Why the World Needs America

[headhonchoII]

The whole blame it on the 'Western greed' thing is very outdated. Look at China, they setup their whole system to generate huge profits for the connected and the priviledged, although they have achieved spectactular success in raising overall living standards. It's even worse in India.
It's not Westerners that cause the problems of low pay and inequality, these would exist with or without the West. It's up to individuals of all countries and governments of all countries to make a stand for themselves instead of blaming outside forces. Western countries act as a model that developing countries can choose to follow or not, unfortunately for many most choose the most capitalistic parts and forget the social aspect.

[SillyWilly]

World famous billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, recently called New York City "Third World."

Here's his exact quote:
"Everything works in Singapore; it's wonderful to be here. It's not a third-world country like New York City or some of the third-world countries and cities I've been to."

Link: http://jimrogers1.blogspot.com/2012/05/ ... rs+Blog%29

I thought it was interesting for Rogers, an American citizen, to call one of the greatest cities in the world and surely the greatest city in the USA, third world.

[headhonchoII]

Well he is an idiot in some ways, he is always doing this.

[GuyInTaiwan]

Many cities in the West are dysfunctional. Their public services and institutions are a complete shambles (though often the actual infrastructure is over one hundred years old, so obviously that's going to be a problem). Singapore probably wouldn't quite be to my liking, but I could understand why people would prefer it to many cities in the West. That said, I still think that there are some cities in the West that are better than any in Asia.

[Kea]

This is what we do not need from America:

"They do not know we can see them"...coming in a new law to the US soon [HR658?].
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pl ... YTvq4l72dM
That's on top of NDAA, the internet laws, and a new law [a week and a half ago Obama signed into law HR 347] that suppresses political protest and activity which disrupts the orderly conduct of official functions. That's why I have been keen, against the odds, for RP to win, I do not want to see America heading this way, and copied by other governments. Looks like he's been prevented from winning. So much for freedom and the constitution, huh, Amercians?

If you answer me, please use facts and rational discussion, selective quoting and shallow one-liners not wanted.

EDIT: Another vid, featuring the Judge.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qg1TAAqrqMo

[fred smith]

Funny that he should mention New York. The obvious example is Detroit where the depopulation occuring is something like that in Rome following the fall of the Empire or Constantinople after the Latin Fourth Crusader Sack. What is going on in Detroit is an obvious example of how socialist, group think, grievance purveyors destroyed what was the fastest growing city IN THE WORLD from 1910 to 1940. Yet, within two decades it dropped precipitiously and then the past two decades have seen it drop into a death spiral. Urban farms? Seriously? How in the name of God did things become so bad so quickly and all sitting back and nodding approvingly? Remember Tang Dynasty China and its Buddhist monasteries becoming an ever greater weight on those who produced? Remember Communism and Socialism and Third Worldism and PanArabism and their failure EVERY SINGLE place that they were tried. Now, fastforward to America with its endless NGOs and think tanks and lobbyists and interest groups....

[MikeN]

Funny that he should mention New York. The obvious example is Detroit where the depopulation occuring is something like that in Rome following the fall of the Empire or Constantinople after the Latin Fourth Crusader Sack. What is going on in Detroit is an obvious example of how socialist, group think, grievance purveyors destroyed what was the fastest growing city IN THE WORLD from 1910 to 1940. Yet, within two decades it dropped precipitiously and then the past two decades have seen it drop into a death spiral.

Absolutely- socialism destroyed Detroit.

I remember clearly that black day when Jimmy Carter nationalised the Big Three and forced them to become the United States Government Automobile Company. If we'd left GM, Ford and Chrysler under private management how quickly and successfully they would have responded to the gas crises and the changing environment of the '70s and beyond - the folks that brought you the Chevy Vega would have continued to dominate the world industry, instead of going down before the onslaught of the Randian free-enterprisers of Japan and Europe.



It's all the gummint's fault, I tell ya.

