A Tariff for You and for You and for....

One trick pony and he's not even good at the one trick.

Its like watching a toddler trying to act like an adult.

Possibly because even he might realize what a fool he looked like yesterday we got Mexican tariffs as a distraction.

It might be considered a good thing by some of his more racist or ignorant supporters, they don't like Mexicans to start with, but its going to hurt many more people and probably accomplish nothing.

Unfortunately, we have inflicted this joke of a President upon the world who by now realize that he is even worse than they imagined.

They must be wondering if his election was just an aberration or if this country has descended permanently into a rabbit hole?

I certainly hope not and don't think we have.

But unfortunately with the way our elections can be manipulated and factors like the electoral college and low turnout, there's no way to be sure.

After all our "moral" evangelical brothers and sisters decided to ignore his obvious moral turpitude and vote for him because they want to impose their abortion views on the rest of us.

Science Works, the Government?

We know that we live in a world that has been shaped by scientific discoveries.  Some of these were disputed in the beginning but interesting that the only reason we have so many science skeptics out there is because of science advances in internet technology and communications.

There are some famous instances in history of egotistical politicians disputing science only to be proven ridiculous over time.

So in todays world we have a scientific consensus concerning climate change that is irrefutable by any scientific standard we see another egotistical politician trying to change science with I guess a magic wand.

Climate change is real.  Vaccines work.  We landed on the Moon.  The world is round.

Science isn't going to change because of foolish people who think they can legislate natural laws.

Nature and Science don't care.

Politicians

Politicians tend to be out of touch with their constituents.

In this country that shouldn't be the case, but it is more true than it should be.

Part of the problem is that politicians are mostly interested in getting elected or re-elected and knowing your constituents isn't important for that.

You need to garner enough support to win a primary, and that can sometimes be done by pushing a single issue.  It just has to be an issue that resonates with enough people to win.

Certain issues which are not the majority views in most of the country tend to be important in primaries.

Take abortion.  People mostly support a woman's right to choose.  It just isn't something that fires them up.  Those who oppose abortion tend to be much more fervent and will often vote based on a politicians position on that issue alone.  It has become one of the things you must be against to win a republican primary,

 Issues like these have become dominant in winning primaries and getting elected because of the small turnouts.

So we see politicians get nominated and elected that don't represent the majority opinions.

Not News

We don't have as much fake news as we have meaningless news.

There are things that actually have an impact on our lives and then there are things that are of interest to a very small number of people which have taken over what should be real news.

Example, real news would be whether or not the President committed an impeachable offense.  If he did it should result in impeachment.

What is being covered is the ins and outs of the politics and how the American people would react.

Guilt or innocence is not a matter of popularity, or at least it shouldn't be.

Most of the coverage I see and hear isn't so much about actual news as about, for lack of a better term, meta news.

An event like tariffs can spawn a million stories when the story is really simply what tariffs were imposed and how does it impact us.

We are so interested in filling air space that we have to predict how people will react conduct polls to see how we reacted and then critique the polls to predict how they might impact the next election.

So much is going to happen between now and then that I'm pretty sure this is just space filler.

Some fake news is in fact mingled in there, but the problem is that so much meaningless news can overcome what is real.

Is the Supreme Court going to overturn Roe vs Wade, will they even hear a case about it.

We love to speculate and predict, but its not really news.

Its nothing at all.

Make America Better

One of the things Americans are know for is a lack of tact.

The idea of the Ugly American (behavior not looks) was and is a trait we have.

Part of this is due to our relative isolation as a nation, we are, unlike most of the world, fairly remote.

Of course the true ugly American doesn't accept that and thinks it is everyone else who is in the wrong place.

Which is the other characteristic of excessive pride just for being born in this country.

None of us had anything to do with who our parents were ore what country we were born in.

Some of act as if being an American is an achievement, which it is for an immigrant, but not for those born here.  It is simply a fact.

