What state would the world be in at the end of the 20th century without the United States' contributions and sacrifices? As for greed, it is a human condition and doesn't go away when you cross a border. As the most recent proof of this read up on the "Oil for Food" program abuses by United Nations' officials and various government people and private citizens from France, Germany and Russia. You know why they opposed the war? It appears to be they didn't want to give up those oil vouchers Saddam was handing out for a substantially reduced fee. This is an abuse on a huge scale that looks to go high up into the governing bodies of the countries involved and even to the UN Secretary General's son.
If we are so greedy and stupid here where would you rather live? There must be many other countries that are preferable to ours. I wonder why so many foreign born people risk their lives on a regular basis to have a chance to live here as an illegal alien. Why over the last 125 years the number of immigrants entering this country has been phenomenal. I doubt they came here to be with a bunch of greedy, stupid people. Might it be that the U.S. offers everyone a chance to reach their dreams and live in freedom regardless of where you came from or who your parents are as it is in many of these other less greedy and smarter countries? If it is better where they came from then why did they leave?
I d> As the greediest and least informed of the industrial countries, our
As the greediest and least informed of the industrial countries, our stupidity stands alone.
Gee Michael you read a lot into that statement that wasn't there. Just because this is (or was) a great country doesnt mean it is PERFECT or not at serious risk.
There is no question we are the greediest.. look at corporate pay.. the highest in the World by many times. The "captains of industry" are looting the corporations and the savings of all of us for their own insatiable greed while the common man barely scrapes by. This is the undoing of the American values you so rightly defend.
As for education, we are far from World leaders in education. That and our isolation makes us uninformed in a myriad of ways. Travel the World and talk to your counterparts in other industrialized countries and see for yourself. It's embarassing.
We are too complacent in this country, too quick to jump to its blind defense, and too slow to cope with serious problems. As Rome fell, as Britain fell, so shall we fall.. unless WE fix the corruption and greed at the top. Will we??
Are we the greediest or the hardest working? Capitalism survives on successful business men. Successful business men make money. The really successful ones make a lot of money (like Bill Gates for example). I don't think Bill gates got his billions dishonestly. He worked hard and smart. This country has had wealthy people since before the revolutionary war. Many were just as wealthy, relatively speaking for their time, as the wealthy of today. There have been some abuses of the corporate system but this doesn't reflect the many other corporations that are honest and do great things for their shareholders and employees. Unfortunately we live in a time and political climate where we hear very little of the good that is being done daily and are disproportionately overwhelmed with the negative.
Being the leader in education doesn't directly correlate to success. Bill Gates is a Harvard dropout and he hasn't done too bad. I know many people who are worth millions that have a high school education. Success isn't a result of education. It's a result of an individual's drive and determination. There are a few lottery winners and Paris Hilton types that are the exception to this rule. We are one of the, if not the most, productive countries in the world and have been for a very long time. Many of these so called educated countries would love to have half the average annual economic growth we enjoy. Plus it has been the sacrifice of our blood and money over the last 100 years that made it possible for these countries to obtain, keep and enjoy their high standard of living. We are the first country to move to a service economy which means we aren't technically an industrialized society. Our standard of living has raised so high that we can't afford to make our own consumables. We are far from isolated. We trade with nearly every country on earth. Frankly, I think much of the world is jealous of our success. If you want to see a good example of this jealousy just look at the French.
Lately, I see too many people jumping to bash this country. A good example is the prison abuse situation. Yes it was wrong but we weren't feeding them to wood chippers like Saddam did or chopping off their heads like Berg. The press has figuratively "beaten" us all with this story. We have problems and if we solved all the current ones then we would have a whole set of new ones to solve. From what I see many of "our" problems could be solved with a nice healthy dose of self responsibility. Corruption and greed will always be with us to some extent and to think otherwise is a waste of good mental energy.
Given enough passage of time no country will last forever. Humans won't be on this planet forever. I doubt we will make it past the first mad scientist that develops a killer virus and releases it to the masses. IMO, the threat from genetic engineering will make the nuclear age look like we were living in the Garden of Eden. This worries me more than a few Enrons or WorldCom corporate scandals.
Hell, we are one meteor away from giving the planet to the cockroaches anyway.
You dot have to tell me about successful businessmen.. I am one.. a VP of a good sized corporation running a very successful business. However, I have shared the wealth with my employees instead of hogging it all for myself. And I truly believe my taxes are too low. When I pay the same tax rate as the working poor who are seriously struggling, something is seriously wrong.
As for education, arguing that some have succeeded despite dropping out of school is NOT an argument for poor schools. In my position I have read thousands of resumes. I KNOW just how poor writing, spelling, and composition skills are in this country. We will not succeed as a country in the modern World without a 1st class education for EVERYONE.
Lately anyone who says anything negative about the country is labeled a traitor and asked to leave. Ignoring problems and refusing to address them only makes things worse. It also ignores that hundreds of years of dissent is what has made this country great. Of course repeating the mantra that we "are the best country in the World" definitely makes the masses feel better. To really be the best country in the World takes too damn much work.
I have been a VP in a large engineering consulting firm, took a huge risk and left, and have run my own consulting business for 10 years. I am currently building another business doing land development. I too have paid my employees quite well and had absolutely no problem paying them what they deserved. Early on there were some years that some of my employees earned a good bit more than myself. They ALWAYS got paid before myself and I never missed a payroll. However, when the company did well I had no feelings of guilt about taking my rightful profits from the business. I took the risk so it just seems right that I can reap some of the rewards. Any employee I had could start a business and do the same thing I did if they worked hard and smart enough. As I said before the Enrons and WorldComs are not the norm. If it was, our economic system would have collapsed long ago. Most companies are just like the one you work for.
