America used to be a great country.

[bandit]

America has been falling farther and farther from being Capitolist ever since the Roosevelt administration and the New Deal. It is only the Socialist nature of the rest of the industrialized world that has allowed us to stay at the top.

If the Soviet Union had undergone a capitolist revolution instead of a socialist economic implosion, they would have emerged ahead of the US as a world power. Similar comments could be made about Europe and China. Certainly if Africa was to pull off some version of a capitolist EU, the US would be but another voice in the crowd instead of standing on the podium.

[Magul]

china is rapidly increasing economically and projections are they will overtake the US within the next 30 years max.

i agree with magin, the greatest achievement for the US in the last half century is a cultural one, having exported their music,films and lifestyle to the rest of the world.

china will take a long long time if ever to manage to pull that, but economically they will dwarf the US in the very near future.

that said, several of you are foolish or just narrowminded if you think the US will remain the SUPER POWER (kick started by 200 years of slaverly) it has been since the beginning of 20th century, at has been at the top merely 60 years pretty much after World War 2, 60years in terms of the human race and civilisations that have come and gone is a mere drop in the oceans.

there have been many empires in the past egyptian, roman, greek , persian,etc just to name a few, who dominated during their peaks for 100s of years being so advanced during their reign, it would have seemed sheer madness to think it could ever end and come down, but they did. it will be no different for the US, its just a matter of time but i can assure you the world is changing quicker then it did back then when those aformationed empires excisted and the the reshuffle is pretty much around the corner.

[bandit]

(kick started by 200 years of slaverly)

Do try an contain your bias against, and vitriol for, the US.

Tis better to be silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt. -- Abraham Lincoln (1809 - 1865)

[RAKIdaRHINO]

problem isnt really socialism, its corruption and "immoral"(unsocialistic) behaviour..

[Naughty Slave Girls]

America has slid away. It gives rise to Obamanates. We are screwed. Best start over.

[bandit]

Carter led to Raegan. I wouldnt worry too much. He will either settle down and be a quite, if somewhat ineffective president, or he will go radical and cause another voter revolution (see 1994).

[SnuggleySoft]

I am an American, and this whole "handouts" thing is absurd. Do you realize if it weren't for Social Security 80% of the elderly would live in poverty? Do you understand the harsh reality of being a single mother on welfare? Do you realize these "handouts" for the poor are hardly enough to live on, and lets not forget the massive handouts given to the rich. Government has a role in democracies. For a democracy to work it needs healthy educated citizens. And although public schools need work, they help millions of Americans, (public schools are socialist. Just like the post office.)

And about communism:

Marx and Lenin's brilliance wasn't in the solutions, it was their keen intuitiveness about the ills of capitalism, and its affect on society. It is inefficient, and the dictatorship of the proletariat isn't meant to be an actual dictatorship by many people's understanding of the writings. I'm not a communist but if you look at large communist countries, they actually become superpowers faster than capitalist countries. Russia and Brazil, at the time of the bolshevik revolution, were alike in resources an population. One was capitalist and the other communist. Which became a superpower in a few decades?

Communism allows for fast growth in smaller, (economically), countries because it builds infrastructure, and military due to the large government. After the infrastructure is built, capitalism can then use the infrastructure to grow the economy. Economy is complicated to the point where even economists don't understand. But Keyensian economics led to the largest growth in American history. Its fall was inflation. Then we used Neo-Classical economics to cure the inflation, (which worked a little...). However, that has caused the rich to get all the growth, (trickle down is a fallacy, when you give tax breaks to the top it does exactly what you expect... rich get richer and poor get poorer because the rich just save and invest their extra money.) No ideology works all the time. I personally think fluctuation is key. Growth then equalization then growth ad infinitum.

(Btw... Fun fact for you McCain fanatics who call Obama a Marxist...

Top marginal tax rates for US Presidents:

Eisenhower- 91%
Kennedy- 70%
Nixon- 70%
Reagan- 58%
H.W. Bush- 28% (Note: Recession starts)
Clinton- 39.5%
W. Bush- 36.5% (Note: Recession starts)
Obama- (wants) 39.5%

Of course this takes an understanding of what "marginal" tax rates mean for anyone to find a high marginal tax rate to be unfair.

[Nimph]

Can you link to where you found your statistics from?

[SnuggleySoft]

http://www.truthandpolitics.org/top-rates.php

http://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxfa....cfm?Docid=213

Note: I goofed on some by small amounts. I had done the research like a month ago.