[Sailor Steve]

Some good questions. Economics being my weakest point, all I can give is thoughts, not ideas.

Originally Posted by Skybird

I But do not try to just raise a flame war on a personally unwanted opinion. Give solid reasons, if you disagree. I am not launching this to raise a heated debate. I am just curuous on how Amerians react if bein confronted with percpetions and obwsevraitons on their country that may be seen as highly contradictory to the "official" ideological self-understanding of the US. none of what the author writes is in support of what is knwon to be the "American dream".

Part of the problem there is human nature. I can talk about my problems all I want, but if you mention them without being asked, you are instantly the enemy. We all do that.

Your main text covers Europeans' attitudes and opinions, so I don't have a clue to any answers there.

are those ultra-rich donators just abusing a flaw in the system to avoid mandatory tax payments that threaten to come at them anyway?

I don't think so. While someone like Bill Gates pays taxes on all his income, including interest income, his actual fortune is not taxed (at least as I understand it), so new taxes can be reduced by write-offs, but it doesn't affect the money he already has. Offering several billion dollars to help those less fortunate than himself is helping, no matter what his real reasons for doing so.

Originally Posted by August

Foreign people, mostly Europeans, have been prognosticating my countries imminent doom ever since it was founded. For almost two and a half centuries they have turned out to be wrong.

True, but then so have nay-sayers here as well. The bad news is we don't really know what's around the corner. As with any "crisis", warnings are based on observations which may or may not be valid, and should be at least looked at. Of course this doesn't mean turning into Chicken Little every time a leaf hits us on the head.

Hard times have come and gone in my country and they will continue to do so. Folks who believe we're in some kind of end game are either missing the point that life is what you make of it, or, like your beloved Speigel, are secretly hoping for it to be true.

Again, that's not just outsiders. The biggest opportunity to fail and die as a country came in 1929, but that was true for the rest of the world as well. We survived that, and optimism about surviving what's going on to day is well founded. Of course some unforseen problem may come along and kill us before we know what happened, but that's always the risk we take just by being alive.

I agree about some people wanting us to fail, but that is also domestic. As I said at first, I think we tend to get our backs up when someone from the outside says it.

Originally Posted by yubba

our government and the people that we sent to Washington they forgot that they work for the american public, some where along the line they think they are royalty,and the american people are sheep too be sheared.

I think that began when Congressional salaries started outstripping the average American pay. When it pays so well it becomes a career rather than a service it starts to breed the oft-mentioned delusions of grandeur.

On the other hand, your post seems to be a specifically-aimed tirade that does little to address Skybird's questions.