Third World America

[Bloo Loo]

$75000 to be a truck driver for a delivery service.

Add in the costs for the healthcare, the truck and the infrastructure, and I find it hard to see a profit in there for the Company.

Course, with unlimited and subsidised debt for many American Conglomerates....and we all know the Deficit is out of control...I cant see a long and happy future for our US truck driving friends.

[Realistbear]

This is an excellent post and people would do well to heed its content, which I happen largely to agree with. WHat staggers me is how fast the US is changing. Back in the 80s I knew a few people - you know the types - who were obsessed with living in America, and back in the 80s it seemed like a smart thing to do because the advantages were clear. I know someone who moved out to CA in 1996, another person who moved to NC in 2001 and another person who moved to WA in 2005. All of them were pretty star-struck by life in the USA.

Today, they are less sure, apart from the one who went to CA and "happened" to marry a millionaire only child with an elderly father and obviously is doing all right. The others are windering why they are paying $16,000 in healthcare and $16,000 a year in property taxes on a three bedroom house. I make the point a lot - the USA is changing fast. It is not the country that existed even 15 years ago. The illegal immigration from the south is unbelievable to islanders like Brits or Aussies, who couldn't imagine 12 million illegals. By 2040 a third of the US will be Spanish-speaking, and the white population will be an ethnic minority.

America is not the country we all grew up reading about. It is changing fast, and not necessarily for the better. And I am not revelling in this because the US is the only chance democracy has to stand up to a rising totalitarian China with little regard for human rights. What a world we live in.

You are probably among a minority who does not revel in these changes. What you say is accurate in that the world is clearly under a totalitarian threat and has been so in recent times ever since Germany decided to solve its economic problems by invading its neighbours. The Moslem world remains the same as it was when they started their religion in the 7th Century. The invasion of the Iberian Pennisula and Turkey toward Greece was just part of the process toward Mosleminisation of the world. The ethnic forbearers of our modern day Islamists had begun this continental drift in the 4th Century BC when Persia attempted, but failed, to take Europa due to an embarassing incident at Thermopolaea. PAX ROMANA kept it in check for the next 400 years and the "Holy" Roman Empire kept the borders secure until the last century when the "invaders" became the "migrants" and asylum seekers.

History demonstrates that the universal struggle for ethnic domination continues.

The US was founded by mostly Brits who wanted to establish a free society and make lots of money exporting cotton through the use of cheap labour. The dream of a free and uncorrupt society never matefrialised as it was spolied by flawed humans who have caused problems everywhere else they have ever lived.

Today the battle between East and West rages on. It just so happens that the East is dominated by an ideology wrapped around the Totalitarian ( including mostly Moslem) banner and the West still places its trust in what never existed but for a few short years in Greece: Democracy--or faith in the individual to do the right thing.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Realistbear

[stuckmojo]

By 2040 a third of the US will be Spanish-speaking, and the white population will be an ethnic minority.

Which is just as well, considering Americans weren't white to begin with.

[Realistbear]

I am beginning to wonder how "3rd World" we are becoming:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1319446/Britain-branded-jobless-capital-Europe.html

[Realistbear]

Which is just as well, considering Americans weren't white to begin with.

Travelling through Arizona a few years back and stayed at a motel where the manager was a Navajo working his way through Uni. We got into an interesting conversation. He was of the view that it is a myth that the original inhabitants of North America were "Indians." His studies demonstrated that what is now know as the US was invaded around 1500-1200BC by Middle Eastern Asians who had spread out along the trade routes that eventually took them accross the Alutians down into North America. Their true homeland was, in effect, Mesopotamia.

[Bloo Loo]

whoops...UPS and the new FASB regulations coming december...and pensions.

Overall McMahon said the pressing issue for the lame duck is the union pension bailout with new Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB) rules currently set to take effect December 15. These new rules would force companies to account for the cost of penalties to extract themselves from these union pension plans against their bottom line. (Full report from HUMAN EVENTS here.)

"The pension bailouts are something they need desperately and they need quickly because as everyone involved with the forthcoming new FASB rule acknowledges, you cannot stop the accounting board from a new transparency requirement," McMahon said. "It's going to hurt."

