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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Katelew who wrote (252729)	12/31/2007 11:39:12 AM
From: bentway	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

"If republicans were as patriotic as they like to think they are, they'd take the blinders off and raise holy hell with their elected officials." I'm thinking that a lot of them will wake up in the coming Bush recession in this next year. Greedheads respond to negative economic forces. Their heads come up out of the sand..

To: Katelew who wrote (252729)	12/31/2007 6:58:57 PM
From: Nadine Carroll	Respond to of 281500

I don't think folks on the right understand the across the board decline this country is undergoing. We've fallen behind in almost every measurement I can think of......longevity, academic performance, infant mortality, personal savings rates, per capita income, number of patents issued are just a few that come to mind. Add to that govt. debt growth that is unsustainable and a weakening competitive posture in the global economy. We don't "understand" it because it isn't so. For example, America has NOT fallen behind in per capita income. In the US it's 45K, in Spain, France, Germany, Italy, Belgium it's 29K - 36K. How is 45K behind 33K? en.wikipedia.org Just like what you said about government debt growth isn't true. It is less than Europe and very sustainable as long as we keep growing. We're doing MUCH better than Europe (it is Europe you're refering to isn't it? Because if it's China, that's another discussion). Liberals, who used to be cheerful and hopeful folks a generation ago, have talked themselves into gloom and despair over fictions. Well, actually over the fact that Republicans keep getting elected, but they pretend it's over the decline of America. Sure America has problems, but Europe has worse ones, and most of the figures hold up very well. Those that don't usually have caveats. For instance, the structure of American finances encourages people to put their money into houses, and home equity isn't counted as savings. Infant mortality has a big caveat as the US counts as live births infants as young as 20 weeks, where Europe counts infants much later premies of even 28 or 30 weeks who don't make it as stillbirths. Stillbirths don't get into the infant mortality figures.

To: Katelew who wrote (252729)	1/1/2008 11:38:40 PM
From: Elroy	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

I don't think folks on the right understand the across the board decline this country is undergoing. We've fallen behind in almost every measurement I can think of......longevity, academic performance, infant mortality, personal savings rates, per capita income, number of patents issued are just a few that come to mind. Think harder. The USA dominates mainstream global entertainment, including movies, television and music. People all over Africa, Asia and Europe can sing Beyonce tunes, can you sing one recent Asian hit song? They may not have gone (who knows?), but people all over the world had the chance to see Rocky fight again in Rocky Balboa (Rocky 6). When was the last time you saw the 6th film about a locally popular European underdog? And Seinfeld is in syndication in just about every country with an economy larger than Rhode Island's. When was the last time you saw a Kenyan TV show? Here's a link to the Global Fortune 500. In the top 10 there are 5 US companies. No other country has more than 1. The US hasn't even BEGUN falling behind in corporate dominance of the world; rather, we are continue to lead it. money.cnn.com The US spends more on its military budget than all the other countries of the world combined, I believe. That's hardly falling behind in military leadership. There are loads of more measurable areas where US is leading the world, and few where we have "fallen behind China and India" which is what your sentence implies (they make up 25%-35% of the "rest of the world", ya know).