If you are paying the same tax rate as the working poor then I need a few pointers. The working poor in this country pay virtually no income tax and in many cases get refunds from the government that exceed their tax liability. There is nothing preventing anyone, including yourself, from giving the government more tax dollars than they rightfully owe. What percentage of their income should the wealthy pay? No one ever seems to want to give us a number. Is it 40%, 50%, 60%, 70% or more?
We have the skeleton of a good educational system in this country. IMO, the teacher's unions have all but destroyed it. I've seen the grading system used in the public schools around here changed many times over the last 10 years. At one point they decided to not give any grades at all. It was a complete disaster. They are using our kids as guinea pigs it a twisted experiment that doesn't work. Raising taxes and throwing more and more money into the school system isn't going to correct these problems. In 1979 I graduated from a small high school built in 1904 and went on to earn a degree from the top undergraduate engineering college in the country. We didn't have indoor running tracks and pools. We had good teachers that actually cared about the students. We also had respect for our teachers, the school required discipline and the parents cared about the behavior of their children.
All this being said though, even the most educated people can be failures if they have no drive or determination to succeed. On the other hand, even people that can't read can do well in this country if they want success bad enough. Education is there for anyone that wants it. Fact is there are just some people that don't want it or see a use for it and no amount of intervention will change them. Getting back to the original point though, greed isn't necessarily a bad thing. It is needed for our society to function. Most all of us have it to some degree and I suspect even you might have a touch. ;)
No one is coming to your house to pull the plug on your computer to keep you from saying anything negative. The freedoms we have enjoyed in this country for more than two centuries are alive and well. It strikes me as ironic that you exercising your constitutional right of free speech to speak negatively of this country is fine but when I disagree with you I'm infringing on your right to free speech. See the irony? I call it the "Dixie Chick Syndrome". They can complain about President Bush but we are infringing on their right to free speech if we stop buying their CD's in protest. Their logic is absurd and inconsistent.
We, as a nation, do so much good in this world and it seems lately it is being swept under the rug and overlooked or ignored. What other country in the history of the world has had the military power we have and not tried to control a huge piece of the globe? You speak of us going the way of the Romans when we are nothing like them. If we were then we would own Central/South America and Canada. We would be sending boats to the Middle East and sucking the oil out of the ground and paying them nothing for it.
What do we do instead? As just one good example we stop three fascist regimes (Italy, Germany and Japan) from controlling the world and then rebuild these countries at our own cost. This is just the tip of an immense iceberg of good this country has done and is still doing. I don't mind us being critical of ourselves but lets not go to the absurd extreme with it. It doesn't help that this is a presidential election year which is what I attribute much of the negativity too. I'm just tired of hearing nothing but complaining regarding the country when it just doesn't represent the actual truth.
America is GREAT and getting greater. It's clear sailing ahead brought to us by our enlightened political leaders and our selfless corporate giants. Be at peace for there are no worries.
Thanks for the advice. I never said it was ALL bad and didn't imply it. We can be the greediest country in the world and even the stupidest and not be all bad or even mostly bad. And since we're into advice, I'd advise you to take off the rose colored glasses once in a while. Unless we honestly face problems instead of just riding the bandwagon, we (or more truthfully, our kids and grandkids) are in BIG trouble.
Thank you for that. Sometimes people get a little too wrapped up in bashing their own people to realize how well off they are. It makes you wonder if they have ever left the country to actually SEE how the "enlightened" people are living in other countries. I have, and I've seen the good and the bad, and I'll be living here, thank you very much. At least when I'm old, I'll not starve to death or live in abject poverty, begging on the streets just to live.
I think it's more about the elitist left media, which thinks most Americans can't think for themselves, trying to make sure Bush doesn't get reelected.
Yea the elitist leftist media that is owned and run by the the biggest and richest corporations in the World. These are some of the most conservative organizations/people that exist. Elitist, yes most definitely. Leftist, never.
So whets in it for all these VERY conservative corporations to be liberal? It makes no sense whatsoever.
The big mistake is watching the crap the networks call "news". It's NOT news. Its all about drama and especially fear. The media has utterly failed in their primary and necessary function in our democracy.. keeping us informed. Instead they feed us pabulum. Switch it off!
The has always been a separation between news organizations and the owner's. This autonomy is what gives the liberals in charge the room to slant the news toward their political views.
I don't get my news from the mainstream media anymore. It's a combination of cable news and the internet. Liberal domination of the media is slowly coming to an end. There are just too many other ways to get information these days so their influence is waning.
Yes, plenty of far right bias out there too. You pays your money and you takes your choice. Hopefully somewhere in the middle is the TRUTH. That is if truth matters anymore.
LJH
95GT (not a Republican or a Democrat..both parties are corporate owned)
For me very much so and as it is for many other people I know. If you wish to look at it from a national viewpoint the economy is coming along fine (especially in home construction which affects me personally), we haven't had a terrorist attack on our soil since 9/11 when I think most of us expected it to have happened by now, home ownership is at historic highs and unemployment is relatively low and going down just to name a few. BTW, how is your company doing?
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