America on its way down. Is it?

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...712496,00.html

This is a german correspondent's view on how things are going in America. While it may be just one voice, since a longer time now almost all media over here seem to point out similiar views of a general trend that is unfolding since years.

I wonder what Americans think of this foreigner's view from the outside (with being outside being both an advantage and a disadvantage). Is the perception from the outside an allout flawed one, or does the author get his points right?

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".

the recent initiative by ultra-rich people in the Us to distriubute major parts of their wealth, has caused a bitter discussion in Germany, illustrating that there are significant differences not only between libertarians/conservatives and socialists, but between the two countries in principal. what is taken queer by many over here - leaving a foul taste in our mouths - is the fact that donations like those beign offered in the US can be written off from obligatory tax duties, making thes e donations maybe much less altruistic than at first glance it seems - it means that in part private people makew the community pay-by-tayes for theirn own private donations, which emans these rich people enforcing without pltiallegitimation that according moneys get invested into purposes that they as a single private person have decided for. Writing off donations from taxes is not possible in Germany to the ammount that is possible in aer America. Also voluntary, unbinding wellfare, and mandtory social security systems are one of the most obvious major differencees between european cultures and American culture in general. While in principal I prefer the obligatory nature of the system in europe,I also see this very system being hijacked, exploited and abused for ideological politcal interests - which has made me moving away from the european model - at the same time avoiding th American model, too. honstely said, I do not know what to do about these things, to me both systems are seriously porked by now. the controversy about donations versus taxes has led the left to demand that they/the state (they hope to head) should not accept such donations, but should get the money nevertheless by raising mandatory taxes - so that the same money gets collected nevertheless, but not distributed by independant private will, but is being controlled by political institutions and ideologies (a motivation that pisses me off big time). For demagogues like to be found in poltival parties of every kind today, and ideological tranch warriors, private people taking responsibility and doing things for the community outside the control and planning of parties, simply is a vital thread to their own existence - it renders them obsolete and shows how little they are needed. On the othe rhand, pirvate donators usijng the american system just to direct public money into opportunities and purposes that they decide on, also is not acceptable, since they are not politically legitimised to do so.

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

[August]

Originally Posted by Skybird

I wonder what Americans think of this foreigner's view from the outside (with being outside being both an advantage and a disadvantage). Is the perception from the outside an allout flawed one, or does the author get his points right?

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.

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.

[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. We will be rebembering the royals in November. I for 1 don't want too see a United Socalist Rebublic of America. Only you can prevent Socalism or you can say BBbaaaaaaaaa for the rest of your life.

[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.

[August]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

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.

I agree and i'd also postulate that because of today's world wide media these negative messages have a far wider ranging domestic influence than they did in previous times.

Perception can often become reality.

[Platapus]

Yup, The United States is in some pretty serous trouble in multiple levels.

But on the whole, it is still a pretty nice place to live and a good place to invest your money.

We will survive just fine. We may change, but our country has changed many times since its creation and we have done just fine.

I like it here.

[Tchocky]

Mm, doubt it. The US has, for better or worse, been the most powerful country for most of the last 50-60 years. That is changing as the world changes, and any change in the status of the US will be read by some as imminent doom.

In reponse to August I've noticed this more from Americans, but less seriously. It seems like a major theme for most political parties, "we must do X/elect X/vote X or else our American way of life will disappear", this kind of thing. Which sounds like THE END IS NIGH guys, how very surprised they must be to wake up in the morning.
What certain foreigners tend to do is look externally, Iraq/Afghanistan etc, and predict the End of America, which sort of misses the point as well as being laden with Schadenfreude

For what it's worth, the US has a strange, strange history, and it hasn't progressed or regressed to the same songbook as most countries. I figure it won't in the future, either.

[mookiemookie]

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. We will be rebembering the royals in November. I for 1 don't want too see a United Socalist Rebublic of America. Only you can prevent Socalism or you can say BBbaaaaaaaaa for the rest of your life.

You act like this is a recent turn of events.

[antikristuseke]

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.

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.

That seems to be a trend with doom callers, they somehow always end up being wrong.

[Skybird]

Originally Posted by August

I agree and i'd also postulate that because of today's world wide media these negative messages have a far wider ranging domestic influence than they did in previous times.

Perception can often become reality.

Or they just adequatel describe the reality.

So the question is if that essay is right, partially right and wrong, or allout wrong. To assume that the author tells a fiction he wants to see become a reality, is just that: an assumption, maybe even a malicous attempt to reject the message by miscriditing the messenger, but if just stated without providing any hints or even evidence for the author's motivationit, then at least it even is a completely unfounded assumption, as a matter of fact.

The statistics on unemployement, shift in welath structures, social structure etc etc are hardly all becasue of wishful thinling by ameroican analysts wishing the US bad.

I think you make it too easy for yourself.

[Platapus]

Originally Posted by antikristuseke

That seems to be a trend with doom callers, they somehow always end up being wrong.

And the one time they will be right, no one will care.

[Diopos]

I'll through another idea in the bag.

