What's wrong with our country, and how're you gonna fix it?
POSTED BY: Cuda
UPDATED: Thursday, December 11, 2025 19:41
VIEWED: 28394
PAGE 3 of 12
What's wrong with the US? Fear of losing a good thing. The US supports roughly %10 of the world's population but consumes over %60 of the world's resources. We have a very, very high standard of living and we are terribly afraid of losing it. To this end the people in power are manipulating the social, political and economic environment to ensure that more money remains in the hands of the wealthy. It's a classic "Screw you. I got mine, you get yours."
NAFTA was supposed to weld a giant economic block out of Canada, the US and Mexico to compete with the European Union. Truth is the EU was cobbled together to compete on near even terms with the US. NAFTA allowed the upper echelon of management to send a whole host of manufacturing and service jobs to Mexico and Canada with nary a hint of it in the papers. They are our economic partners, it is okay for them to have these jobs. The cheaper US products are produced and services rendered the bigger the bottom line for the upper echelon.
Hell, even when the company fails the management is rewarded. Enron employees got screwed, lost all of their retirement savings and the executives, while they are pariahs and probably won't work in major corporations again, have not had to tighten their belts a single notch.
Okay, follow along her kids. If we import most of our products and we don't actually manufacture anything to export to balance that trade debt, then what happens to the US economy? If you said it flies down the shitter faster than your last trip to Taco Bell you get a big fat star.
As for what am I going to do about it? Nothing. I'm just going to quietly build and stock my bunker in the old, geologically stable mountains of the northeast. And when the Yellowstone supervolcano blows, close the doors and windows so I don't have to watch %99 of the US population go the way of the dinosaurs.
The more I get to know people the more I like my dogs.
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Quote:
If we import most of our products and we don't actually manufacture anything to export to balance that trade debt, then what happens to the US economy?
Just because something is made outside of U.S. borders, doesn't mean the profit isn't going to the U.S. American products made in foreign countries are still American products.
I know this raises all sorts of employment issues but if American workers aren't willing to work for the same types of labor rates as foreigners, then maybe they should think of coming up with some alternatives on their own. Like I said in my earlier post, maybe they should have worked harder on their educations so they could have employment traits for something other than a production line.
I think people need to ease up on the corporation bashing. I know there are some bad ones out there, but greed is what makes companies succeed. If a company can't turn a profit on product, then the company has no reason to produce a product. It may appear to some that companies are taking advantage of foreign workers, but if the conditions are so terrible and the compensation so poor, just like in the U.S. they wouldn't be able to retain employees.
A huge demand is placed on the efficiency of consumer goods, from cars to appliances. But companies are basically machines also, if they are not allowed to run efficiently, that simply means that there are wasted resources within the system. Jobs may go to foreigners, but that should allow the remaining Americans to pursue other means of employment. Hell, they could start their own companies, which then hire employees, produce goods, generate tax revenue, yada, yada...
A lot of 'corporation bashers' seem to be tax lovers. They need to remember that company profits turn into, amongst other things, company taxes.
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First let me apologize for my slight rant in the other thread. I didn't see this thead. Heads are much cooler in here.
Whats wrong with our county? Plenty. Is it the right-wing? Sometimes. The left-wing? Sometimes. Liberals, Democrats, Birkenstock-wearing tree-huggers, Republicans, gun-toting bible-thumping zealots? Sometimes.
The point is, (and most people that follow politics don't understand this) its not ANYONES fault ALL OF THE TIME.
If you listen to the media (which DOES indeed have a liberal slant), you would get the impression that all conservatives are right-wing kooks.
If you listen to Rush Limbaugh (which everybody knows is leaning hard to the right), you would believe that all liberals are out to turn the USA into a Socialist system.
Neither one is right. Neither one is completely wrong.
I believe that the biggest hurdle that we as a nation need to get over is the divisionism power politics. Not enough of us educate ourselves with the facts. We listen to the crap that the politicans tell us. We listen to the spin that Dan Rather puts on it. Then we listen to Rush spin back.
When did we become such a band of followers? This country is founded on the pricipals of freedom, yet we let others fill our minds with their opinions. We are free to think for ourselves, but we are also lazy. We are also disinterested (unless we're trying to impress someone with our knowledge of politics).
I consider myself a conservative. I don't vote straight Republican. The Republican party doesn't do any better that the Democratic party in most cases. I belive that Government is TOO BIG. It has become something that the founding fathers never intended. They set up the country to be based in INDIVIDUAL freedoms. Now the government has its fingers in every part of life.
