For years, people have been laughing at the horrific economic decline of Detroit. Well, guess what? The same thing that happened to Detroit is now happening to dozens of other communities across the United States. From coast to coast there are formerly great manufacturing cities that have turned into rotting, post-industrial war zones. In particular, in America's "rust belt" you can drive through town after town after town that resemble little more than post-apocalyptic wastelands. In many U.S. cities, the "real" rate of unemployment is over 30 percent. There are some communities that will start depressing you almost the moment you drive into them. It is almost as if all of the hope has been sucked right out of those communities.
Meanwhile, the economic downturn has been incredibly hard on the finances of state and local governments across the United States. Unlike the federal government, state and local governments cannot use the Federal Reserve to play games with their exploding debt burdens. Facing horrific budget deficits, many communities have begun adopting "austerity measures" in an attempt to slow the flow of red ink. All over the nation, deep budget cuts are slashing police departments, fire departments and other basic social services, but it seems like no matter what many of these communities try the debt just keeps growing.
So when you combine economic hopelessness with drastic budget cuts, what you get are hordes of communities from coast to coast that are becoming just like Detroit. In the city of Detroit today, there are over 33,000 abandoned houses, 44 schools have been permanently closed down, the mayor wants to bulldoze one-fourth of the city and you can literally buy a house for one dollar in the worst areas. Many Americans thought that it was funny to make fun of Detroit, but little did they know that what happened there would soon start happening everywhere.
The following are 24 signs that all of America is becoming a rotting, post-industrial, post-apocalyptic wasteland just like Detroit....
#1 The second most dangerous city in the United States - Camden, New Jersey - is about to lay off about half its police.
#2 In the city of Camden, about the only "industries" that are truly thriving are drug-dealing and prostitution. It is estimated that there are literally dozens of open-air drug markets in Camden.
#3 The city of Newark, New Jersey laid off 13 percent of its police force just last week.
#4 Of 315 municipalities the New Jersey State Policemen's union recently surveyed, more than half indicated that they were planning to lay off police officers.
#5 At least 1000 people now live in the 200 miles of flood tunnels that exist under the city of Las Vegas.
#6 All over America, asphalt roads are being ground up and are being replaced with gravel because it is cheaper to maintain. The state of South Dakota has transformed over 100 miles of asphalt road into gravel over the past year, and 38 out of the 83 counties in the state of Michigan have transformed at least some of their asphalt roads into gravel roads.
#7 The number of Americans on food stamps has hit yet another new all-time record. 42.9 million Americans are now enrolled and federal authorities fully expect that number to continue to skyrocket.
#8 The city of San Jose, California recently laid off 49 firefighters.
#9 Over the past year, approximately 100 of New York's state parks and historic sites have had to cut services and reduce hours.
#10 In 2009 alone, approximately 4 million more Americans joined the ranks of the poor.
#11 The state of Arizona recently decided to stop paying for many types of organ transplants for people enrolled in its Medicaid program.
#12 Many of the police in Arizona that patrol communities near the border with Mexico say that they are "outmanned" and "outgunned" and now live in fear of being taken out by drug cartel assassins.
#13 Gang violence in America is getting totally out of control. According to authorities, there are now over 1 million members of criminal gangs operating inside the country, and those gangs are responsible for up to 80% of the violent crimes committed in the U.S. each year.
#14 Oakland, California Police Chief Anthony Batts has announced that due to severe budget cuts there are a number of crimes that his department will simply not be able to respond to any longer. The crimes that the Oakland police will no longer be responding to include grand theft, burglary, car wrecks, identity theft and vandalism.
#15 One out of every six Americans is now enrolled in at least one anti-poverty program run by the federal government.
#16 The state of Illinois is so far behind on its bills that not even schools and essential social services are getting their money on time.
#17 The sheriff's department in Ashtabula County, Ohio has been slashed from 112 to 49 deputies, and there is now just one vehicle remaining to patrol all 720 square miles of the county.