One of the largest of these multiemployer funds, Central States Funds, is in such bad shape that UPS paid a $6.1 billion penalty to extricate itself from employee participation in the fund. It is that type of penalty that would now be on the books, and it could be more than the company's overall value.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=39336

This in a report that 401Ks (not sure what they are exactly, but they seem to be private pensions of some sort) are being considered for seizure A LA Argentina.

[Mrs Bear]

Well...

According to the US Bureau of Labor Statistics, at the beginning of September there were 14.8 million unemployed and the number of individuals working part time who preferred full-time work was 8.9 million. Also there were about 2.5 million persons who were "marginally attached to the labor force in September, up from 2.2 million a year earlier. These individuals were not in the labor force, wanted and were available for work, and had looked for a job sometime in the prior 12 months. They were not counted as unemployed because they had not searched for work in the 4 weeks preceding the survey.

So the US needs to find another 17 million jobs and more work for another 8.9 million unwilling part-time workers.

Good luck with that.

Last Dec. I visited my sister who lives in Cambridge (Mass.). It's a relatively affluent area - her house is about a mile from Harvard.

Since she'd just had a major op I was picked up from the airport by friends of hers. Almost the first thing they said to me was, 'What's it like in England? It's terrible here...' This carried on for almost the entire journey of around 45 minutes.

I've visited her often over 25-ish years and have met many of her friends but this was the first time I'd ever heard people talking like this.

[mel in w9]

As an American now living in the UK (my husband is British, I got my own British passport in 2007), I can say with some experience that while it is cheaper in many respects in the USA, the OVERALL standard of living is MUCH better here.

We moved here from Seattle (so I have experience with WA State). Its an amazing part of the country. Its beautiful. But the US is in some serious s**t!

I mean we moved back to the UK by choice (financially we were probably better off in America). But we didn't want to raise our son in that environment. Its not just the economy (although that is a big factor). Its the social problems, the media, the fact that religion plays such a key role in politics (not far off from many Muslim nations).

I think America lost its way a few decades back. I recall the first time I was in Europe (I studied in France for a semester in high school back in the mid 80's), and as an American you were placed on a pedestal. Now most Europeans seem to almost feel sorry for Americans. They certainly don't have much respect for them any longer.

Has anyone here read the book, The Spirit Level, (why more equal societies almost always do better). Basically the US is the MOST unequal nation in the developed world. The middle class is shrinking at a staggering rate. I think the get rich at any cost ideology is toxic. Let's face it, once you decimate your middle class, you become a Third World nation...

[lets get it right]

Travelling through Arizona a few years back and stayed at a motel where the manager was a Navajo working his way through Uni. We got into an interesting conversation. He was of the view that it is a myth that the original inhabitants of North America were "Indians." His studies demonstrated that what is now know as the US was invaded around 1500-1200BC by Middle Eastern Asians who had spread out along the trade routes that eventually took them accross the Alutians down into North America. Their true homeland was, in effect, Mesopotamia.

So, people from the area now known as Iraq settled what is now known as the USA 2500 years ago, and the people of the USA have recently been back to their homeland and bombed the sh!te out of it.

Those Yanks eh! We took the place over a few hundred years ago and they ended up fighting us too. Seems, sooner or later, they'll fight anyone who had a hand in settling there. The Irish should be very worried.

[lets get it right]

As an American now living in the UK (my husband is British, I got my own British passport in 2007), I can say with some experience that while it is cheaper in many respects in the USA, the OVERALL standard of living is MUCH better here.

We moved here from Seattle (so I have experience with WA State). Its an amazing part of the country. Its beautiful. But the US is in some serious s**t!

I mean we moved back to the UK by choice (financially we were probably better off in America). But we didn't want to raise our son in that environment. Its not just the economy (although that is a big factor). Its the social problems, the media, the fact that religion plays such a key role in politics (not far off from many Muslim nations).

I think America lost its way a few decades back. I recall the first time I was in Europe (I studied in France for a semester in high school back in the mid 80's), and as an American you were placed on a pedestal. Now most Europeans seem to almost feel sorry for Americans. They certainly don't have much respect for them any longer.

