Is America Becoming a Third World Country?

A question posed by Cahir O'Doherty in “Irish Central”

O'Dohery's question and ensuing article sums it up damned well as far as I'm concerned, a resounding YES.

“The main characteristics common to Third World countries are a high level of debt, an income distribution concentrated to the top 1% of the population, and an economy based on export of raw materials and import of manufactured products.”

"Whilst the conservative right keeps its voters hypnotized with the latest shell game involving God, Guns and Gays, the ordinary citizen has had his wallet pilfered or her purse snatched, over and over.

Of the $1.7 trillion in tax cuts taxpayers received through 2008, high-income households received by far the largest - not only in amount but also as a percentage of income - which dramatically shifted the concentration of after-tax income toward the top.

The income gap is expanding now not because the middle class is losing income, but because the incomes of the wealthiest are skyrocketing.”

The article is disturbing enough, pointing to a very real likelihood that the US is on the fast track to oblivion, but what’s even more disturbing are some of the moronic comments posted related to the article.

Posted by snuffey

“As long ae the Great One and his Neo Communists, are in office things in the USA will continue to grow worse.”

Posted by rcrdskpr@aol.com

"you forget about the illegals that are helping to increase the income gap. not only that, but being illegal and not paying taxes, putting their children into our educational system, hospitals, welfare systems, etc, is a huge hit on our support systems that the middle class must support. lets face it, the illegals dont squat in upper income areas, they make their ghetto in the poorer sections of cities and towns. they do not contribute their fair share to our system. how much do they send home to mexico each year? every dollar sent to mexico is one less spent here"

Posted by “hancock”

“America has got the fattest poor people in the world. 123% fatter than the rest of the world, 1205 % than the "third world" and 58% fatter than 20 years ago. They receive 10000% more in welfare, and you don't have to be a citizen to receive some of these benefits. Some even have cell phones and color television. They receive free education, although many do not use this option do to time constraints”

hancock - Phenomenal solution, complain about fat poor people. That'll turn our country around in a matter of seconds. You make me proud to be an American. Let me guess, you're a member of one of the maniacal tea parties with illiteracy stamped on your forehead like a badge of honor.

But I did find one ray of intelligence in the posts

Posted by CitizenWhy

“Severe differences between rich and poor, and a shrinking, debt-ridden, anxious middle class is an inevitable result of an overextended military empire that ironically reaps no economic gains from its hugely expensive imperial adventures abroad. An anxious middle class is prone to buy into the panic mongering and bigotry of the far right, whose voice in the US is Fox News. In the US a college education is promoted as the way to economic security yet the costs of college education, even at public colleges, have skyrocketed, making college out of reach for the working poor and lower middle class. ... The US could easily reverse course by ending its military operations abroad, shrinking its defense/war budget, raising taxes on the wealthiest, and levying a surtax on corporations headquartered in tax haven countries.”

CitizenWhy - America has been sliding down this path since the end of WWII when the rich elitists and politicians learned they could earn massive profits from war. The Cold War, Korea, Vietnam, Gulf War I & II, Afghanistan, etc...

Some of the richest companies and people in this country are connected in one way or another to the US war machine and as you so aptly stated, as long as we keep taxing and borrowing to wage war around the world, we're going to follow in the footsteps of the rest of the imperialistic empires in history - relegated to a few pages in a history book, taught by inept history teachers to disinterested children. It is not a coincidence that the gap between the poor and the rich coincide with war-waging elitists in the US.

While the US wages war around the world, the elitist media continues to tell the poor that they are "the heartbeat of America," the "working middle-class," all the while those "working middle class" are working two and three jobs to pay their mortgages on their double-wide mobile homes on rented land (you guessed it, owned by the upper class) (pay attention here hancock, this is for you) and eating junk food because they don't have the time to prepare meals with healthy food and they surely don't have the time to get proper exercise, they barely even have time to sleep between jobs.

AND of course they are the ones who send their children off to war, because the education system has failed them and typically there’s NO option but military. Look at the statistics of military population and you’ll see a very large gap between the lower income class and the upper income class with the lower income class comprising most of our military personnel.

Look around the world; it’s not a coincidence that countries that spend extraordinary amounts of their budgets on war become relegated to a smaller role in history. England prior to WWI was a massive worldwide power. Post WWII, the US has taken on that role as England shrank its empire. In his writings, “The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers: Economic Change and Military Conflict from 1500 to 2000” Paul Kennedy aptly points out that “military spending by hegemonic states eventually becomes excessive and a burden on its economy, finally leading to economic ruin.”

Nope, there is no coincidence here.