#18 As our local communities degenerate economically, it appears that they are falling apart morally as well. There are approximately 400,00 registered sex offenders in the United States as you read this.
#19 In a desperate attempt to save cash, the city of Colorado Springs turned off a third of its streetlights and put its police helicopters up for auction.
#20 According to one recent study, approximately 21 percent of all children in the United States are living below the poverty line in 2010.
#21 According to the U.S. Department of Transportation, more than 25 percent of America's nearly 600,000 bridges need significant repairs or are burdened with more traffic than they were designed to carry.
#22 In Georgia, the county of Clayton recently eliminated its entire public bus system in order to save 8 million dollars.
#23 Things have gotten so bad in Stockton, California that the police union put up a billboard with the following message: "Welcome to the 2nd most dangerous city in California. Stop laying off cops."
#24 Major cities such as Philadelphia, Baltimore and Sacramento have instituted "rolling brownouts" in which various city fire stations are shut down on a rotating basis. So if you live in one of those cities and you have a fire, you had better hope that your local fire station is not scheduled for a "brownout" that day.
As I have documented in article after article, the "American Dream" is rapidly becoming the American Nightmare. We were once a nation that was endlessly expanding, endlessly growing and endlessly becoming more powerful, but now just the opposite is happening.
All of this didn't happen overnight. Back in 1982, Billy Joel could see what was starting to happen and he released a song entitled "Allentown" which captured the depression that many residents of once great steel cities were experiencing. The song started out with these two lines....
Well we're living here in Allentown
And they're closing all the factories down
Well, the United States has lost over 42,000 factories since 2001 and now all of America is turning into "Allentown".
Unfortunately, things are going to get even worse. Thousands more factories and millions more jobs will be sent overseas. The debt loads of our state and local governments will continue to skyrocket. The truth is that city after city after city is going to start looking like something out of a third world country.
But perhaps you disagree. Perhaps you believe that America's greatest days are just around the corner. Please feel free to leave a comment with your thoughts below....
Having been born in Allentown, and then living in Detroit, I feel I’ve seen it all before… because I did. Yes, I was quite young and most of the decay happened after I left both places (in one case our family left after a tough teen shook me down to steal money from my parents and bring it to him next day – for his drugs – or he’d cut me up… on the way to FIRST GRADE!)
So there are several aspects to the collapse: drugs, migration of blacks (with different mind sets in Race, Evolution & Behavior, by Rushton) and democracy/republic HUMANISM that assumes we have a right to make any laws – indirectly by voting for guys we mostly hear about via MEDIA owned/managed by very few (often part of same tribal gang) so that the real rulers of go’vt in a democracy are not the folks you think – said Edward Bernays in his 1928 book PROPAGANDA to explain why his public relations is crucial!
The gang of Controllers (well explosed in this study of survival power strategies by Kevin MacDonald, “The Culture of Critique”) has put into effect strategies to change our money system (from gold/slver in YOUR hand, to paper or electronic credit by the gang and loaned at interest that overall cannot be repaid!) It hates whites and Christians, so turns churches into state-regulated (neutered) “chatities, and brings in diverse folks, especially ones eager to computer for jobs and take them. And it makes
our folks dependant on the system (aka Babylon)
and it builds other large nation economies like Mexico, China, India, etc by ending import tax.
The Controllers exist in many nations (and set one up to escape to when run out of town!) and so don’t care about the victms they live near, since they form a separate (alien gang) network.
———————————————
What to do?
Well, study what God told us (the founders!) In a nutshell, obey God and his laws. They empower us.. US the CALLED FOLKS. The Bible is to Adam, then to specific subgroups down through Israel, not to be confused with “Jews” a later word and group Jesus rejected by lineage (John 10:23+)
just as he told us he did NOT ABOLISH ANY OF THE GODLAW & PROPHECY (Mat 5:17-19). Keep it to prosper (James 1:25) OR get destroyed (Deut 28).