Still we take pride in it, as do people born in other countries, but we seem to think everyone should simply agree we are the best.

If somehow the achievements we personally had nothing to do with are nonetheless credited to us in some general way, they should still be at least legitimate achievements of the country.

Many of the things we seem to take pride in didn't even originate here.

After all we are still a relatively young country and many of the things that define a country were imported from elsewhere.  Our language, our form of Government and our religions are all immigrants.

America is a great country and we enjoy freedoms and prosperity here envied by much of the world.  However are we the greatest country?  It depends on how you measure that.  We have the strongest military but trail many other countries on many measurements such as health care, income equality, equal rights.  We have problems with gun violence and racism that are hardly areas of pride.

Celebrate America but it can be better and not realizing that is problematic.

Its not love it or leave it.  Its love it and make it better!

Higher Prices and Bailouts Too!

Its a bit curious how the trade war with China plays out.

As a source of cheap labor they were able to get many companies to offload some of their labor intensive operations.

In exchange China got access to certain technology and to be honest copied or reverse engineered much of it, enabling them to make the same or similar product cheaper than the original.

This wasn't that different than what happened in Japan years ago.

It was in some ways part of the game they played but, the China market is huge and when they provided it with cheaper (stolen) tech gadgets, our tech companies were unhappy.

Now the theft of intellectual property is a complex issue.

Ultimately it leads to lower prices for the consumer as the knock offs create competition.

So we protect the property so the companies can recoup their investment.  It doesn't work well outside of our borders, at least not in some countries and this accounts to some extent for our high drug prices as we let the OEM effectively charge whatever they can get away with.

Stealing is bad and should be punished.  One might want to investigate the laws related to intellectual property and see if they protect consumers too.

This was at the heart of the dispute as Chinese products, many of them knock offs, were lower priced than those of US companies.  So the Government imposed tariffs to make them more expensive.

China retaliated and hurt farmers in particular so we decided to bail some of them out.

So we get to pay more and see our taxes help other victims of this policy.

We are also trying to stop a major tech company form importing or exporting to this country.

One thing that many of us, in either party generally agreed to, was that Government involvement in business was often clumsy and ineffective.  Think that still holds true.

Memorial Day

This is Memorial Day weekend and its a good time to remember all those who made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation.

Not all of those who died always believed in the war they fought in, particularly in the Vietnam War, but they all answered their countries call to serve and fulfilled their ultimate obligation as a citizen.

We now have an all volunteer force and that might have its advantages but it also has some disadvantages, as it moves us closer to having an Army that isn't representative of us as a nation.

In many ways having a draft lottery applied to all for a certain portion of the military will engage the public, at least the more successful parts of the public in its issues and concerns.

Of course some people always found ways to avoid serving, even when there was a draft, i.e. our draft dodger commander in chief.

None of this takes away from the honor we should hold those who died for our country.

They served, they risked everything and they paid the ultimate price.

Take some time to remember them this weekend.

Countdown to Climate Disaster

I was reading an article that came from the where it took a statement by a junior democratic congressperson and tried to show that it was too draconian and believed by a majority of gullible democrats.

The quote is as follows:

“Millennials and people, you know, Gen Z and all these folks that will come after us are looking up and we’re like: ‘The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change and your biggest issue is how are we gonna pay for it?'

Now first of all in common usage a statement like this is clearly not designed as a scientific discussion of the deadline to address climate change. Faced with the impending disaster that will take place and has in fact already started, we need to fix it no matter the cost.

The timeline is meant to connote the urgency of the situation and is in the same format as say a statement like 'the house is on fire and your rearranging the closets?"  

The statement is clear, we need to get our priorities right and not worry about how to pay for it.

We already see effects of climate change in the severe weather, rising sea levels, stronger storms and other related phenomena.  Is 12 years a scientific estimate?

No, the amount of time we have to avert climate disaster is not clear.  

It may already be too late, but we need to start addressing the issue right now, not in 12 years.

