This is the way it used to be and really did make America great, but now our political structure is broken. Will it get fixed anytime soon? Very doubtful. There hasn't been a strong leader in the White House since Reagan. The odds of us getting a real solid candidate for president is slim because of all the politics behind an election and of course the money. You know a system is corrupt when BILLIONS of dollars are spent to get a person elected to a $300k a year job. Doesn't sound right 🙂

I doubt America will ever revolt against the government because we are generally lazy and for the most part have lost the spine to do it. The occupy movement, that's exactly what it is one big movement to show pathetic some people are. Only way to change leaderships minds is with money, and if they don't make it they will do whatever they can to do it. People don't like banks, creditcards, stores, etc... don't use them. Support your local mom & pop store instead, yeah you will pay extra but least you will know where your money goes. Just imagine if everyone stayed home for one weekend and didn't spend one cent online or anywhere. It would be a friggen crisis. People want to make a movement organize that and politicians will listen.

Freedoms, we started giving up that when running for office was for the power and money and not for the common good of the citizens. I am a hard ass by nature and I think that was my upbringing in that nothing should ever be given to you , YOU WORK FOR IT. Novel concept. 40% of the USA is on some type of assistance.... how are we ever going to get out of the hole if people are content on leeching off the system. I support 'Tough Love' legislation that will make every person that is able to work or do something. Actually do work for the free money they are getting. That is our problem we don't require anyone to work for the hand out, what does this teach our children? That if I don't have a job I can live with my parents or get a handout from the gov't.

There is lots of things wrong with the USA and people just need to elect someone that will fix it no matter how much suffering it will cause because in the end it will be for the betterment of the country. Hell if I had the money I would run for president, I don't look at this whole situation as a controversy, I look at it as common sense and making people do what they are expected to do. We are loosing that spirit an work ethic our grandparents had and tried to teach us.

Everyone talks a good game in front of the camera to make people believe in them and we actually elect them into office. We should also have the ability to remove them at will with a basic vote for any official in office, even judges. The people should always have the power, period.

So continue building the shelters and stocking food for the long fight to regain what that cartoon says we already have, but lost.

Signing off from my deep underground bunker in NH.

all of what you said, could be switzerland.

sometimes people look at me strange when i say switzerland and U.S.A are almost the same, but it's true, it's only sized down a 1000 times (in size, not in capital) 😉

Federal Constitution is copied from the US roundabout 200 years ago and the main difference is that we have instead of a president a committee of 7 and multiple parties, but even the two houses exist in switzerland.

and all have getting fat & lazy, the spirit is lost, what's left is only "patridiotism" (waving flags).

imo, we have to many parties, if i think about that, one party would be enough, we don't need them really, it didn't works better.

it doesn't matters red, green, brown, all just thinking of their own career and have little interest to change anything.

there are people that have thought, written, composed about that, but that hasn't changed much, exept that there are a few new parties.

there's a song of a swiss singer from the early 70's,

"i met a man and he was stuffing dynamite under the capitol,

i turned to him and said; don't do it, think about what we have benefit from,

i talked such that it would have made a horse patriotic.

but later when i was at home in bed i thought,

maybe he was right?

at least we should think about,

it's only there for limited time".

but due to the fact that he was a singer and made a lot of funny sounding lyrics,

i guess no one took him really serious.

unfortunately he lost his life very young in a car crash, he's a legend here.

but nonetheless...

in memoriam, Mani Matter

of proffession he was jurist.

So these people that are getting welfare payments or whatever, should be working for that money. Who decides what work they should do? The government? That would be a planned economy, not capitalism.

It would also essentially be forcing people to get a job, working for the state (increasing the size of government). But the payment they get has no relation to the value of the work they do (i.e. they don't get paid more, the harder they work). They just get paid what it takes to keep them alive. So it would also be slave labour

The problem with the economy is short-termism. People don't want to build a sustainable business because they'd rather have $1 today than $5 tomorrow. Instant messaging, music/tv on demand, and just general data overload doesn't help things

The problem with "America's Decline" is actually that capitalism has worked well, not just in America, but in other countries. It is in the process of lifting hundreds of millions of people out of poverty right now. The western world has already gone through that process, so we look to be declining simply because we are moving forward less quickly. All the low hanging fruit has been picked

Here in the UK, it has been 120 odd years since the zenith of our power and global influence, and we've had nearly 70 years since the end of WWII to get used to the fact that we're not #1 anymore. But we still enjoy a higher standard of living than 100 years ago, or 50 years ago or 30 years ago.

What made America great? It found a system that worked at the time

Unfortunately that is not something intrinsically bound up to America. It isn't about the specifics of the culture or the geography or the socio-economic & political system. It is the same thing that happened to Britain 250 years ago, and Japan 40 years ago, and China 20 years ago. A combination of the right people, the right circumstances, and the perfect timing and everything clicked

i guess moneys needed, but on the other hand are we still that archaic that we need this to force us to do a good job?

and besides of that, there are people who get payed very well and do a bad job, they arn't interested to do it better as long as $'s flow.

i don't think one does a better job when he get payed better that's a misapprehension.

i didn't think that this is the "drive" we need, to me it was never important how much i earn, but it was of interest for me if i can justify the work i do, if it's something good in my eyes.

so you see it's a matter of your setting, i set myself in a different way, not money is important but target.

i'm convinced i won't be a happier with more money, i was happy with my daughter, no money can replace that.

as long as i have a dry place to sleep and some food i'm satisfied, the quality of my work isn't much influenced by that.

getting monitored as a construction worker from security, influences the quality of my work much more, i simply loose interest.

interest in your job is quite more important, i'm further convinced that 70% of us work in the wrong position, they don't belong there, but they picked this career because of income, thinking it would make them happy or give them a better life, or to simply feel i'm better than you...

but things you can buy will never make you happy and you will need more and more and more, like a evil drug.

well, i guess some artists think different, guess of such like van gogh, never earned much at lifetime, but extremely productive. i guess he would have liked it to earn more, but it wasn't the force to do it. besides hm, i guess his galery owner has murdered him, because i'm convinced this guy knew that van gogh will sooner or later (sooner) die because of his uncontrolled temperament, so he just had to stash the pictures away and wait a little. thats the evil side of capitalism. i know at least that he (the galery owner) knew exactly that the pictures was more neither only good.

i didn't own much (which is not quite true, i'm a collector and keep things functional as long as possible), that stuff can't make me happy as a walk in the forest or a slap on the back from a friend.

i know that won't feed you, but that's already all.

"der mensch lebt nicht vom brot allein"

and finally tell me who's more important, the farmer or the banker? the builder or the owner?

and most important of all is the garbage man, without him we sink in junk tomorrow...

I definitely think your correct there.

I do note that as China is becoming "Richer" their workers are not wanting to work as hard.

You have plenty of takers for a job in a warm factory for £5 a month when the alternative is complete poverty in a mudpit. But when you have a reasonable house with family and kids that doesn't sound so good.

I did note that they've been moving manufacturing from China to Taiwan because the Chinese aren't willing to live and work in the factories the way they used to.

I think it got to the point in America and the UK where people just weren't prepared to work 70 hour weeks for little or no money.

As soon as they get a better standard of living in China manufacturing will come back to the UK and the US it will be a good thing as well and maybe we'll need to pay realistic prices for hard goods.

Might make us value them more and the craftmanship therein.