Such decay is perdicted for “last days” (before return of Jesus, to end other regimes as shown in I Cor 15:24-25). Just before this, we’re told to GET OUT OF (manlaw) BABYLON (Rev 18:1-19:3, followed by return of our Warrior King in 19:11-21). So… WE MUST REPUDIATE THAT SYSTEM AND GET OURSELVES OUT OF IT’s POWER ZONES. And form communities with CALLED Christians living by Bible Law. (Such as using “money” = keceph = silver. Repudiating secular courts and running our own! I Cor 6:1-7. Etc.)
Decay of police forces could be beneficial. We need to form our own linked (via our own radio) assistance teams, to help in emergencies… INSTEAD OF STATE FUNCTIONARIES WHOSE FIRST JOB IS PROTECTING THAT STATE REGIME.
PEAK OIL (and GLOBAL WARMING) ARE FARCES BY & FOR CONTROLLERS. (eg Maurice Strong who made money in energy corporations and sees more profits in taxing that via need for “carbon credits” that pay for NOT burning carbon, such as surpervising a group of amazon natives to not cut trees! He left Canada for China!)
About Global Warming farce, see how the sun crontrol temperature cycles that then cause CO2 to degas from deep sea after centuries, in the video with an MIT speaker (The Great Global Warming Swindle, approximate title) at
http://www.climategade.be
As a geoscientist (who had worked on the early atmosphere and weathering, then energy matters) I think we must look at petroleum output from SEVERAL VASTLY DIFFERENT SOURCES as several curves superimposed. Conventional oil has one curve and it peaked. But offshore oil started much later and still expands. The same with Arctic drilling: it mostly started recently.
And oil sands really only got going recently in Alberta, while Venezuela has hardly started on its vast block! Oil shales have lots of oil but that research hit a wall after prices fell 1990 and my expertise in that was worth nickels!
Oil can be made from coal, a resource vastly underrated, but massivly abundant in US, Canada, Australia, parts of Europe, etc.
The “global warming” propaganda is largely to kill that sources as they want to humble us NOW and not wait 500 years for coal to run out!!
Oil & alcohols can be produced from other plant materials. If prices go up, it is viable too, and CAN BE DONE ON THE FARM! But they seek to kill that by making it all flow to corporate petrol as an additive… for “green” reasons and paper cash!
I think it is absolutely necessary to leave the top 40 or so major urban sprawls of N America, especially ones with many black & aliens, as folks thersd totally depend on the state-money- system (aka Babylon) to be turned off by us!
Get out! For communities with other similar folks. Own your own water, electric source, heat system and fuel, or collaborate only with like-minded folks to build this for more folks.
(And when planned chaos comes, prpare to be treated like Branch Davidians in Waco, TX.)
We need to link our communities. Use barter & silver trade. Have our own “911″ system etc.
Meanwhile try to end importation of goods from China. (At some point they will cut it off.)
Basically, “pioneer” our own separated groups and places to live, our OWN INDUSTRIES on small scale. For example: many will live rurally and could use steam cars, burning wood scrap, coal. So there is an industry (not facing China’s car competition at this time!) In Latvia when they fought Russian tanks, their oil and stuff was cut off. People used such vehicles, fixed lawn mower motors to carts. Even horse drawn sleighs!
They burned all sorts of stuff to keep warm too. And they armed themselves for larger war.
So think in many dimensions on many problems and solutions in our network of communities.
Take a map showing OUR population densities. Cut out around the largest 40cities. What you have left is our usable “nation” for such new communities. Try to draw links from clmpsto clumps, as out new mapland, for pioneering and new industries… outside the old $ economy. We
need ways to link the clumps without using any road controlled by the enemy. Think on that. (I
have one solution set. Others may exist.)
It sounds a bit like the weird futurist film of a decade ago called BRAZIL (not on that real nation). At least the film mocked the scumbags.
Let’s do more of that… in their faces!
