We have become a third world country thanks to Reaganomics.

[rhett o rick]

During colonial days the powerful countries would take control of smaller countries, esp in Africa and South America and remove the resources, manufacture products and sell them back to the colony. Up to 30 years ago the US imported natural resources and exported products. After 30 years of Reaganomics, now we export our valuable resources and import goods. We have become a third world country. The basis of Reaganomics is to give tax breaks to the rich and they will in turn invest in manufacturing, providing jobs for Americans. Well they did invest in manufacturing, but in communist China. China is now our imperial landlord, our master. How ironic, 50 years ago the conservatives preached hate for the communists, and today they have partnered with them to steal our jobs and natural resources.

[Buzz Clik]

1. We're a third world country? Really?

[Skittles]

2. oh, we are certainly headed in that direction

[Buzz Clik]

5. Ok. I guess I'll start burning wood on the floor of my house and start eating rats for dinner.

Jeebus.

[Skittles]

14. you are completely missing the point

[Buzz Clik]

17. That's for sure.

We aren't a third world country, and our crashing into that status is a long way away. And I don't think that "Reagonimics" -- as stupid as it was -- will have anything to do with our future demise.

[Skittles]

27. I can see why you're missing the point

*done*

[Buzz Clik]

34. It's quite possible that the OP is completely wrong.

[rhett o rick]

74. Ah yes and the future is rosey? Have you noticed that wall street are back gambling just like

before the crash? While the middle class is withering away they are giving each other huge bonuses like there is no tomorrow. Maybe they know something you don't. The bubble is back fatter than ever. Either Pres Obama couldnt get wall street under control or choose not to, either way is a disaster. In my humble opinion, the next bubble burst will devastate the already weak middle class.

[Mudoria]

132. I think you could take the "possible" out of your statement...

[lib2DaBone]

49. You are kidding.. right? Please tell me you're kidding about Reaganomics?

[Buzz Clik]

86. We're going to blame every single problem now and in the future on Reaganomics? Bullshit.

[Justpat]

65. You need to catch up on recent history.

Reaganomics was the start of the dismantling of every safety net for the poor, care for the disabled, legal funds for poor people etc.
The Reagan mantra was that the business of America was business. And according to this mantra, anything that helped middle
class people crawl out of their financial difficulties was a program to be slashed from the budget under the guise of "balancing the budget."

If you can possible get a copy of it online, try to get Walter Karp's 1981 Harper's article titled" Making the World Safe for Plutocracy".

He takes the Reagan financial policy and shows, item by item, how the intent of the administration was to make it so that the poor and
middle class became one underclass forever relegated to their place in a society no longer affording them any political power.

[Buzz Clik]

87. He's been out of office for 20 years. Can we get over it now?

We have had three presidents since then. We are not a third world country, and won't be in the near future.

I'm sorry you hate Reagan so much that you are able to blame every economic ill on him. It's time for us to grow up.

[rhett o rick]

90. I so agree. Grow up and recognize that our economy has collapsed.

Reagan started it and it carries his name. Clinton didnt help us with his NAFTA. And Boy king georgie probably did most damage. But if you dont recognize that we are in a depression, you are either not paying attention or ignoring the situation in the hopes it will go away. Millions unemployed, millions of foreclosures, millions flooding local foodbanks, a million children homeless, tens of thousands dying because of no health care, the highest infant mortality rate of all modern countries, more people in prison that any other country even China. And these statistics are getting worse by the day. But Wall Street is booming, with billions in bonuses. Tell me we aren't in trouble. I dont hate Reagan, I hate the gullibles that allowed him and his friends to loot America.

[Buzz Clik]

92. NAFTA was a part of Reaganomics?

This is pure hysteria. Our economy has not collapsed. I will NOT take your assessment that we are in a depression because I have, indeed, been paying attention to people with the expertise to know.

Thanks for playing. You get the last word.

[rhett o rick]

97. Have a good evening. I mean it. I enjoyed the conversation. nt

[keep_it_real]

37. Wow . . . how advanced you are!

[Buzz Clik]

40. ?

[rhett o rick]

35. Would you have agreed if I said we were becoming a third world country? I doubt it. nt

[Buzz Clik]

39. Becoming would certainly be more accurate. Our economy is in a downward mode...

... some aspects of our standard of living is headed down. So, with a certain amount of extrapolation, I'd agree. But, as far as Reagonomics goes ... no, I don't think I'll agree on that.

