Peak America – Is Our Time Up?

[Deja Q]

http://www.energybulletin.net/12271.html

Sorry if this is a dupl., but it should be re-said...

New Solutions #6 summarized a part of the United States’ story which is not in our history books. It’s the story of a nation that joined Britain and other European powers as an imperial power. We suggested that the U.S. Empire is no longer sustainable and that trying to continue it runs the risk of a nuclear war fought over control of the remaining oil and gas resources.

This newsletter looks at our culture and where it’s headed. Evidence suggests that consuming has become our psychological reason for existence as our values have become increasingly materialistic. Just as we threaten the stability of the world with our imperialistic tendencies, we also pose a threat to ourselves as our standards of care and community decline, and it becomes more difficult for average Americans to attain or sustain well-being.

How does this bode for our place in the world? Is the American Century over? When the impact of Peak Oil really hits, how will we deal with it? Will we cooperate with the rest of the world in sharing scarce resources, or will we rely on our status as the only Superpower to try to bully the world? And if the latter, would we survive?



As described in our previous reports, world statistics show increasing inequity in the world along with increasing social deterioration. Inequity in the U.S. is also increasing, and is at the highest point since the time just before the Great Depression. Figure 1 shows the distribution of income in the U.S. in the 20th century.1,2 Inequity was highest during the roaring 1920s and the Great Depression that followed. In the 1930s and ’40s, Franklin D. Roosevelt passed laws to make incomes more equal. But since the Reagan era of the 1980s, the trend has reversed. A further breakdown of the data shows that the share of income that goes to the top five percent increased from 16.6 percent in 1970 to 22.4 percent in 2000. Furthermore, in 2001, the amount of income going to the top 20 percent actually passed the 50 percent mark for the first time since the 1930s!2

In blunt terms, the poor are getting poorer and the rich are getting richer. In fact, except for the top 20 percent of our population, we are all getting poorer as more and more income shifts to the very top, and The American Dream becomes less and less attainable for more than 80 percent of our population.

Amazingly, the differences between the top fifth – the richest – and the bottom fifth – the poorest – is almost equal to what it was during the Great Depression, with no New Deal in sight! This discrepancy was made painfully apparent during the Hurricane Katrina disaster.....


The article has MUCH more... (Emphasis in the above paragraphs also added...) Talk about income redistribution... from the poor to the rich.

[izzie]

1. Well I can see I will spend hours on that site

It goes with one of my major studies in college. I really did get a kick about reading about all these bad things that are really top in the Red States. I wonder if it has to do with religious? The less religion seems to make a place more moral. Maybe it is the reason that does that.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. Ooooooh..... don't show this to Inshannity, or Olielly.... clip

>>What is shocking is to see the ratio when the U.S. is compared against all the other G7 members as a group. We have 3.8 times as many murders per capita! The ratio for rapes is 2.5, assaults 3.3, and inequity 1.5. In terms of prisoners, we have an incredibly high ratio of 8.1 to 1.

To round out the picture, we are the only G7 nation that does not provide health care as a right to its citizenry. Higher education is increasingly becoming too expensive for average families in the U.S. Protection of our environment is under continuous attack. And, while tax cuts make the rich even richer, Congress seeks cuts in domestic programs to pay for an oil war. If these are our priorities at home, there is little wonder that we are dimming as a “shining light” of freedom and democracy in the world.<<

[sasha031]

3. thanks for posting

will absord this later

[Vidar]

4. Yes, our preeminence is over. Thanks for posting.