400,000 sex offenders on the registry. (Now 700,000, btw), but you miss the point, wholly. The point is that we have a quasi-police state law that has big bro registering free citizens like livestock, and assigning to them terms that have always been reserved for sub-human beings, like “Predator”. All of this is conditioning your minds to believing the problem is the immoral people, and not the fact that we are accepting, inch-by-inch, the notion that government can and must protect us from ourselves, by monitoring, reporting, imprisoning, and fining us into submission. Next on the list of beneficial registries: arsonist, people suffering from Alzheimers, domestic abusers, animal abusers, and you. (If you think big bro registries are a good thing, maybe I want to keep an eye on you, anyway).
We’ve been falling apart for a while, but most people didn’t notice. Now that the shit has hit the fan, what is happening? Just read the comments section of any newspaper or blog. People are both stupid and desperate. They blame everything from feminized boys to the Rothschilds–and they make sure to blame the victims. It’s the fault of the poor, the old, the sick, etc.
It’s the fault of the oligarchs and our corrupt politicians. And it’s the fault of the people who don’t understand the connection between state and federal governments. Those federal tax breaks for the rich and the corporations translate into the states going broke.
Unless we have an overhaul of how Congress is funded, we will continue to sell ourselves to the highest bidder.
China prepares for the oil crunch with thirty new reactors this year! China also has nuclear/electric powered, electric bullet train networks and the associated infrastructures, up and running and producing goods on sustainable rice and veggies diets, goods for the world’s markets at prices much below that of American goods! These bullet train units are being rapidly duplicated all over Asia! America spends everything on war? Why? What did we get back from trouncing Iraq? Oil? Not at my neighborhood pumps – it actually went up!
Great List!
It would make a lot more sense if you would report seriously on the double bookkeeping $CAM operating since 1946 under the name Comprehensive Annual Financial Report (CAFR), which has “hidden” tens of TRILLIONS of DOLLAR$ in plain sight. See http://www.CAFR1.com and interview Walter Burien. Good Luck!
/s/ Les Ego
Great article & interesting discussion. I’m a volunteer firefighter (almost retired)- 70% of dept.s are now volunteer… need to re-think social services & their bureaucracies too. There are alternatives… Detroit dept.s have finally figured out they should let them burn to the ground vs. having 1/8 1/3 burnt… make gardens instead. The local govt.s have failed in many of these places & it is now really wild west anarchy…Also, parents don’t know how & are usually mia… Home schooling is a lost art… watch “A raisin in the sun again”…
I’m Rastamish… you figure it out & yes I’m a product of the little pink boxes outside of the formely beautiful ‘burbs of Cleveland & then amish country… since then, can’t really take off those travelin’ shoes… to travel is better than to arrive & the journey is fun… if you see the opportunity in everything… maybe we should all go down to Juarez & break a little bad… put your life where your mouth is & take it back… or just go down to east side of Youngstown…
There’s hope in communication too. I like the communication revolution… always have. kid charlemagne is back & yes indeed Jesus has left Chicago… and he’s bound for New Orleans… you may find him / her hitchhikin’ some rainy twilight…
Some men just want to watch the world burn.
Gary,
YOU are the epitome of what is wrong with the world today.
To the people who understand this, no explanation is needed, and for those that do not understand this no explanation is possible.
Gary is right and wrong. The rich have all the wealth and it needs to be taken away from them, or the rest of us will starve.
HOWEVER. . .
$200,000 is chump-change. If you are making $200,000 you ARE barely middle class. You’re not rich!
The rich are the millionaires and BILLIONAIRES; the top 1% who are sitting on 95% of the wealth. Gleb Beck in one of his anti-socialist rants said, “I don’t want to share my pie. I want ALL of my pie.”
Yeah, but Glen Beck is a multi-millionaire who made his money selling lies and hatred.
People have it all wrong. Socialism isn’t paid for by the working class. It is a net benefit to everybody. The top 1%, used to pay 90% of their wealth in taxes! (Before Reagan). And they were STILL super-wealthy!
Greed has killed America. But ignorance and gullibility are the forces which are preventing change.
Oh yeah. We also need to get rid of the banks and start printing our OWN money rather than having the FED BORROW it at interest from the banking cartels who own the world. That’s not conspiracy. It’s truth.