[rhett o rick]

57. Please elaborate how Reaganomics didnt destroy our economy and the middle class? nt

[eridani]

118. Reaganomics was just the culmination of a campaign by corporations that began during the New Deal

They despised Social Security and all the other New Deal programs, and were constantly on the attack from the beginning. They didn't get a lot of traction until Buckley vs Valeo, which ruled that money was speech. From then on they had the means to buy government, and Reagan was the opening they needed.

[rhett o rick]

123. Very well said. We shouldn't give Reagan all the credit. nt

[grahamhgreen]

120. "Buzz Click" - what jobs do you currently have? PR and Blogging?

[grahamhgreen]

127. OOPS

[grahamhgreen]

119. Yes really. Go visit Clarksdale Mississippi and surrounds. REALLY.

[SIMPLYB1980]

3. Have you ever been to a third world contry?

We are not one by the way.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. Obviously not.

Nor have any of the other idiots spouting this nonsense.

[rhett o rick]

41. So do you think we can sustain our way of living? If so, how? nt

[SIMPLYB1980]

124. Depends on what you mean by "we".

I have always been responsible with the money I make which is why I can afford to take a weeks vacation outside the US every year. Maybe it's because I worked my own way through college. Or the fact that I have never owned a credit card. I have taken out bank loans when I have had to make big purchases, but I always pay them off as soon as possible. I think people like me will be just fine, but I do worry about those less fortunate than me which is why I don't mind paying higher taxes to help them out. Those greedier than me do disgust me, but geed is not going away the best we can do is regulate it better.

[keep_it_real]

53. In 3rd world contries people live in tin shacks in AMERICA people live on the street

[SIMPLYB1980]

58. You don't know shit about how people live in

3rd world countries. Yes America has a homeless and a jobless problem, but anyone that has been to a 3rd world country blesses themselves when they get back to the US.

[rhett o rick]

69. Yeah those people that can afford to go to a third world country, but what about most Americans.

Were you aware that millions are out of work and cant afford to travel there? Your sample stinks.

[SIMPLYB1980]

72. No I wasn't aware of that.

:eyes:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

112. Yes, and I'm sure they'd be lining up to get on the plane if they could afford it.

Your post is rubbish.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

115. don't be so sure

there is a lot of opportunity in the developing world for western educated english speakers.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

59. :Facepalm:

People live on the streets in nearly all first world countries. That doesn't mean they're third world countries.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

109. yes, many of them

and I have been to parts of the US that are shockingly similar,

[EFerrari]

121. That's pretty much what Bobby Kennedy said before his presidential run

and that was years before Rayguns.

[slackmaster]

4. You don't have a clue what life is like in a real third-world country

K&U

:kick:

[Bonobo]

6. Fine, we are a 2nd world country. You are ducking the point.

Maybe YOU don't know what it is like to live in a REAL 1st world country, pal.

[redqueen]

10. Wait... what?

I think he agrees with you.

[Bonobo]

11. That's not the way I read it. nt

[redqueen]

29. Yep, you're right.

Reading your other posts clarified the situation for me. Mea culpa.

[slackmaster]

44. Yes, we are a second world country

The only one, by some definitions.

[Zywiec]

46. How would you define a country like Poland? n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

60. What definitions?

The term is basically outdated anyway.

[rhett o rick]

43. I agree we are not as bad off as a lot of the world. However, if we continue losing manufacturing

to China and we continue to sell our natural resources overseas, and I dont see anything on the horizon to change these policies, we will be a colony of China and/or Saudi Arabia.

[keep_it_real]

55. To live in a 1st world contry means you're a 1st world CORPORATE SLAVE

America is a plantation of corporate slaves who without a J-O-B would die!

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

110. Yes, compensation for work is exactly the same thing as slavery.

Exactly!

[kenny blankenship]

7. Sssh... This is a Democratic site

Don't say bad things about Reaganomics!

[Justpat]

8. The plan all along

was to make the US safe for plutocracy. Ronald Regan was a stooge that the money brokers propped up in the WH so that
they could set about dismantling every financial regulation that stood in the way of the top 1% increasing their hold on
the financial engine of this country. Mission Accomplished.