[stevef]

Yes, the world needs the USA, they brought us...
- genocide of the North American indians
- slavery and the slave trade
- senseless wars of aggression against Vietnam, Iraq, the list goes on...
- the tobacco industry and the millions it kills
- the NRA and the gun nuts
- nuclear power
- nuclear weapons
- crank fundamentalist religions
- support for murderous dictators like Suharto, Pinochet, Kabila
(the list is too long, see http://tinfoilpalace.eamped.com/2011/01 ... by-the-us/ )
- Recording every email or phone call you make
- Torture in the 21st century

Yep, the world sure needs the USA! USA #1!
America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a good margin.
Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese. 
The United States leads the world in credit card fraud.
The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a good margin.
The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by far.
There are more school shootings in America than anywhere else in the world.
The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the world.
The United States produces more pornography than any other nation in the world.
More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.
The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire globe.
Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.
The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.
The United States has the most total reported crimes in the world by far.
The United States has the most complicated tax system on the entire planet.
The United States has the most laws on the entire planet.
The United States spends more on the military than the next 12 nations combined.
The United States has the most foreign military bases in the world by far.
The United States exports more arms to other countries than anyone else in the world.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... e-world-at

[Dog's_Breakfast]

World famous billionaire investor, Jim Rogers, recently called New York City "Third World."

Here's his exact quote:
"Everything works in Singapore; it's wonderful to be here. It's not a third-world country like New York City or some of the third-world countries and cities I've been to."

Link: http://jimrogers1.blogspot.com/2012/05/ ... rs+Blog%29

I thought it was interesting for Rogers, an American citizen, to call one of the greatest cities in the world and surely the greatest city in the USA, third world.

I grew up in New York City, and I thought it was pretty third world. I understand that crime has dropped since I left, but I witnessed a number of muggings and burglaries (some in broad daylight), drug addicts, hookers (often addicts) soliciting, beggars. There were neighborhoods you just didn't go in if you had a white face. The industrial area just across the Hudson River in New Jersey looked like some Dickensonian nightmare, but it's probably dismantled by now and moved to China. My brother returned to our old neighborhood a few years ago and photographed it - looks much worse now than I remember it. Bars on the windows, graffiti, boarded-up businesses where we used to have a supermarket and movie theater. Much more "ethnically diverse" now with immigrants from the third world.

But I know that New York supposedly benefited from the excesses of Wall Street, and then the subsequent bailouts when that collapsed. All Ponzi schemes have a tendency to end abruptly - lets see how long the Wall Street bankster economy can limp along dependent on ever-increasing bailouts. Meanwhile, out in the heartland is the visible third world - the industrial "rust belt" cities like Detroit and Gary (Indiana). Abandoned houses, foreclosure notices, boarded up shopping centers, people living in cars, cracked pavement, bankrupt local and state governments.

America's prosperity (what there is of it) will last as long as the rest of the world thinks that it needs freshly printed US dollars. The moment they decide they can do with another currency, the US financial "industry" will experience an abrupt decline. There will still be a commodity export industry - after all, America has lumber and coal to sell to Asia, the latter being where all the real industry has gone.

And the USA still has weapons second to none, so it's not a "banana republic." More like a "banana superpower."

[GuyInTaiwan]

Yes, the world needs the USA, they brought us...
- genocide of the North American indians

Started by the Spanish.

- slavery and the slave trade

Around since antiquity, still around today, and participated in at the time by other Africans. Of course, when the trans-Atlantic slave trade began, the U.S. wasn't even a country.

- senseless wars of aggression against Vietnam, Iraq, the list goes on...

Also not unique to the U.S.

- the tobacco industry and the millions it kills

Wouldn't it be the U.K. that brought the world the tobacco industry? I thought Walter Raleigh kicked it all off.

- the NRA and the gun nuts

These "gun nuts" also predate the U.S.

- nuclear power

I'm not sure where the first nuclear power reactor was built. However, following your argument for a second, how should countries, such as France, that derive the majority of their electrical power from nuclear sources, go about getting that power? Should France, for instance, go back to coal? Viable alternatives may exist, but you haven't given any evidence that they do.

- nuclear weapons

Nukes stopped Imperial Japan and their aggression. The alternative would have been much worse.

- crank fundamentalist religions

I wasn't aware that Mecca was in the U.S. In fact, I wasn't even aware that the U.S. was around in the seventh century.