The countdown has already started and to try to act like a single quote by a politician means anything at all is simply silly politics.

What matters is the scientific consensus and doing the things we need to do to slow, stop or reverse the damage.

Its beyond politics, but some politicians are so short sighted they just don't seem to care.

The are probably moving to higher ground anyways.

Congress and the Mueller Report

One of the problems facing us today is the unrealistic expectations we have on solving complex problems.

We have gotten so used to seeing complex problems solved in a single TV episode that I fear we think the real world works like that.

It doesn't.

Look at the expectation that surrounded the Mueller report.

He was charted to investigate potential criminal activity related to interactions with Russia and provide a report and recommendations to the Government.

He wrote a complex report that spelled out many questionable activities and during that investigation he brought many charges against various people associated with the campaign.

What he didn't do at the end of the day was exonerate or file charges against the President, partly because a sitting President is normally not charged with crimes by the Justice department.

That is the role of Congress who can decide to impeach if crimes are committed.

This is why Congress needs to have the full unredacted report and continues investigating the actions to perform its constitutional duties.

It clearly can't determine if a crime has been committed without doing its due diligence.

The behavior of the administration is both the behavior of someone trying to obstruct and of someone trying to turn this into a political circus.  Of course politics enters into some of the decisions, but ultimately the decision to impeach or not impeach needs to be based on actual data which congress needs to gather.

I don't see any legal arguments to be made against congress doing its constitutional due diligence.

At least not any valid ones.

Tax Us Via Tariffs and Give it to the Wealthy

I was watching a show in which the question was asked if out dontard really believes it when he says the tariffs are paid by China?

The answer seems to be tat he does, which would have been my guess since he is imposing the tariffs on Chinese goods.

The fact that he doesn't understand this when he was in various business over his lifetime is a bit surprising.  He was not generally involved in the type of business where he would have learned this.

He was originally a developer.  Developers have their own issues related to labor and materials but dealing with tariffs is not one of them, its just part of the product cost.

Most of his other so called businesses only required the use of his name with him having little to no real involvement, except maybe approving a color or being in an ad.

Not where you would learn about much of anything and certainly not tariffs.

He then was a reality host for a period of time and once again no practical knowledge of business except how much he was getting paid.

Those who consider him a business genius should think again.

So does he understand how tariffs work?  Probably not and he obviously thinks the tax money he is collecting doesn't come from Americans.

While the tariffs increase the cost of items bought by everyone, it is by definition a regressive tax, since it is the same for everybody.

Not a Robin Hood, he takes from the poor and gives to the rich, like every self serving dontard.

Consumer Influence

Relying on the Government to make the world better is seldom a good strategy.  First the Government can't decide what is better.

We have power as individuals and certainly the most effective one is our pocketbook.

Making contributions to candidates who support your views is one way.  We have turned the political process into a quest for money to run campaigns and publish or air ads.

A even more effective way to influence is by the products we buy.   Many of us do this to some extent already, if we are aware of a company that supports policies we oppose.  Of course what would be more helpful is a way to easily know if products and services we but are made by responsible companies.

We see that many of us are willing to buy products that are organic, and some of them are even certified to be so.  They do generally cost a little more and may or may not be better, but the concept that they eschew harmful pesticides is certainly a good goal.

What is not as clear is what products are made by environmentally sound companies.  There are some products that are certified for various attributes, often related to a specific issues, we don't generally know if the company is in fact trying to minimize environmental damage.

There are a number of organizations that will certify environmentally safe products, such as Good Housekeeping Green, but generally the labels are poorly understood and often ignored.

Take Energy Star products.  These are helpful if you want to know the carbon footprint of that particular product but not if you want to know whether it was produced in an environmentally safe manner.

We need to demand that products we buy do what they can to protect the earth in their manufacture.  The more we choose safe products the more they will be produced.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                         

Its a Legal Issue

Nobody is actually in favor of abortion.  It is a solution of last resort for people who have a serious problem.