We have all become serfs in the corporate kingdom.

[Deja Q]

18. Willing, since nobody is following Savior Moore and starting revolution...

:rofl:

I wonder what his next best-selling entity he'll come out with next... he doesn't mind capitalism...

[SemiCharmedQuark]

9. As you and I sit at our computers, presumably indoors, you say that we are a third world country?

I don't think you've ever been to a third world country. Mexico isn't a third world country and you will see people wearing tires shreds on their feet there and living in landfills.

[Bonobo]

12. Those are tools to pacify you while everything else slips away.

Wow, the internet! Whoopee! Who needs jobs, infrastructure and social justice?

[SemiCharmedQuark]

16. You think jobs, infrastructure and social justice in the U.S. are on par with third world countries?

It's hyperbole and about as useful as saying "Obama is Hitler".

[Bonobo]

19. Look at income distribution, rates of incarceration, infant mortality rates and THEN argue with me.

Your head is planted firmly in red, white and blue sand.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

23. OK: Infant Mortality Rates per 1000 live births: Angola: 180 U.S.: 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate

[SemiCharmedQuark]

24. Now: Is this sad that the United States is ranked 33? Yes. Does it mean we have to do something?

Absolutely.

But we are not a third world country.

[Bonobo]

26. Semantics games. nt

[Bonobo]

25. The term "3rd world country" is no longer used, but do you consider Cuba to be one? nt

[SemiCharmedQuark]

28. No.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Human_Development_Index

[Bonobo]

30. We lead in incarceration rates -also look at income inequality.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

For income inequality, look at where USA is and where Japan is to get an idea.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_income_equality

[SemiCharmedQuark]

31. Comparing us to Japan is grounds to say we need improvement.

You would have to compare us to a third world country to say we are like a third world country.

Yes, we lead on incarceration rates. No argument there.

[SemiCharmedQuark]

32. Example: Where 0 is absolute equality U.S. is 15. Bolivia 157.3

[rhett o rick]

48. Never said we were "on par". My point is that when a country gives away it's natural resources

and manufacturing jobs and becomes only a consumer, then we become very similar to a colony.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

63. The US has the highest manufacturing output of any country in the world.

To say that we're only a consumer is nonsense.

[Bonobo]

67. Can you support that statement with a link? Otherwise it is not true. nt

[rhett o rick]

80. Your leading US manufacturers are oil companies. And also many of the leading US manufacturers do

their manufacturing outside the US, like Hewlitt-Packard. Would you consider a hp computer made in India and shipped to the US as an export or import?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

95. It's an import.

It wouldn't be included in statistics regarding US manufacturing output.

[Deja Q]

15. We are NOT a third world country, but the labor class doesn't get paid a first world salary anymore.

Hasn't been for 30~40 years.

Then read articles saying how $11.75/hr is a great pay for a programming position because the author got that wage in 1979... but then don't look up the costs of products and services (or the minimum wage) in 1979 because such "authors" can't stand fair play or equal time to counter their pigheaded claims. (e.g. minimum wage was $2.90, bread was 60 cents per loaf, a car was $8000... compare them after being adjusted for time and inflation and we're slowly being robbed. Never mind the quality of products coming into this country; even HP prints are cheaply made S-H-I-T these days.)

Oink.

http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/21/news/economy/detroit_fixers_pasky/

[Bonobo]

20. They gave us cheap credit to wallpaper over that.

Also to indebt us.

Now it is all in the open.

The great experimental rip-off.

[Zywiec]

21. What a laugh

What other third world country would you compare us to?

:shrug:

[Bonobo]

22. We are actually in a new category. The old model of 3rd world country doesn't fit.

We are one of a kind. The USA can't be compared to anyone. We broke the mold.

[rhett o rick]

38. I agree. Seems I hit a nerve. LOL. Their argument is, "We are not". nt

[JVS]

52. Late-stage capitalism! Woohooo! We got there first!

[rhett o rick]

108. And what would you compare us too? Every single statistic regarding living conditions we are the

lowest of all modern countries. So explain how we are above third world.

[harkadog]

113. What statistics are these?

Real ones I mean, not your own set of "facts".

[rhett o rick]

117. do you live in a cave? nt

[harkadog]

130. No. I live in the U.S.

You should be able to provide a link showing we are "last of the modern" countries. You won't because you are making it up for the sake of a internet board.