Has anyone here read the book, The Spirit Level, (why more equal societies almost always do better). Basically the US is the MOST unequal nation in the developed world. The middle class is shrinking at a staggering rate. I think the get rich at any cost ideology is toxic. Let's face it, once you decimate your middle class, you become a Third World nation...

I remember being surprised some years ago on amy first visit to my wife's parents in Florida. We hired a car and managed to get lost. We found ourselves in one of those awful 'trailer trash' (what an ugly expression that is) places which looked like something out of the Grapes of Wrath. What surprised me was the obvious deprivation (the place was a dump), the fact that it was within half a mile of 'tourist USA' and the fact that, from what I could see as I hastily turned the car round and headed out, every face in there was black.

As I drove away I thought 'feck me, you could visit Florida, do all the Disney and Everglades crap, and have no idea of the poverty just under the surface.'

I have never understood America. The constitution is brilliant. It all started out with such promise - yet there is some bloody rule in place (everywhere in the world) that some people will get rich and grab the power and will defend themselves by creating laws and a police force that the rest of us meekly obey.

It's actually quite weird really. Especially in these days of mass communication.

[Guest UK Debt Slave]

If you have a USC wife then I don't see how they can deny you unless there is something funny going on somewhere. You should speal to an immigration attorney.

They've changed the rules

Being married to a US citizen doesn't automatically entitle you to citizenship anymore

You now have to have liquid assets. Property doesn't count.

[samwise]

..The others are windering why they are paying $16,000 in healthcare and $16,000 a year in property taxes on a three bedroom house.

Their choice to live in a place charging that much in property taxes though, surely? My fiancee lives just north of Salt Lake City and has a 3-bed home, but pays nowhere near that in property taxes, partly, no doubt, due to the house not being worth anywhere near California's astronomical prices (a 3-bed home in an LA suburb would probably buy you a full-on 8-bed Mormon home in Utah ). That is also one of the reasons why a lot of Americans commute what we would see as hugely long distances by car every day - the taxes where they work are so much more than the taxes where they live plus commuting costs.

Along the same lines, there are people in the south of Washington state who live and work there (and pay no state income tax as WA doesn't have one), but shop in Oregon (as OR doesn't have a sales tax but WA does, and OR does have a state income tax so they don't live there).

[The Ayatollah Buggeri]

They've changed the rules

Being married to a US citizen doesn't automatically entitle you to citizenship anymore

AFAIK it never did, though it used almost to automatically guarantee you a work visa. Not any more. That's one of the many reasons why my American fiancee and I will almost certainly be living in the UK rather than the US after we're married (though the main one is that given our respective lines of work, her immediate job prospects here are a lot better than mine in Alaska).

Edited October 11, 2010 by The Ayatollah Buggeri

[council dweller]

They've changed the rules

Being married to a US citizen doesn't automatically entitle you to citizenship anymore

You now have to have liquid assets. Property doesn't count.

Sorry to hear about your problems, I'm sure it can often break a couple apart.

I had quite a problem getting my wife into the UK, took a long time, a real paper chase even though we'd been married 14 years at the time. Cost us 250 quid for the visa 5 years ago but I think it now costs 1k in total. Wife now back in Japan for 3 weeks....brings back memories.

As for the US. Just think about the contrast between the US/UK in the 50's and 60's with wages at twice our's and much higher levels of material wealth. Looks like relative decline to me.

[PopGun]

Didn't realise that only the unemployed and those resident, could debate the BLS stats.

Unfortunately that seems to be the case. It doesn't take a harved mathematician to work out mind, that Xurbia's stats don't even add up at even the very base level.

[Scott Sando]

It's over

They wont let me in

Just walk over the Mexican border like everybody else.

[cardiffone]

The healthcare we pay for is superior to the NHS is every single way and costs my wife and I $2400 a year, which is a tiny amount. England advertises free healthcare but the reality is different if you need something treated urgently; that's why companies like AXA PPP and BUPA exist! You wouldn't need them if the NHS wasn't full of soap-dodging pikies and illegal immigrants. Fuel is $3 a gallon, so I never dread going to the gas station. You forgot to mention that hard working people get insurance payments if they are laid off. The insurance payment is based on salary and is very fair. My wife and I would get about $600 each a week if we got laid off. I

Why are you comparing private health care to public?

