Reply #62: In my estimation,

[billh58]

here is the paragraph in the Guardian article that sums up the reason for the economic collapse, and general decline in civility of the United States and its people:

But in the United States, for decades under the sway of the Reagan revolution's economic philosophy, which favoured corporate finance over manufacturing, the economy has seen a stark decline in manufacturing. Since the second world war, the financial sector in the United States has tripled in size as a percentage of the overall economy and of corporate profits. That increase accelerated during the eight years of the Bush administration, even as the US lost 5.5 million manufacturing jobs.

This neoconservative-inspired decline into pure greed, and the subversion of our Constitution by the criminals who sold our government to corporate fascists, can be laid directly at the feet of Grover Norquist, Lee Atwater, Newt Gingrich, William Kristol, Ronald Reagan, the Bush family, Karl Rove, Tom DeLay, Dennis Hastert, and many other "Republican" un-American traitors to the American people.