I don't WANT universal heathcare. I don't WANT free prescription drugs. I don't WANT Social Security. I would much rather have the government take less money from my paycheck. We should be able to provide for ourselves, not have to rely on the government. Bush drive me crazy for this point. He signed the Universal Heathcare Bill. A true conservative would never have signed such a bill. Its a total Democratic-party-social-plan program.
I'm all for big-business. I can't imagine how hard it would be to create and manage a wildly successful company, but I hope to do so someday. When I do, I don't want to be penalized for being good at what I do. Same with taxes. Why is it that just because your rich you should pay higher taxes? Where is the freedom in that system?
...whew... need to take a breath.
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As far as 'fixing' the country, I think some people on this thread are on the right track. I don't think the problem lies so much with the government, but with us, the electorate.
There is little responsibility taken for our own actions, these days. Whether we are talking about personal responsibility for our actions (do we really need to sue if I stick my tongue on a hair curler because it doesn't have a warning sticker on it?) or social responsibility.
I live in Florida. Last Presidential election, I received sample ballots a week ahead of time showing me exactly what the ballot was going to look like. When I went to the polls there were about 5 people sitting around with nothing to do but answer questions. And still people couldn't be BOTHERED to fucking figure out how to cast the vote they wanted, and then HAD THE UNMITIGATED GALL TO COMPLAIN that their vote was miscounted.
The sad fact of the matter, is that instead of sympathizing with these individuals who came forward saying that they were robbed of their vote because they mispunched their ballot, we should have ridiculed them mercilessly.
I think that is the flaw in the idea that someone put forward to follow the Belgian practice of mandatory voting. Personally, if someone doesn't want to vote, I don't think making it mandatory is the solution. If anything it will make the problem worse, as people will vote because they have to. We can't MAKE them research the candidates. They will likely wind up deciding on who's got better hair or some other stupid ass reason.
People need to take more responsibility. It is not something the government can force on people. The only thing that the government can do is make sure that people have to live with the consequences when they DON'T. That hasn't been happening for quite some time.
Simon: I've never shot anyone before.
Book: I was there, son. I'm fair sure you haven't shot anyone yet.
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Well, if I had to pick a few things that really bother me about the US these days, I'd make this list:
1. Crazy folk: someone hit on this earlier. Americans as a whole love to overreact to issues. It's part of the culture, and it'd be nice if there were more venues (like the News Hour for example) where events went through rational discourse rather than 15 seconds of information. But I guess that doesn't keep people's attention.
2. Unbelievable bureaucratic systems, of which the case in point is health care. The health care system in the US is beyond repair, simply because there is too much gorramn money in it. (14% of GDP from what I remember.) We've got so many little streams of income going into the health care system, we've completely removed any demand pressure on it. Ergo, health care prices skyrocket because they can. So, health care costs will get to the point where anyone making less than 40K/year is probably going to see their health care plans get cut by 2010. From what I saw, less than half of all money rolling into health care systems comes through insurance companies, so my fix would actually be to cut all government programs. It might sound crazy, but if you suddenly drain the system of half it's income, prices will fall. I'd rather have "the market" deal with it. I want my government paying attention to regulation (i.e., making sure medical practices are safe) rather than management.
I'd be curious to see if we could come up with a "universal subscription"-style ploy with health care. I'm referring to the phone charges seen across the country to give low-income families cheap phone access. The general idea is to charge everyone "who has" for a specific service in order to provide money for those who "have not". Ergo, there would be a "universal health care charge" on everything which would subsidize people under a certain income level. No medicare systems, just a lightweight, easy to manage, funnel across an income barrier. I think we'd get more universal coverage that way.
Of course, adopting such a system would be kind of nasty to get right. But I'm still a believer that a free market (where each customer has a true effect on demand) will be much more effective than a goverment-managed solution. When the government gets too involved, you simply get a situation where the rich are the only ones who affect the system, because they're the ones who can afford lobbyists. In a more purely market-based system, the supply entities (usually the rich folks) have to answer to the demand folks, because hey, that's where the money's at.
Maybe I've been listening to too many damn economists.
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AURAPTOR,
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Along those lines, I have a friend who was in the National Guard for several years, about ten years ago. Yet when I asked him recently to get involved in serious contemplation of nationally important events, his response was that his personal life and problems took precedence over any thoughts of what might be going on within our government. He didn't seem to realize government corruption could affect him or his family. He felt his time was better spent solving his personal problems and enjoying life, rather than worrying about something he could not control. While his viewpoint may be selfish or even scary, it's in many ways entirely valid, and highly prevalent throughout the U.S., in my experience.
