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There is something you can do about it. Educate people and change people's attitude in the country. The current attitude of America is 'enjoy life to the fullest'. There's nothing worng with that, if our world was utopia. But since it is not, that means while we are still in the race for the top, even when we are at the top.
while we are still in the race for the top, even when we are at the top.
In manufacturing we are a long way down from the top and will probably never get much higher. Our manufacturers deserve this in a way since it was mostly their desire to produce things more cheaply overseas that led to those countries learning how to beat us.
Education will help us to understand what is happening to us and it may even help us to claw our way back a little but it won't save us.
Back to the Olympic torch, the subject of this thread.
Surely it will never travel again outside the country designated for the games? It is an appropriate symbol to attack, and too good an opportunity to miss. This time it has made us much more aware of Chinese Atrocities in Tibet, Africa and at home, and less happy about that country becoming an emblem of sweetness and light for the Olympics. For that we are grateful.
Propaganda has always been important for dictatorships, particularly communist ones. I am sorry for athletes who have worked up to a lifetime peak for these games, but we should not have allowed the IOC to take us To China.
Sending hundreds of AK 47s and land mines to Africa to help Mugabe remain in power was just too much. America should be educated enough to see that.
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RE: It's about getting attention, not the Olympics
Yes. You are right that our economy is in a dangerous situation fuelled by debt.
I think that our concern about human rights is sold overseas on the basis that we are a caring nation that hates to see the peoples of other lands treated badly. I could not reconcile this with the harsh beliefs of some of out nerds who were discussing this issue on this site until one of them revealed his motivation. Then it all made sense because self interest is always a strong runner.
However, I think that hope is forlorn. The Chinese are not only harder working and willing to put up with more hardship, they are also smarter (look at who wins the prizes in science and engineering at college) and more willing to save before buying, than we are. So they will continue to trump us in manufacturing even when they are a liberal democratic society.
I am not an economist either but I tried to get a discussion on this under another thread I showed there the basic theory that savings is one of three ratios in a zero sum equation governing the economy. We can tolerate a poor savings ratio if our trade and tax/govt. spending ratios are in good shape. Unfortunately now they are not, and the zero sum means that the economy must deteriorate at an accelerating pace. Perhaps the new administration will be able to do something about this but, since there has been no discussion of possible solutions in the campaigns, that seems a remote possibility.
It must be acknowledged here that much US debt is owned by China and therefore that country will be badly affected by a collapse of the USA economy if they can't shed it before we go down. When they start panic selling their US investments the slippery slide will really start for us.
Many of us suspected that the golden age of the USA was probably only going to be the second half of the 20th century, and that the age of China would follow. I think that the USA has the resources to remain a rich nation in the longer run but the collapse of the economy will cause the wealth to change hands. It won't only be the people who are in debt who get wiped out but also those whose savings and investments are destroyed by the stock market crash and the falling dollar.
There is really nothing that we can do to protect ourselves. This crisis needs talented national leadership - who you gonna call?
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