[rhett o rick]

131. Very clever response. I should have asked if Faux is your only info source.

And we do have caves in the US.

Here is a link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_infant_mortality_rate What a crime.

Now GDP per capita we rank slightly above the bottom of the modern countries, but misleading because of the disproportionate wealth.

Speaking of disproportionate wealth: "The United States has one of the widest rich-poor gaps of any high-income nation today, and that gap continues to grow". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_of_living_in_the_United_States and these are old statics.

How about health care? No other modern nation allows their citizens to die for lack of health care.

How about home foreclosures and unemployment? Or personal debt?

We are the only modern country that enslaves our college graduates with huge debts.

[Obamanaut]

33. If this is true, then it is time to close the 700+ military sites in 39

countries, bring the troops home, stop the lease payments on those sites.

If it is true, it is also time to reevaluate the foreign aid give-a-way programs and concentrate on fixing what is broken here in the US.

[rhett o rick]

45. We need to repeal NAFTA, CAFTA and get the hell out of WTO. And reducing our defense budget. nt

[Confusious]

107. THATS something I can agree with!

close the 700+ military sites in 39 countries, bring the troops home, stop the lease payments on those sites.

[keep_it_real]

36. I smell a conspiracy here

[Echo In Light]

71. "The task is to covertly lower the standard of living...

... the whole social structure, of America so that we can be merged with all other nations." ~ Horace Rowan Gaither

Food for thought

[rhett o rick]

79. The conspiracy is to loot the middle class. Glad you caught on. nt

[Romulox]

42. Whether we are *yet* is a pointless argument. America is clearly on a downward trajectory.

When you build your country on nothing more than greed and things, the end of cheap credit feels like the end of the world.

[rhett o rick]

50. Agree. Third World is not the correct description because they usually are developing countries.

We are a rapidly deconstructing First World country.

[fascisthunter]

47. we are definitely getting there

[tama]

51. Compare Europe

Many EU members are becoming or are allready IMF clients, role formerly reserved only neocolonialized oops "developing" countries. Latin America didn't like the experience and especially the strings attached to IMF loans and kicked the IMF hell out and without blood to suck, IMF was about the to be buried.

So now the starving beast is starting to eat its own. O tempora o mores!

[taught_me_patience]

54. We have elements of a third world country

Like an extreme gap between working class and upper class, but we are not even close to a third world country.

[rhett o rick]

56. I was wrong to use Third World as it deflected from my point.

There are different definitions of Third World and using that term apparently pissed people off. My point is that the rest of the world is rapidly buying America. Companies, raw resources, even infrastructure are now owned by foreign countries. All we are good for now is as a consumer.

[Zywiec]

61. 13 Recs from other people who don't know what the term means n/t

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

62. So basically the problem, in your opinion, is that foreigners are allowed to have money.

Gotcha.

[Romulox]

64. Hey guys, check it out. It's time to witness some FIRST CLASS advocacy for American workers

This poster is known for that (as he will tell you himself!)

:popcorn:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

78. Yes, yes I have this absurd notion...

...that the American exceptionalism advocated by you and others is a pile of nonsense. People like you would happily keep the rest of the world in abject poverty to keep your flat screen TVs.

[rhett o rick]

83. How admirable. Use the wealth of the US middle class to raise the std of living of the poor of the

world. Too bad you dont listen to Thom Hartmann. He spoke to that today. He gave the statistics of how many millions of jobs moved from the US to Mexico do to NAFTA. He also mention that poverty in Mexico has grown. The money that the middle class is losing is not going to improve the standard of living, it is going to corporations and the wealthy. When HP moves their manufacturing to India, the workers dont get decent wages, the corporation makes bigger profits. But some how I think this is wasted on you. You appear to be a corporatist/capitalist.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

93. Poverty in Mexico has been decreasing for some time.

It has increased recently as a result of the recession, but not to anywhere near the levels of the 1980s.

[rhett o rick]

133. Please please include links. I cant find any evidence supporting you.

Lots of evidence counter. http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0114-04.htm

[Romulox]

89. I just think it's interesting that you won't own your ideology:

to whit: protecting the interests of the wealthy at the expense of American working people.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

96. I think it's interesting that you believe you understand my ideology.

And in fact I think little of this has to do with ideology at all. What I primarily oppose is artificially creating a doom & gloom scenario based on total lies instead of real facts and statistics, then using that as an argument for why we should kick all foreigners out of the country and confiscate the holdings of overseas companies in the US, which is basically what you have advocated here on many occasions.