"America on its way down" vs "the rest of the world on its way up"

Maybe a perculiar argument in the face of the current economical crisis but if you step back and see what was the situation outside USA in the '50s, '60s, ' 70s etc you'll get it.


.

[Bubblehead1980]

Currently we are on our way down.We have a President and political party in power that is "post American" he/they does not believe in the constitution or will of the people but tat they are royalty and somehow above it all, that they know best.Things will get better though.I believe Americans learned a lot from the Bush Presidency as well as the election of Obama and giving Democrats(any part really) that much power.

America is at a crossroads for sure, but we will recover as we always do.We have had bad leaders before, long before we were born and survived it.I hate to quote FDR but "we will endure as we have endured" and things will get better.Then perhaps we will learn our lesson and rid ourselves of the disease known as Liberalism

[Platapus]

you must be a riot at parties.

[Skybird]

Some quotes to help getting this back on track. "Deletion of the social middle class", is one of the slogans.

The United States is experiencing the problem of long-term unemployment for the first time since World War II. The number of the long-term unemployed is already three times as high as it was during any crisis in the past, and it is still rising.

More than a year after the official end of the recession, the overall unemployment rate remains consistently above 9.5 percent. But this is just the official figure. When adjusted to include the people who have already given up looking for work or are barely surviving on the few hundred dollars they earn with a part-time job and are using up their savings, the real unemployment figure jumps to more than 17 percent.

In its current annual report, the US Department of Agriculture notes that "food insecurity" is on the rise, and that 50 million Americans couldn't afford to buy enough food to stay healthy at some point last year. One in eight American adults and one in four children now survive on government food stamps. These are unbelievable numbers for the world's richest nation.
Even more unsettling is the fact that America, which has always been characterized by its unshakable belief in the American Dream, and in the conviction that anyone, even those at the very bottom, can rise to the top, is beginning to lose its famous optimism. According to recent figures, a significant minority of US citizens now believe that their children will be worse off than they are.

Many Americans are beginning to realize that for them, the American Dream has been more of a nightmare of late. They face a bitter reality of fewer and fewer jobs, decades of stagnating wages and dramatic increases in inequality. Only in recent months, as the economy has grown but jobs have not returned, as profits have returned but poverty figures have risen by the week, the country seems to have recognized that it is struggling with a deep-seated, structural crisis that has been building for years. As the Washington Post writes, the financial crisis was merely the final turning -- for the worse.

The boom in stocks and real estate, the country's wild borrowing spree and its excessive consumer spending have long masked the fact that the overwhelming majority of Americans derived almost no benefit from 30 years of economic growth. In 1978, the average per capita income for men in the United States was $45,879 (about €35,570). The same figure for 2007, adjusted for inflation, was $45,113 (€35,051).

Where did all the money go? All the enormous market gains and corporate earnings, the profits from the boom in the financial markets and the 110-percent increase in the gross national product in the last 30 years? It went to those who had always had more than enough already.

While 90 percent of Americans have seen only modest gains in their incomes since 1973, incomes have almost tripled for people at the upper end of the scale. In 1979, one third of the profits the country produced went to the richest 1 percent of American society. Today it's almost 60 percent. In 1950, the average corporate CEO earned 30 times as much as an ordinary worker. Today it's 300 times as much. And today 1 percent of Americans own 37 percent of the total national wealth.

Income inequality in the United States is greater today than it has been since the 1920s, except that hardly anyone has minded until now.

In America, the free market is king, and people with low incomes are seen as having only themselves to blame. Those who make a lot of money are applauded -- and emulated. The only problem is that Americans have long overlooked the fact that the American Dream was becoming a reality for fewer and fewer people.

Statistically, less affluent Americans stand a 4-percent chance of becoming part of the upper middle class -- a number that is lower than in almost every other industrialized nation.

So far, politicians have failed to come up with solutions for the growing social crisis. Washington is still waiting for jobs that aren't coming. President Barack Obama and his administration seem to be pinning their hopes on the notion that Americans will eventually pull themselves up by their bootstraps -- preferably by doing the same thing they've always done: spending money. Domestic consumer spending is responsible for two-thirds of American economic output.

But even though Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke continues to pump money into the market, and even though the government deficit has now reached the dizzying level of $1.4 trillion, such efforts have remained unsuccessful.

"The lights are going out all over America," Nobel economics laureate Paul Krugman wrote last week, and described communities that couldn't even afford to maintain their streets anymore.

The problem is that many Americans can no longer spend money on consumer products, because they have no savings. In some cases, their houses have lost half of their value. They no longer qualify for low-interest loans. They are making less money than before or they're unemployed. This in turn reduces or eliminates their ability to pay taxes.
(...)
Many people threaten to suffocate under the burden of their debt. Some 61 percent of Americans have no financial reserves and are living from paycheck to paycheck. As little as a single hospital bill can spell potential financial ruin.

I personally think that any president would be relatively helpless in adressing these things for positive effect, even more so how closely he is tied into obligations to lobby groups. Poltiical decisions, that were creating influence in the outcome that now has been acchieved, were made and are being maintained since decades. A historic fixpoint maybe would be the thematic complex of Vietnam, gold reserves and Bretton Woods.