- support for murderous dictators like Suharto, Pinochet, Kabila

Again, this has probably been around since antiquity. The U.S. hardly introduced this concept to the world.

(the list is too long, see http://tinfoilpalace.eamped.com/2011/01 ... by-the-us/ )
- Recording every email or phone call you make

They certainly weren't the first country to do this.

- Torture in the 21st century

As opposed to countries that simply continued it on from the 20th century.

Yep, the world sure needs the USA! USA #1!
America has the highest incarceration rate and the largest total prison population in the entire world by a good margin.

I agree that this is definitely an issue, though probably not as much as the conditions under which people are kept in other countries, the lack of due process elsewhere, etc. If people have committed a crime and go to jail for it, then that just shows that the system works in that sense.

Of all the major industrialized nations, America is the most obese.

Indeed, but this is probably more a function of America being one of the first countries to reach a certain level of prosperity. Obesity is sky-rocketting in most parts of the world now, and by mid-century there may be several countries giving the U.S. a good run for its money.

The United States leads the world in credit card fraud.

Obviously. It has the world's largest GDP and probably has the largest number of credit cards. If a person wanted to commit credit card fraud, they'd hardly seek out Vanuatu as a potential market.

The United States has the highest divorce rate in the world by a good margin.

Are you sure about the second part of that statement?

The United States has the highest teen pregnancy rate in the world by far.

Again, the second part. Also, regarding the first part, a lot of it probably goes unreported in many other countries.

There are more school shootings in America than anywhere else in the world.

Definitely a problem.

The United States has the highest child abuse death rate in the world.

I don't believe this for a second. Probably every country in Africa has a higher rate.

The United States produces more pornography than any other nation in the world.

So what? I'd be much more concerned with child pornography, sex-trafficking and so on.

More people have been diagnosed with mental disorders in America than anywhere else on earth.

That could mean that either 1) other countries don't have as developed/prevalent psychiatric systems and/or 2) there is a lot of over diagnosis.

The United States has the highest rate of illegal drug use on the entire globe.

Again, if you're talking about per capita use, I'd be surprised if that were true. If you're talking about absolute numbers, then I'd say that is a function of the population size coupled with the size of the general economy (because again, if a person wanted to sell drugs somewhere, they wouldn't do so in Vanuatu).

Nobody in the world gets more plastic surgery done than Americans do.

I've actually heard that it's Koreans.

The United States leads the world in eating disorder deaths.

I have no idea about this one.

The United States has the most total reported crimes in the world by far.

Maybe people don't report them elsewhere for a number of reasons such as shame, fear of reprisals, having no faith in their criminal justice system, etc.

The United States has the most complicated tax system on the entire planet.

Maybe they do, but how does anyone even define this?

The United States has the most laws on the entire planet.

Maybe they do, maybe they don't. It doesn't necessarily mean anything by itself.

The United States spends more on the military than the next 12 nations combined.

That's precisely why many other countries don't have to spend any money on their military. If Western Europe had to actually pull its own weight in this regard, it wouldn't be able to afford its welfare state (well, it can't afford its welfare state anyway). People love bringing this one up, but if the U.S. hadn't spent the lion's share of this in the past, then most of Europe would probably be speaking either German or Russian by now.

The United States has the most foreign military bases in the world by far.

Again, this is a function of the previous point.

The United States exports more arms to other countries than anyone else in the world.

http://endoftheamericandream.com/archiv ... e-world-at

Though, of course, it's not alone in doing so.

These lists are a whole lot of points taken in complete isolation, and often, they're either 1) not actually backed up with any statistics (or they're linked to crappy pieces of shoddy journalism written online), or 2) wildly open to interpretation as to their positive or negative consequences. Furthermore, these lists conveniently leave out the many good things America has done. Yes, America has all sorts of issues, and there are lots of things it has done wrong, and continues to do wrong. However, as much as everyone likes to talk about the U.S. being so bad, what's the alternative? Fascism in the 1930s and 1940s? The Soviet Union through to the 1990s? How about today though? So let's say America suddenly ceased to exist. Who would replace them (because someone would)? China? Russia? An Islamic caliphate? All three? Yeah, they're all wonderful alternatives with a love of mankind, a great human rights record, etc. Get real.