We need to simply stop paying debts on the government and national level. We need to grow our own food, and we need to tax the rich. And remember, NONE of you posting here are rich.
HAHAHAHA
Gary sounds like a whiny bitch. Get over yourself and work.
All you’ve done is blame other people for your own problems.
DO the work it takes to be where you want to be like.
Cause guess what, based on your stupid liberal mindset, where god-forbid, no one should have more than someone else. We should tax 90% of your income and give it to those below you, because gosh-darn-it, it just isn’t fair.
You can sit on your ass and complain or you can do something about it. You can be the person complaining about the rules, or the person figuring out how to use the to their advantage.
Grow up and get a job you whiny bastard.
All this whining about the rich is so short-sighted. Even if in a perfect world you just redistributed the wealth of the top 1% or even 5%, what does that really do for people? They’re still unemployed and undereducated. Believe it or not, there’s a chunk of the population who have a fairly easy time finding employment, even now–those with specific intellectual skills and education. And I’m not talking about six figure liberal arts degrees, or two year community college stints. The manufacturing jobs are never coming back. There’s no incentive for that, it’s over. The industrial revolution put tons of people out of work, and here we are again, this IS the transition. If we’re going to subsidize anything, it shouldn’t be banks, it should be higher education for individuals, that’s the only way to keep up as the economy converts to intellectual capital.
Read America’s Man on Horseback. What you’re seeing is the nation coming to the end of its first 250+/- year cycle of birth, maturity, weakness, and possible death or rebirth. If we’re lucky, we’ll be able to re-energize ourselves, reform, and continue for another 250 years. Otherwise, we become a backwater dump like Italy, fit only for tourism…
Also, look up the 4th Turning, which also posits the idea we’re on the cusp of a massive upheaval/renewal. We might be the progenitors of a new “Greatest Generation” who will take a note from our dismal situation and revitalize the nation with big projects at home and abroad.
This is no conspiracy, nations grow, get successful, then decadent and weak, and burn out just like people. The difference is they can start over, i.e. China and Japan in the last 100+ years.
@mondobeyondo
stop using the stupid religion shit, that’s opne of the reason it’s going bad over there.
why can’t you act like normal people.
our presidents here also have wife and kids, we don’t know more than their names.
yeah, it’s abivious we know something about the french president’s wife, but otherwise, i don’t know nothing about the wife of the dutch prime minister or spanisch president.
that’s not of our biznis.
you focus to much on outside.
stop using religion as a cover, but face the world.
Religion should be ilegal.
you have been spending millions on wages of the 20.000 employee’s in the pentagon alone a month.
for what?
virtual security or Communism?
http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bestand:National_Security_Agency_headquarters,_Fort_Meade,_Maryland.jpg
(there is thousands of cars parked here, i bet anything they all earn above avarage)
Stop acting like a World police officer.
you don’t even have you own householt in orden.
Show Biznis, why did Obama need to get a dog?
oprah winfrey became billionaire, because you care about her dresses & outfits.
how serious nation are you guys?
It’s all just a communist conspiracy. America is turning into North Corea, just like they want.
If you believe above two sentences you need to up your meds. Wake up and smell the rotting corpse of your empire.
I really do not have any sympathy to those states who have been spending like drunken sailors. States like illinois where I live is a joke. Majority of its budget is going to the bloated public unions and thier benefits not to mention the underfunded pensions that the taxpayers have to back stop.You have firefighters, teachers, cops…retiring at 50 or 52 and collecting 80% of their (highest) salary for the rest of thier lives. These states have the highest taxes and they keep rising because nobody wants to cut the budget or at least survive on last year’s budget. Property values have plummted but property taxres are going up. In places like Chicago home owners saw their taxes go up 30% or more in one year. People are fedup and many are looking to get the hell out which means another Detroit is now the horizon.
haha i live in the Allentown billy joel sang about, technically he was talking about our neighboring city of Bethlehem which was the world leader in the production of steel at one point with Bethlehem Steel, but many people from Allentown commuted to Bethlehem daily to work there, but the factory shut down so many years ago that it is now essentially a landmark for all who live in the area, it can be seen from pretty much anywhere in Bethlehem and it is truly remarkable in every aspect. plus part of Transformers 3 was shot there, the beginning scene. GO AUTOBOTS!