In some cases you simply have those who for whatever reason failed to protect themselves during sex and for whom the pregnancy is an unexpected consequence.  One would like to think that the number of those incidents could be reduced with proper sex education (of course some oppose that) but it is pretty clear that no matter what unplanned pregnancies will occur.  In these cases the pregnancy is potentially a life changing event that could range from catastrophic to inconvenient.  Of course in other cases the decision is as a result of other more serious issues, such as serious birth defects, rape, incest, etc.

However, the choice being made is that of the women/girls who have to make it.  It is possible that some make the decision cavalierly but I doubt it. The real issue, and the basis of Roe vs Wade, is whether the State can intervene in a woman's decision about her body when it doesn't in fact create a societal threat.

A fetus is not yet a person and only really becomes one after birth.  We see states trying to redefine this status and giving it protection.  They are hoping to get the Supreme Court to effectively reverse the decision or Roe vs Wade and allow fetuses certain rights.

As we add conservative justices, although redefining a fetus as a person who has rights is hardly conservative the chances of this are increasing.  Still it just seems unlikely Roe vs Wade will ever be overturned, because legally there is no basis.

The basis is much more a religious one.  While all organisms involved are in some sense alive, as are sperm and eggs before conception, the non-religious rule has to be that if it is part of a women's body it is her decision.  If we start to dictate these decisions we are invading her privacy and there really is not legal basis to do that.

It may or may displease your God and of course no one is forced to forego their beliefs to have an abortion, but your belief does not give you the right to violate another person's rights.

I don't like abortions and think unwanted pregnancies should be avoided via education and access to contraception.  Still, it isn't ultimately my decision and to impose such a decision is the first step to religious tyranny.

Give Us Your Rich

The Statue of Liberty was erected to celebrate the fact that America (the United States) was a land of opportunity where the poor or persecuted people of the world could come and make a new start, needing only the will to contribute.

It was how most of us got here, since we are a nation of immigrant descendants, and very few of our ancestors came here because they were doing so well in their old country.

Possibly the came to practice their religion freely or because they couldn't make a living or raise food.

We accepted all who showed up, although there have been other periods in our history where some of those here felt they didn't want further competition.

The Irish were considered undesirable by many and certainly as each nationality too their turn.

We started restriction on immigration when the belief spread that we were seeing too many of the wrong people coming.

Still as a nation we knew that while we could impose some quotas, we weren't going to exclude all immigrants and that the people coming here were doing so to build a better life or escape persecution.

It has always worked as after one generation they are as American as anyone else, indistinguishable, except maybe for facial characteristics form any American.  In fact our President is the Grandson and son of immigrants as are some of our Senators and other important figures.

Now of course we see a plan that would have likely excluded those ancestors with a few exceptions as undesirable since they were poor and could only provide a desire to succeed.

This belief that immigrants only want to come here to get handouts and free benefits is a made up story as history and research clearly shows.

We might have been better off is some of those ancestors were in fact turned away, but even so, as a nation we need to provide a place for those who need opportunity.

Its our heritage.

Transition

What is going on in the country is the continuation of the changes driven by the technology and automation revolution.

If you have the skills to be part of it you most likely have a high paying job and a secure future.

If you were part of the old industrial economy you are probably still hurting.

The so called strong economy if the future economy, not the past one.

Manufacturing takes advantage of technology, robotics and world sources.

Where just supplying unskilled labor was once enough to secure a decent job with benefits, that is not enough anymore.

The adjustment has been painful and will remain so until it is complete.

We can't roll back the clock no matter how much we try.

The future comes anyways.

China pays the Tariffs and Mexico funds the Wall

Its nice that those countries are so generous and the American taxpayer doesn't have to dig deep.

Farmers especially are enjoying the situation unable to sell soybeans and other crops to one of their biggest customers, losing market share they may never regain.

The economy is so strong that almost anyone can get a minimum wage job!

Get two or three even if you want to make ends meet.

