to get worse too, what happens when all the young kids of today enter the work force? These are kids who are used to having everything handed to them and not having to do any real work to get ahead, plus kids today are extremely sheltered from any kind of problems or crisis.

I think it is going to be a real problem for employers, they will suddenly be stuck with a entire work force that does not want to do anything and will demand everything, and definitely will not have the work ethic of generations past. kids and even people in their 30s today think they are owed a living, and do not think they should have to work their way up thru hard work and dedication.

Im curious to see what the work place is going to look like under these conditions.

 

[CaptFun]

In a word, secularism.

southcoastreport.com/catholic-bishop-exposes-darwinism-secularism-communism-connection-2/



Bishop Cuthbert O’Gara author of
“Surrender to Secularism”

• (this excerpt from the book, begins with Bishop O’Gara’s arrest in Mao’s China in the late '40s or early '50s)*

“When the Communist troops over-ran my diocese they were followed in very short order by the propaganda corps — the civilian branch of the Red forces — an organization, if anything, more disciplined, more zealous, more fanatical, than the People’s Army of Liberation itself

“The entire population, city and countryside, was immediately organized into distinctive categories — grade school and high school pupils and teachers (Catholic, Protestant and pagan), merchants, artisans, members of the professions, yes, and even the lowly coolies.

“Everyone, for a week or more, was forced to attend the seminar specified for his or her proper category and there willy-nilly in servile submission listen to the official Communist line.

“Now what, I ask, was the first lesson given to the indoctrinees?

“One might have supposed this would have been some pearl of wisdom let drop by Marx, Lenin or Stalin.

“Such however was not the case.

“The very first, the fundamental, lesson given was man’s descent from the ape — Darwinism!

“This naturally shocked the Christians (Catholics and Protestants) attending the seminars and as might have been expected they reacted violently.

“The non-Christians, who in China were commonly referred to as pagans, and who constituted the vast majority of the population, were equally antagonistic to the ape theory because from time immemorial the Chinese people in a nebulous sort of way believed in a Supreme Being, in a soul and in an existence after death.

“Are you surprised that the Chinese Communists choose Darwinism as the corner-stone upon which to build their new political structure?

“At first this maneuver amazed me.

“I had taken for granted that they would begin by expounding the economic principles of Marx.

“Later on when in a Red jail the reason for this unanticipated tactic became very obvious to me.

“By that time I knew very well that the primary purpose of the Peoples’ Government in Peking was to extirpate all religious belief and practice from China — particularly to destroy utterly the Catholic Church. – Bishop O’Gara

 

[mikekle]

southcoastreport.com/catholic-bishop-exposes-darwinism-secularism-communism-connection-2/

http://southcoastreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/bishop1-224x300.png

Bishop Cuthbert O’Gara author of
“Surrender to Secularism”

I dont think it will come as a shock to any practicing christian, after all, God clearly told us the church would go thru some very tough times right before the second coming, and many churches would close down and it would appear the entire faith is on the brink of total failure. we can see hints of this starting to happen today, but it should be no surprise to anyone, it MUST happen to usher in something better.