Well… I guess, based on what I’ve read here, this has been a long time coming. I’m only twenty years old and I have to say that the stupidity in America is quite alarming. I’m no politician and I honest-to-goodness haven’t been around long enough to keep up with everything our government has done. I really wish that there was an easy solution to this though.
Greed is definitely America’s downfall. We all want what we don’t have and the ones that have everything only seem to want more. If there was a way to go back to bartering and taking money completely out of the equation, I’d say let’s do it. But unfortunately we are a nation that loves to stick our nose in everyone’s business, so the fact that we DO interact with other nations would make the bartering system impossible… Damn, America, why can’t you mind your own business!?
I think pulling our troops out of bases in some areas would be a good idea. OUR nation should be TOP PRIORITY right now. And I have NEVER agreed with invading Iraq. I fear that if we pull out now though that they would entirely collapse. (However, I haven’t really watched the news too much lately, I’ve been too busy working my ass off for minimum wage trying to make end’s meat.) I hate to see people in poverty and pain, but we can’t fix everything.
Time to bring some of the troops home at least… Just to cut down on outside spending.
And BY THE WAY. I am enlisted in the Air Force Delayed Enlistment Program. I scored almost perfect on my ASVAB and qualified for several jobs. I really just wanted to get something secure, because I know our country is falling apart. Well, the job I want isn’t available to me or anyone else. My recruiter called and told me that they are only offering Military Police jobs and Mechanic jobs (Planes and Missiles, etc.) I refused to take either, since I am a VERY small woman, and now I am being discharged because I “over-qualify” and “refuse to settle.”
excuse me, but WTF?
I’m done ranting now, and I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas. Enjoy the holiday season while we can still afford it. :]
lets get things clear camden new jersey isnt a city it is 9 square miles with about 78,000 people it is a very very very small area and crime in many parts of this tiny place is safe no murders on the subway no murders or graffiti in downtown can walk downtown i lived there so i know where the bad places are in camden most people are good hard working
The housing meltdown is connected to the breakdown of local government.
How?
Because the system was setup by MERS to steal money from the counties, by bypassing recording each and every real estate sale, by not paying the county taxes on any property, not paying the millage for schools, not paying for the services protecting foreclosed properties and allowing the foreclosed homes to go to hell and not maintaining them forcing the cities and counties to have to demolish whole neighborhoods of neglected homes.
And all this was done on purpose, done to destroy America from the inside out.
Done and committed by the banks by forcing illegal evictions on homeowners, then selling the homes to investors who got scammed again by the bankers. They bought property the banks didn’t own, didn’t keep up and weren’t worth half of what they claimed the homes were worth.
Blame it all on the bankers.
Interesting development. It is nice to see the boomerang coming back. About 20 years ago my father said that Americas “wealth” is fictive. Not covered by Gold as it used to be. Now I can see that he was right. The whole financial crisis was just a big state reconciliation of finances. Big empty bubble just popped.
.
USA was benefiting from the whole world, now it`s time to pay.
I still can`t understand how it is possible that products that I want to buy are made in China, but if I order them from US they are still 50-30% cheaper than in Europe (Of course UK – US-butt licker gets a better deal than rest of EU). This doze not make any sense.
You guys still earn more money than we in EU do and things are less expensive for you. What the f***.
And also picture this: The Ideology of Muslim terrorism could be knowing all the problems that you guys are talking about here in advance? Could that be the source of hate towards “American Dream”, Lifestile, Ideology morale understanding? Because as we seen during financial crisis, with US, all of us are going down (except China I guess. Won`t forget to mention: a communist state
I still think the human race is selfish, stupid, ignorant and arrogant cancer of this planet. I hope it is all wiped out and substituted by more intelligent beings that finally understand that ALL of them should work TOGETHER to GROW as a race occupying this planet. “Stupid” ants worked it out.