We have a private option in the UK also, compare private US to private UK, and public US to public UK.

Now see what system is best for the entire population.

$3 a gallon, yipee, er yeh but you have to drive several times as far to get anywhere, which is why its so cheep....

we also have insurance for laid off people.....

Edited October 11, 2010 by cardiffone

[Darkman]

They've changed the rules

Being married to a US citizen doesn't automatically entitle you to citizenship anymore

You now have to have liquid assets. Property doesn't count.

And you can't convert any of your assets into liquid assets? I looked at the figures just now, and the requirement is 3 x the difference between income and their poverty line level for your household. It's an odd equation. But an example might be 2 person household, $18K income, poverty level $25K. Difference is $7K, so multiple by 3 = $21K.

That's $21K in liquid assets required. Were you quoted something wildly different from that figure? I must admit I just skimmed the information for now. Could you not raise the funds within a year or two?

Btw, there's real anti-US sentiment here in this thread. Some is warranted, and the US obviously has shortfalls. But all I can say is I've been there several times and was hugely impressed with the place. Tell me you're better off in the UK than the US and I'll laugh you out of the room. Sure it can vary according to your earning power. But understand the current economic climate is cyclical. US assets and know-how remain in place. Such a higher standard of living does not disappear overnight.

More likely we're hearing personal taste and opinion, rather than unbiased balanced views. I think many despise the US simply for being so damn successful.

[Peter Hun]

As an American now living in the UK (my husband is British, I got my own British passport in 2007), I can say with some experience that while it is cheaper in many respects in the USA, the OVERALL standard of living is MUCH better here.

We moved here from Seattle (so I have experience with WA State). Its an amazing part of the country. Its beautiful. But the US is in some serious s**t!

I mean we moved back to the UK by choice (financially we were probably better off in America). But we didn't want to raise our son in that environment. Its not just the economy (although that is a big factor). Its the social problems, the media, the fact that religion plays such a key role in politics (not far off from many Muslim nations).

I think America lost its way a few decades back. I recall the first time I was in Europe (I studied in France for a semester in high school back in the mid 80's), and as an American you were placed on a pedestal. Now most Europeans seem to almost feel sorry for Americans. They certainly don't have much respect for them any longer.

Has anyone here read the book, The Spirit Level, (why more equal societies almost always do better). Basically the US is the MOST unequal nation in the developed world. The middle class is shrinking at a staggering rate. I think the get rich at any cost ideology is toxic. Let's face it, once you decimate your middle class, you become a Third World nation...

The decimation of the middle class is indeed the sign of a crash to third world status. Much discussion on this subject here, comparing US to Argentina.

http://ferfal.blogspot.com/

The US middle class have got poorer over the last decade and it was bad the previous decades, I saw a US household income chart that peaked at $100k in the early 1970's. I think its about $40k now.

Edited October 11, 2010 by Peter Hun

[SHERWICK]

And you can't convert any of your assets into liquid assets? I looked at the figures just now, and the requirement is 3 x the difference between income and their poverty line level for your household. It's an odd equation. But an example might be 2 person household, $18K income, poverty level $25K. Difference is $7K, so multiple by 3 = $21K.

That's $21K in liquid assets required. Were you quoted something wildly different from that figure? I must admit I just skimmed the information for now. Could you not raise the funds within a year or two?

Btw, there's real anti-US sentiment here in this thread. Some is warranted, and the US obviously has shortfalls. But all I can say is I've been there several times and was hugely impressed with the place. Tell me you're better off in the UK than the US and I'll laugh you out of the room. Sure it can vary according to your earning power. But understand the current economic climate is cyclical. US assets and know-how remain in place. Such a higher standard of living does not disappear overnight.

More likely we're hearing personal taste and opinion, rather than unbiased balanced views. I think many despise the US simply for being so damn successful.