[SIMPLYB1980]

98. It's protectionism at it's finest.

Populist anger full of rage and signifying nothing.

[Romulox]

99. I just go by your posts to this board.

I remember in our first few exchanges, you claimed to be a real "worker's rights" type. My observations of your posts subsequent to this exchange has given lie to that claim.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

101. Link or it's a complete fabrication!

:evilgrin:

[Romulox]

102. You fabricated a completely bogus quote. I'm just giving you a general characterization.

I have to say, it always pleases me when I disagree so vehemently with someone who later displays low integrity (such as fabricating a quotation wholesale.)

Do you know HamdenRice? :silly:

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

103. I didn't fabricate a quote. What are you talking about?

I responded in kind to your statement of my supposed "ideology" with my ideas about yours. I'll have to add Romulox Exceptionalism to your American Exceptionalism, since what I posted was exactly the same thing as what you were doing.

[Romulox]

100. PS: Link or it's a complete fabrication!

Nothing like a little bald face lying to buttress an otherwise pathetic argument, eh? :silly:

"sing that as an argument for why we should kick all foreigners out of the country and confiscate the holdings of overseas companies in the US, which is basically what you have advocated here on many occasions."

Betcha can't provide a link! Pathetic. :rofl:

[rhett o rick]

66. You dont seem interested in an honest dialog. nt

[Bonobo]

68. I agree. Stop feeding him/her. nt

[rhett o rick]

70. So noted. nt

[jotsy]

73. I'm not inclined to label things, I think what your asking is, as a country are we post peak or

have we hit a plateau. Too soon to tell, depends on how well we learn to stand again on our own as a chain of communities. To a certain extent, reboot so to speak, and hope we've learned the perils and pitfalls of yielding to a corporatocracy who will continue to program and exploit this public for as long as we permit it.

[rhett o rick]

75. I like your "reboot". But how do we get back ownership of our country? nt

[jotsy]

82. Check the sig line!

From there, check out organizations like community wealth.org or the commonwealth club. There are current working models of businesses and organizations strictly working to benefit the local citizenry.

I have had my own crazy notion that we could save the nation on a buck a week! A group the size of DU could generate serious funds for a mortgage raffle of sorts, pay one off every week. Now, if other progressive outlets did something similar, I imagine we could eat up a huge chunk of derivatives in anticipated interests. Not only do we get the satisfaction of feeding less profit to the hungry machine, families who benefit will be financially can be asked to 'pay it forward' as it were, I like to hope that most would oblige. But then I woke up.

[rhett o rick]

84. I like your style jotsy.

What I think will happen is that the government wont help at all. If anything they will cause more harm. But I do see a trend for more personal self reliance. This is what happened with the colonist vs. the British in this country. The British were killing the colonist with taxes and so the colonist began a self reliance program. It was forbidden and had to go underground. But locally coops are starting, more community gardens and neighbor helping neighbor. We will lose much of our standard of living and have to get used to living more conservatively. The capitalists will end up eating each other. Fighting over the small remaining middle class disposable income.

[jotsy]

85. Not with up and coming more viable consumer bases popping up around the ball.

In their eyes, we're yesterday's news. A stock on its way down in a manner of speaking. Self reliance and a familiarity with what that means in contemporary terms is a topic to be fluid in. As for quality of life, for me the best of it has always been courtesy of mother nature and not man made. Sunsets, the crash of the ocean and a tasty dinner. The rest is gravy, we just have to adjust our tastes.

and tyvm, I like yours too.

[LaPera]

76. Yes, the rich have gotten exceedingly richer via Reagan's republican policies while the poor & the

middle class have gotten terribly poorer, as we have been & still are footing all the rich & corporations bills, as well as the huge military bills, while the rich & their corporations keep sucking up our tax dollars with their war product's, government subsidies, tax loop-holes, exemptions, tax cuts, off shore banks hiding their money to avoid any taxes as they still get government contracts yet still outsourcing of jobs, deregulation, (no oversight to their stealing) And when finally they fail or connive for more government money - BAILOUTS - again, all from our tax dollars, our sweat & our pain and it has even gotten so much worse since republican Reagan to the republican Bush's 8 years as president.