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Another recent problem is that credible reports indicate electronic voting is wide open to tampering, which can make it seem like voting would be a waste of time in those areas.
I apologize for giving problems without solutions, but I've thought about many of these things (discussed on this forum string) for many years and have not come up with viable solutions. Civil war? Mebbe, but for that to happen, enough folks have to have MAJOR concerns about what's going on, such as being personally hurt, before taking action.
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CUDA, better schools would surely help. It would seem the school system has been purposefully "dumbed down" in accord with someone's long-term agenda. I am constantly apalled by so many who have the hardest time trying to get their thoughts clearly presented on the 'Net. The lack of schooling is not only rampant, it's shameless. Writers don't care about their ignorance, and show it by making up words such as "alot," or misspelling others, such as "low and behold." (The only thing that can low and behold is an observant cow.) How can we expect those who don't care how foolish they look in print to get interested in the malfunction of big government? Unless it whops them upside the head, some fine day.
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HARDWARE, you made excellent observations. Perot was right about that big sucking sound. One of my big concerns is, I ain't that far from Yellowstone....
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The biggest single problem I've noticed with this country is the massive lies by the gov't to the people. If you look into things -- almost anything -- seriously and deeply you'll get a pretty good picture of the truth. But after you do that, when you compare what you know with what you've been told, the stories are never the same.
........Ruxton
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I come here to get away from all the political debates on the OB. Can't you do this over there? There's bucket-loads of political threads to go at.
Gorram politics and politicians
TJ
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I am very impressed with the quality and civility of the discussion on this board. I am so proud that browncoats have such intelligence and common sense. I don't see this on other political debate boards.
I am especially taken by the willingness to accept responsibility for what is wrong with this country. Instead of scapegoating the rich, the poor, the immoral, or the government, we are saying the real problem is our own apathy, oversimplification, and lack of education. I don't hear this sort of self-examination very often.
Thank you for this thread.
Can't Take My Gorram Sky 
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Many people seem to mention improvements need in our education system. And it's true; our public schools are pretty terrible. A few younger friends of mine who are seniors in high school *ran out of classes*. They've already taken all of the advanced courses the school offers; so this year, they were forced to take classes like art, and gym.
Some day, I'll change the education system, if no one else does. Less math. No one needs to know how to graph an inequality; it just isn't pertinent information in everyday life. More history; I think this should be an every-year course, like English is. Social studies, then, can focus on geography, and government; to subjects sorely missed. English should focus more on reading than writting; perhaps two seperate classes are needed. And the writting they teach needs to be changed. English clas prepares you to be an English teacher; nothing more. It doesn't teach you to write business reports, or office memos, or scientific reports, or magazine articles, or novels. Not my English class, anyways. But boy, did we spend a lot fo time on poems. Damn useful stuff, that is. 'Bout as helpful as that ole' inequality graph.
I think if the schools taught things that were useful in people's lives, and made things like advanced math optional, students would be more willing to learn. I loved history in high school (and still do), but no one cared to tell me about it. One year. I got one year of world history, plus a year of American history. That seem right to you? Three-hundred years in one course, then six-thousand in the next.
Well, that's my education rant. I guess as a teacher-to-be I'm just particularly interested in that field.
Any Brittish chaps here? From what I here, over there, your education system is comperable to ours; maybe worse. But you have a very well-developed private education sector; and it's assumed anyone with an interest in education will send their kids there. Is this in any way accurate? Because perhaps a system like that would work here. Who knows; if there was competition to educate, then perhaps education would be improved.
And that's all. Except for this - I think one of the biggest things we an do to reduce the size of governments is stop thae damned foolish 'War on Drugs'. I'm gonna fix that, too. I've emailed both my senators several times, and heard back from one; I'll change their minds, believe you me
And THAT's all.
-Steve
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To Cuda and others:
I completely understand the ideal that folks should pull themselves up by their bootstraps but sometimes social assistance is necessary. I am in my mid 30s, I have a Masters Degree in Businss and I worked for 8 years for good companies.
In the last year and a half, I have lost about 60% of my eyesight due to an illness. My doctors indicate that it is unrecoverable and likely to lead to more loss over time. Well based on that My company offered insurance assistance, but eventually I lost my job.
Now I have to start over and my medical needs without insurance are prohibitive. My rant against Big Biz is that some of my meds which have not changed much over the last twenty years (no research, little marketing) have gone up in price more than 1000%. That is profiteering.
Anyway, I guess like everyone, my viewpoints are tempered by my reality. I just wish that most folks could discuss things with the civility that this forum has maintained.
And now back to you....
OK, So what's the speed of dark?
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