Because humans have it coded in their brains to fu** things up. To get more. To get better than anyone else. To have the power. To have the control. All wrong from the beginning. A fresh start is needed.
In Canada (Québec), where I live, bankers are recently worried about the second phase of this crisis. If too much european country and also United state falling down, Canada don’t resist. Our first ‘customer’ for canadian exportations is the United states…
sorry for my poor english. I hope you understand what I say!^^
Biotech craze to fill that economic and angsty void. Pill your troubles, c’mon, get za P. Designer genes?
Yet, I’m still grateful to be living here. If one were to travel abroad, he/she could see the poverty and the incomprehensible hopelessness of the people in countries like China, and Russia, and India and pretty much all of Africa, one would be only grateful to live here in the States. The US is an imperial super-power with an inexhaustible appetite for more power and resources, and I hate the corporation-controlled foreign policy we have, but no matter; I still love this place and if anybody has anything to complain about they should first go see some of the rest of the world. Much of eastern Europe is in turmoil and even Ireland, Portugal and Greece are going through economic meltdowns. So what the hell is all this bitching about?
Taxing the rich more is not the answer. We need the jobs that were exported to China and other countries back in the U.S.
A country can’t survive if it doesn’t have a manufacturing base. Screw the WTO and tax the imports through the nose so we force companies toi manufacture here again.
And for reprisals from other countries, such as raising their import taxes, let them do it. We have hardly any exports left to begin with. At least everybody will have a decent apying job again.
Capitalism has not patriots. If we can make it cheaper in China, Mexico or India that is the bottom line for corporations. There is no more pride in Made in America, and all these free trade agreements like NAFTA have assisted this outflow of jobs.
Wirth, G
Wow, I’m really amazed at the blindness of this country. Some hinted at the real problem but didn’t quite get it.
As the country was ruined during the first prohibition, so it is again! There are two industries booming…illegal drugs and the private prison industry. Are country spends more money on prisons than our schools. No wonder there’s no money left for anything else. Along with that, we help save the rich and it’s sucking off the poor.
End the Drug War, release the prisoners. Tax and regulate like the drugs that are legal and kill. Legalize Hemp…save the farmer, burn biofuel from it, create mass industrial hemp jobs. Save the environment and the trees, make biodegradable plastics, no fossil fuels needed, use hemp for paper, cheaper healthier medicine, I could on!
The point? The same idiot greedy people who keep drilling the oil and stealing our money and sending us to wars in other lands are the same people perpetuating our American made Drug War.
I fear for us all if those of you out there that blame other things can’t see the truth staring you in face!
A retired Detroit cop once told me what killed the Motor City was the illegal cocaine and crack that was dropped in the ghetto. It enabled the gangs to grow and arm themselves and get rich. Look to the South, folks. The Drug War is making the cartels rich and killing 1000′s.
WAKE UP!
The Soviet bloc imploded a few years ago when its failing economy collapsed. This was bound to happen as Marxism worships the mediocre and there was no place in that society for excellence and real talent. Those systems ensured that all leaders of commerce or industry or government were equally mediocre. The USA and the West by blurring the borders between big business and government and making them one and the same has fallen into the “mediocre” trap of the old Soviet bloc. China in a practical realistic sense is economically far more capitalistic than the West is today with far more tolerance of excellence and talent and will therefore flourish at our expense. At the moment we lack the flexibility to change enough to save ourselves from inevitable implosion.
@ Happy Hemptress: Could not agree more.
You are ALL missing the point!!! You could tax the rich & evenly redistribute the wealth, but the rich would soon become rich again, & the poor would soon become poor again, because one class has Financial Intelligence & the other does not! Can you guess which is which? Its all about investing money to make financial returns, compared to pissing it up against the wall at the night clubs every weekend. Think about it!!!