This of course is republican ideology = corporate fascism...We are all just considered peasant workers, expendable if we question the mighty corporations and if we want a any kind of voice in our work place for better pay, conditions or benefits!

[Justpat]

77. .

:thumbsup:

[Generator]

81. Yep

You made me think about how Ireland had food and was forced to send it to England. Then they get to call it a "famine." Well the Irish call it the great hunger.

Food exports to England
Records show Irish lands exported food even during the worst years of the Famine. When Ireland had experienced a famine in 1782–83, ports were closed to keep Irish-grown food in Ireland to feed the Irish. Local food prices promptly dropped. Merchants lobbied against the export ban, but government in the 1780s overrode their protests. No such export ban happened in the 1840s.<64>

Cecil Woodham-Smith, an authority on the Irish Famine, wrote in The Great Hunger; Ireland 1845–1849 that no issue has provoked so much anger and embittered relations between England and Ireland as "the indisputable fact that huge quantities of food were exported from Ireland to England throughout the period when the people of Ireland were dying of starvation." Ireland remained a net exporter of food throughout most of the five-year famine.

Christine Kinealy, a University of Liverpool fellow and author of two texts on the famine, Irish Famine: This Great Calamity and A Death-Dealing Famine, writes that Irish exports of calves, livestock (except pigs), bacon and ham actually increased during the famine. The food was shipped under guard from the most famine-stricken parts of Ireland. However, the poor had no money to buy food and the government then did not ban exports.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)


Like Columbus, you don't hear in school about the rape and murder-just the great discovery. And all you ever heard about Ireland was the potato. Well maybe someday you will hear we were laxy worthless workers and that's why they shipped our jobs away.

[BOG PERSON]

88. This is the great American pastime

Pissing and moaning

[BOG PERSON]

91. Seriously this is about as stupid as calling unfulfilling office work "slavery"

[SIMPLYB1980]

94. No shit.

All of there Doom Doom Doom Gloom Gloom Gloom is tiresome.

[TheKentuckian]

104. Third world? No. Reaganomics a big reason we are circling the drain? Absolutely.

If you don't see the impact of emasculating the unions, expanding the wealth differential, massive deregulation, free trade, refusal to reinvest in infrastructure, crazy tax cuts, and drastically increased military spending haven't all been a part of this then I don't know what to say.

[rhett o rick]

105. I agree, third world is a little strong. And I agree with your post about the other reasons. nt

[Vidar]

106. K&R

[Kievan Rus]

111. It's a miracle Reagan didn't destroy the world

His super-aggressive stance with Russia could have easily led to nuclear war.

[tonysam]

114. Third World? No, but we are gradually going that route

Anybody who believes otherwise isn't paying attention.

[rhett o rick]

116. I dont think either Reagan or Russia wanted a nuclear war. Reagan was content on fleecing the

middle class of all their money.

[EFerrari]

122. And massacring people in Central America who got in his way.

He was Cheney with better hair and writers.

[BOG PERSON]

129. Cheney didn't need hair or writers.

He was the genuine article. :thumbsup:

[KillCapitalism]

125. If we're not 3rd world yet, then we must be damn close.

- Thousands die every year due to lack of health care.
- Some of the unemployed have not worked for YEARS despite trying desperately to find work.
- Thousands get a meal out of a dumpster daily.
- Millions sleep in places like under bridges or tent cities due to homelessness.
- The working poor who are lucky enough to be housed often live in substandard housing, and can go without electricity or gas at times due to not being able to pay the bills.
- Millions are illiterate due to falling through the cracks of the educational system.

I'm sure I could think of more, but these are NOT charachteristics of a 1st world nation for sure. If the numbers of the above grow larger, which they inevitably will, then we'll hit 3rd world status.

I just don't get how some on DU could deny that we could fall into third world status. I guess if you have your head in the sand & constantly think "Can't happen in America, USA #1!!!1!!!1" that it somehow won't happen.

[rhett o rick]

126. Most of the detractors only want to quibble about the term third world and not discuss conditions.

I am looking for statistics showing exports vs. imports.

[grahamhgreen]

128. Of course, even some third world countries HAVE SINGLE-PAYER HEALTH CARE!