Its always been true that new graduates struggle to find jobs but we now have burdened them with mountains of debt to increase their level of anxiety!

At least they can join the under employed auto workers and others drowning in the opioids that are so plentiful.

Helps keep you mind off the nukes in North Korea or the revitalized Iranian development effort.

Its an Alfred E. Neuman world, why worry!

Deal or no Deal

Watching the art of no deal currently happening in Washington is not surprising.  Dealing with foreign Governments is very different than trying to construct a business deal.


Some things are the same, but there is a big difference between putting together a real estate deal and negotiating a trade agreement.  In the first instance everybody is vested in achieving the same goal.  In the second the parties are trying to get the advantage. 


Clearly out negotiations or lack thereof on nuclear issues is clearly too complex for a failed real estate developer who couldn't successfully run any business he tried.  His airline, his casino, his university and many others were abject failures or frauds. 


Simply demanding they do what he wants because we have the biggest army is not credible when everyone knows he is essentially a coward.


Yes, in the end something will be agreed to and he will declare success, but if you consider what he actually gets, we will be lucky to be as good off as when we started.

Happy Mother's Day

Mothers have a special place in our hearts.  They were our first and lasting influence on love and the world around us.

If you are lucky enough to still have your mother with you, celebrate her.

Happy Mother's Day!!

Democracy Should be Rule of the Prople!

The good news is that no matter how absurd things get in our Government, most things simply continue as always.

Things obviously change, we all have cell phones now, but the basic pattern of our lives doesn't.

Clearly what happens in the various forms of Government matters.

It just doesn't normally have an immediate impact.

It makes it easy to ignore for most of us and also easy to complain about.

One of the things that causes the Government to be dysfunctional is that our system allows small but fervent factions to have undo influence.

If you consider our primary system, it is supposedly more democratic than when the party decided who should represent it, but now, because so few actually bother to vote, you see it becoming less representative for most of us.

You also see games played in primaries as some allow open or crossover voting.

Shouldn't the candidates represent the actual party they run under?

We've developed a system where the primary voting is often more important than the actual elections.

We need a system of universal voting if we really want a democracy that represents us.

It might be difficult to implement, but its time to make sure our democracy is actually real and not one that can be stolen.

Past Heroes

As Bob Dylan said years ago "The Times They Are a-Changing".

Generally the changes were good if incomplete as we saw improvements in issues like civil rights, women's liberation, more tolerance for sexual preferences and generally a better awareness of differences.

The improvements are hardly complete as we still have disparities and work to do.

However, one of the ways to not make progress on real issues is to focus on imagined ones.

Take our historical figures, often considered heroes to generations now being questioned.

The conquest of the Americas was brutal and oppressive to Native Americans who, while the victims, weren't lambs to the slaughter.  The history of humanity if filled with conquests and wars and the explorers, Conquistadors and settlers didn't think they were doing anything wrong, and by the standards of the time, they weren't.

We might condemn that behavior currently, (but that is by no means certain) but they took risks, acted boldly and secured two continents.

Yes they practiced slavery and had little consideration for the peoples they subjugated, except to convert them, and we can look at that period and see it for what it was.

They should however be judged by the standards of the time, not standards of today.

Progress?

Deficits up, no negotiated deals, more shooting and hate crimes, wages still stagnant, farmers in trouble, Cabinet members found in contempt of congress, and North Korea and Iran increasing nuclear expansion.

Wealthy people and businesses are making money thanks to the directed tax cuts but that may not last much longer if the situation with China deteriorates.

Our friends don't trust us and our enemies don't take us very seriously.

We are doing very little to prevent a climate disaster and in fact encourage behavior that will speed it along.

We have an administration which only cares about the rich and the easily fooled who listen to the rhetoric and believe the lies, which are easily documented.

Much like his spotted business resume, he is all about the show and has trouble making it go.

If you listen to the people on the animal news, they act like there are great accomplishments.

