We’re No. 11!

[sinkingfeeling]

http://www.newsweek.com/content/newsweek/2010/08/12/how-to-understand-american-decline.html

Like the summer heat, fear of America’s impending decline is weighing on Washington these days. Has the United States lost its oomph as a superpower? Even President Obama isn’t immune from the gloom. “Americans won’t settle for No. 2!” Obama shouted at one political rally in early August. How about No. 11? That’s where the U.S.A. ranks in NEWSWEEK’s list of the 100 best countries in the world, not even in the top 10. And as the worst recession since the ’30s festers on, along with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, no number of legislative triumphs—financial reform! health care!—seem capable of lifting the nation out of its doldrums.

On any number of indicators, according to the NEWSWEEK list, the United States is not the worldbeater it was a decade ago. “On economic fundamentals such as GDP growth, household consumption, industrial production, and trade, the U.S. was ahead on most metrics 10 years ago,” says James Manyika, director of the McKinsey Global Institute. Today, in contrast, America barely makes the top quartile, and it’s fallen to the bottom quartile in R&D.




Now let's elect some Teapublicans and see just how low we can go!

[Rosa Luxemburg]

1. Thanks to Phil Gramm and his Republican colleagues

[valerief]

2. Are these rankings for billionaires? Cuz I'd suspect if the rankings were for the

average American, we'd be somewhere closer to 30.

[MountainLaurel]

7. You're not kidding

I was having a discussion with colleagues about retirement and financial issues. It seems we all are or know intimately elderly who are struggling despite preparing for retirement, professional couples who are barely making it after a job loss, folks who can't afford college to get further at work but can't change jobs because they don't have a degree. And these are all supposedly middle-class people who have done everything they were supposed to do in order to make it in this country: got good grades, worked their asses off, and saved for retirement.

[Edweird]

3. Hey, that's like being #1 twice! Awesome!

[safeinOhio]

6. That's right Ed

we are way behind in education too. Thks for the laugh.

:silly:

[Greyhound]

4. You think the people here don't know that they're falling further and further behind,

while the 'winners' that 'our government' chose have suffered nothing but a minor bump in the road?

What has this administration done to change this systemic inequality?

[Smashcut]

8. Nothing. They've propped up the status quo with some minor refinements.

[Smashcut]

9. .

[Erose999]

5. Three cheers for mediocrity! Hip hip .... meh....

[Laelth]

10. Excellent essay. Recommended. n/t

-Laelth

[Hannah Bell]

11. newsweek = propaganda rag