IS AMERICA'S DECLINE IRREVERSIBLE?

Last week I had a convo with a dude recently back from LA. He was a mid level officer in a now closed financial services company describing the havoc wrought on middle class America.
Apparently his boss was homeless after failing to make payments on his home and variously living out of his car,with friends and family. Of his 11 former work mates only 3 have been reemployed after almost 6 months at much reduced wages.
Tellingly,he and thousands of other Kenyans no longer see the US as the land of upward mobility,the place where if you put in the hours you were guaranteed to make it to the top. He's not alone:

http://karanjazplace.blogspot.com/2012/08/is-america-in-terminal-decline.html
Question:are the new middle class poor a temporary downturn on the economic cycle or a frightening new norm for America? What says WWBM?

 

No country stays on the downturn forever. Will it be as it was in 2007? No and I hope we never get back to that kind of wasteful live for today and pay for it tomorrow mentality. There will be emerging industries that will come from this country and people will make a livable wage it just won't be in the fields that thought of as "successful" before. Hopefully more young kids will wake up and stop wasting money on a humanities degree and learn something useful like truck driving or plumping. We're in the midst of a cultural and economic shift.

 

We recooperated from the big depression.
Economy is not a monotone animal, it has its ups and downs. we have had worse. Is the US glory days over as the number one economic machine over? Other countries are taking over, nothing weird about that, sort of natural. Some day, the US will have its turn again. Natural ebb and flow. The U S will have better opportunities than most countries regardless.

 

Exactly, so tired of doom and gloomers who act like the world is ending because you can't buy all the shit you don't need anymore. Not saying its easy but its not as bleak as most paint it.

 

Agree, just a new normal - which is affecting most of the western world anyhow ATM. Just normal behavior of economy, which is more complex today than ever before with the world shrinking. The U S is still doing pretty damn good in comparison. People forget that the recent hay days were a huge balloon artificially created and things now are simply trying to normalize from that. This instant gratification, entitlement need to stop and perhaps current economic status will let us to go back to what is real, and works.

 

Yeah. We are so much better off in the long run. Less kids aspiring to be fucking reality stars and lottery winners and people who are actually willing to work for things again. We need this. As much as people are suffering we simply couldn't continue with the way we were living. Out of this will come a more educated and aware country

 

Manufacturing and and an as yet unknown tech boom will boost this economy overnight. Until then it's going to feel like the mid to late 1970s for many of us, unemployed or underemployed.

It's not just the U.S., the global economy in general is in a downtown.

 

There's a slow upswing on the horizon though. But you are correct it very much like the 70s actually more like the 80s historically if you compare unemployment rates and poverty levels but we will come out of this.

 

Do to all of our unstable politics and self inflicted economic wounds, I think that the rest of the world has lost it's confidence in Americas economic leadership. Consequently, America's shift from being the alpha dog, to being just another member of the pack, will be rough on our economy.

 

I think the talk of US decline is premature and a bit exaggerated. Capitalist economics are cyclical, so these booms and busts are normal. The only thing that is probably permanent is the absence of unskilled labor jobs due to the abundance of supply created by bringing China, the rest of Asia, India and eventually Africa, online. Those jobs are never coming back. That being said, Asian cultures have a structural problem that will make long-term economic dominance unlikely: stifling conformism. Capitalist economies require perpetual dynamism, creativity and innovation. Asian cultures place such a huge premium on normative behavior that thinking about problems in a new way is rendered nearly impossible. Their entire boom has been predicated on cheap labor (with 1.4 billion Chinese), which gives them an enormous comparative advantage, and low-quality materials that consumers will opt for because the replacement cost is relatively low. The only Asian culture that has anything approaching the dynamism necessary for a sustained advantage is Japan I.M.H.O.

 

:smt038 atta girl.

 

Dont forget about structural problems. India doesnt even have decent roads. Whats gonna happen is American workers are gonna new skill sets which is bwtter for them and the country in the long run

 

Good Post Rep added

 

Don't forget that India has some environmental issues to deal with, hence why the country smells like Budlight poop.

 

America will bounce back but the days of the western world pontificating and lecturing others are over cus there is a paradigm shift now. 2 ofthe 3 biggest economies in the world is in Asia and there is more focus on the BRICS nations than the G7. The economy will bounce back and there will be prosperity in America and maybe America will go back to the Marshall plan and help Europe but the days of Western economic dominance are over. And for those of you hating on India stop hating. I have seen some shitty roads in America and America is a developed nation.

 

Whose hating. ITS A FACT THEIR INFRASTRUCTURE IS SHIT

 

China is not one of the worlds biggest economies. They are exporters for the most part, and their exports are rigged to the pegging of the dollar.

#1 America
#2 Japan
#3Germany
Those are the facts

Nobody is hating on India fact is they have nuclear weapons and they have not done the simple things, like say fix their damn streets.

The shiitest streets of detroit are a luxary compared to india.

 

Econtrader.com cnn money and richest.org all tell me China is the 2nd largest economy after USA with Japan 3rd and Germany 4th. So india having shitty infrastructure means they cant pursue their nuclear ambition? They are just getting rich and their priorities may a bit mixed up but overhauling the infrastructure of a large country like India will take a bit of time and i'm sure in 30 years time their infrastructure would have improved considerably. The United Arab Emirates 50 years ago had shitty roads and infrastructure but oil money has transformed its infrastructure. Question is what has India's infrastructure got to do with its growing financial might and America's economy.

 

What is Chinas GDP?? Thats right you smell that coffee brewing?? Thats called reality!! Fact is we got no reason to hate on India, they have nothing we want!!

 

Reality is China is projected to overtake the United States as the largest economy in the word by 2050. Reality is China has trillions of dollars in US treasury bills. Do you have any idea the grovelling US colleges undertake to lure brilliant Indian students into their fold. Do you know the number of Indian born employees who are on work visas working in high tech jobs, rocket science, laboratories doing scientific research, engineering and medicine ? Yeah right america doesnt need them. Being territorial wont change shit and thats REALITY now chew on that buddy.