The great economy is a continuation of the recovery with a boost from tax cuts and increased defense spending.  The increased National Debt will come back to haunt us not to mention the climate disaster.

To top it off we have more uninsured Americans this year than last.

Not really any progress at all.

Another School Shooting.

Another school shooting, seems like an epidemic recently.

Realize each one has unique but the one common denominator is guns.

How the guns are getting into the hands of the shooters is sort of irrelevant if you are the parent of a dead student.

Something isn't working and we need to fix it.

Foreign Policy?

According to the administration Iran is planning some sort of trouble and we have dispatched a carrier.

In a somewhat sad commentary of our current faith in our government, there is a "show me" attitude since the WMD fiasco in Iraq.

Its also likely that our simpleton in the White House who bought in to all the FOX news criticisms over the years about how the prior administrations simply had to flex some muscle to get the world to comply with us.

It doesn't work, at least not in any meaningful sense.

Our foreign policy is pretty much a mess, with our allies concerned about our reliability and trustworthiness and our enemies manipulating our dontard.

One of the successes he touts is that he has inspired our allies to spend more money on their defense, and they have, but so have we.

If the benefit was supposed to be that we would spend less, it isn't happening.

Everyone spending more turns into an arms race.

Isis was being pushed out of territory when he took over and that continued.  They aren't destroyed and may be more dangerous than ever.  Certainly the middle east isn't friendlier and we managed to let Russia and Iran exert more and more influence.

North Korea played us and he let them.

Sanctions, tariffs and sending in a carrier are not much in the way of foreign policy.  Its all he seems to have though.

Tweets?

Trouble in our negotiations with China and some tweets to raise tariffs.

Just enough to cause some consternation on Wall Street.

We've played this game before and unless he is even crazier than I think, he has to know that this isn't going to get China to comply.

In fact its likely to make them retaliate or stop talking for a bit.

His stated objective has been to reduce the trade deficit but so far there doesn't seem to be any progress.

It does go up and down, like it always has but these reckless tweets, while normal nowadays don't accomplish much, unless you shorted some stocks over the weekend.

I find it amazing he hasn't derailed the recovery yet, he still has time.

Science and Religion

It seems to be a fundamental aspect of human societies to have religion.

The earliest religions and those of aborigine cultures seem to treat nature as god.  Clearly the need for the sun to rise and the prey to come, food to ripen, would have been fundamental things they needed and they would have prayed for them to be provided.

It was likely that one of the members of the tribe was believed to have special abilities to influence these events and was also someone who could help the sick.

It was rudimentary, but the basic elements of most religions came into being.  One or more people with special knowledge of the gods who interceded on behalf of the tribe to feed them, protect them and heal them.  When they couldn't heal them they interceded for them in the afterlife.

In order to provide these services as society grew they needed to be provided for so they could do the rituals, study the traditions and perform other functions.

It was these people who generally made the first strides in things like astronomy, medicine and natural history as they explored the mysteries to better understand the wishes of the god or gods.

There was no conflict between science and religion, they were one and the same.

It was later after the religious rituals and tenets were set in stone, so to speak, that conflicts arose.

When a truth was determined to be from God, change to that truth became blasphemy.

The conflict exists because at the root, religion and science took on the same task, explaining the universe.  It was when some religions decided they had all the answers that the conflict arose.

There is no conflict between the two if we simply accept the simple idea that we still are discovering the true nature of things.

Fundamentally it is the ultimate conceit to believe that everything we needed to know was revealed thousands of years ago and that no new revelations can exist.

Church and State

The idea that Church and State can be separated is a relatively unique one.  In fact it isn't all that prevalent in most of the world.

Om pretty much every ancient civilization they were one and the same.

In fact in most of those cultures, state functions were often religious functions, there just wasn't any difference.

If you think about it, the people who told you how to live and what to do had to work in unison or it would be chaotic.  In the middle ages the Protestant reformation was accompanied by savage wars as individual Kings and Princes decided what religion would be practiced in their state.  It was the exception rather than the rule when subject peoples were allowed to continue worshiping their own God or gods.