I am more better off in the UK than in the USA (yes, I lived and worked in San Francisco for 6 years and travelled all around).

Apart from the size of my house, everything else is better FOR ME in the UK: more interesting and far better paid work, better culture and entertainment, better travel options, better networking opening up more business oppotunities with a variety of countries. If I lived int he USA my house would be better, but, for me, everything else would be worse.

[Bloo Loo]

And you can't convert any of your assets into liquid assets? I looked at the figures just now, and the requirement is 3 x the difference between income and their poverty line level for your household. It's an odd equation. But an example might be 2 person household, $18K income, poverty level $25K. Difference is $7K, so multiple by 3 = $21K.

That's $21K in liquid assets required. Were you quoted something wildly different from that figure? I must admit I just skimmed the information for now. Could you not raise the funds within a year or two?

Btw, there's real anti-US sentiment here in this thread. Some is warranted, and the US obviously has shortfalls. But all I can say is I've been there several times and was hugely impressed with the place. Tell me you're better off in the UK than the US and I'll laugh you out of the room. Sure it can vary according to your earning power. But understand the current economic climate is cyclical. US assets and know-how remain in place. Such a higher standard of living does not disappear overnight.

More likely we're hearing personal taste and opinion, rather than unbiased balanced views. I think many despise the US simply for being so damn successful.

Ok yah....this presrodent has issued more deficit in his short term in office than ALL the presrodents before him...including Bush jnr. thats a successorized economy

[samwise]

And you can't convert any of your assets into liquid assets? I looked at the figures just now, and the requirement is 3 x the difference between income and their poverty line level for your household. It's an odd equation. But an example might be 2 person household, $18K income, poverty level $25K. Difference is $7K, so multiple by 3 = $21K.

That's $21K in liquid assets required. Were you quoted something wildly different from that figure? I must admit I just skimmed the information for now. Could you not raise the funds within a year or two?

And your spouse doesn't have to be your sole financial sponsor - you can get agreements from other people like parents, siblings, etc. The financial sponsor has to prove an income level at 125% of the poverty level for the size of household (including the person being sponsored). For the lower 48 and a 2-person household, the 125% level is $16,500 a year.

[LuckyOne]

Poverty by who's standards? There's supposed to be 1 in 6 kids in Britain living below the poverty line and 1 in 6 households without a working adult. So what?

Define what you understand 'poverty' to mean.

I'm not gloating that people are out of work. Where did I write that? I've been out of work and understand what it means.

Did you just pull the > 20% figure out of your backside or do you actually have some real proof?

Where do you live in the USA that gives you such insight or have you just written some worthless b*ll*cks?

I know that this question was directed elsewhere but it is a bugbear of mine so I thought that I would jump in.

U3 unemployment is the official estimate quoted most often in the press. It stands at around 10%. U6 is the less often quoted official estimate but probably more accurately reflects the number of jobs that need to be created to soak up excess supply in the labour market. It currently stands at around 17.5%.

Organisations like ShadowStats take issue with the methodologies used in the presentation of official employment estimates like U3 and U6 and have spent quite a lot of time compiling and justifying their own estimate of unemployment which stands at over 20%.

Edited October 11, 2010 by LuckyOne

[Xurbia]

Unfortunately that seems to be the case. It doesn't take a harved mathematician to work out mind, that Xurbia's stats don't even add up at even the very base level.

What stats?

[Xurbia]

I know that this question was directed elsewhere but it is a bugbear of mine so I thought that I would jump in.

U3 unemployment is the official estimate quoted most often in the press. It stands at around 10%. U6 is the less often quoted official estimate but probably more accurately reflects the number of jobs that need to be created to soak up excess supply in the labour market. It currently stands at around 17.5%.

Organisations like ShadowStats take issue with the methodologies used in the presentation of official employment estimates like U3 and U6 and have spent quite a lot of time compiling and justifying their own estimate of unemployment which stands at over 20%.

Great U6 is, probably more accurate. Wow! There might be 5.5 million unemployed people in Britain, probably loads more.

Britain hasn't even had a property adjustment yet, neither have the public sector cuts taken hold.

Keep dreaming.