The persecution of non-conforming sects was one of the factors that led to people emigrating to America and because they were distinct colonies, each following a slightly different version of Christianity that we said no State religion would be created, it was needed to get acceptance.

It was unlikely that the founders were accepting of non-Christian religions, but the Constitution is and today we see our country as one of the few where so many religions are allowed to thrive.

We see a bit of a reaction currently as certain state practices violate or seem to violate certain religious beliefs.

There is some desire by those practicing evangelical religions to make the country righteous and tolerating what they consider sin is also a sin.

They exert some significant influence, especially in certain states as they can certainly influence who wins primaries, and sometimes general elections.

The freedom of religion, or in fact the freedom to not practice religion is something most of us cherish about this country.

Like all our rights, it is not guaranteed, we need to defend it and protect it.

Freedom is never free, each generation has to earn it.

Job Report

We have less unemployed people but we also have less employed people.

Reflecting our new economy, the great majority of increases were in service related industries.

Still having established a new bottom so to speak we are seeing some increases in hourly pay, a little over 3%.

The expansion from the lows of the financial meltdown continues and one could argue if it is because of the actions then or something like the recent business tax cuts.

Everything is usually a combination of all factors and we see service industries continuing to expand as we continue to evolve our economy.

Its good news, not great news, but still good.

Where's Riley?

Most of us dream about being rich and famous when we are young but few of us achieve either.

In fact it is becoming harder and harder for the "working" person to even get a sense of security.

While not rich, most of them were able to get a reasonably good paying job with benefits including health care and a pension.

While it still required you to go to work everyday it provided a decent life, the ability to have a family and a home.

You could of course screw that up, but if you stayed sober enough, followed the rules enough you counted on having a job and making a decent living.

While it really was a post World War 2 scenario, before then we had the Great Depression, it lasted long enough to create a lasting image of America that prevails to this day.

New suburbs sprang up thanks to the wide availability of cars and all those houses required appliances and services.  WE also built the interstates and if you were able bodied and not working it was your own choice.

The cracks started as the cities lost a lot of their middle class to those same suburbs and we started to see urban decay.

Then we started to see some competition from our old WW2 adversaries who recovered and were eager to sell us cars and other things.

Companies started to shift to lower cost labor areas, first inside the country and then overseas as we promoted free trade and allowed the easy transport of goods across borders.

We then saw the robots become more and more prevalent as they grew in sophistication and displaced most if not all of the unskilled laborers.  We also saw technology allow companies to eliminate all sorts of jobs that used to be considered secure.  Clerks from secretaries to bank tellers became less and less needed.

It is going to get better as the jobs now available are generally lower paying with less benefits, if any.

Many workers have simply left the workforce as working as a clerk in a drug store is financially not much better than scraping by on the various Government programs available.

Its not the life of Riley anymore.

He is now addicted to Opioids and driving an Uber.

Greatest?

What are the criteria of being a great county?

Some would say military power,

If you use that measure its pretty clear who is the greatest.

For much of human history being the strongest also led to economic benefits as countries who lost were looted and their people enslaved.

This led to economic benefits for at least some of the population as the spoils of war were brought back.

Not a common practice today so a strong military is generally a resource drain.

In many ways military expenditures are a gigantic income redistribution scheme, as taxes collected are spent on salaries for military and equipment, bought domestically that creates good paying jobs building that equipment.

If however the criteria is where people are happiest or healthiest, we have to look elsewhere.

In that type of list the US doesn't make the top ten generally.  In the 2018 UN study the US came in 18th

Happiest Countries

The criteria here is perhaps something you might argue about but I don't think too many would argue that the US has the happiest people, we sort of keep shooting each other.

We still lead the world economically but that wealth is distributed more and more unevenly.

Of course chanting, we're number 18 is probably not about to catch on, so just stick with USA, USA, leave the numbers out.