What went wrong?
 

We went to the moon, built the fastest plane to fly, had affordable higher education and healthcare, and free love.

What went wrong? :confused:

In before this goes to PARF....

Divisive politics. Your country appears to be stalled by infighting.

And debt...

What went wrong?
 

Chronic government overspending, a systematic dismantling of traditional values (family, community, civic responsibility, etc.). The rise of a generation of spoiled children with entitlement complexes (culture of no accountability), too many laws and lawyers (too litigious of a society), a lack of respect for other human beings (including the popularization of "thug culture" that glorifies this), far too much government meddling everywhere other than in the places it ought to be, a blurring of the line between politician and celebrity, the destruction of our educational system by so-called "progressive" union schlockers more interested in cultivating a political mindset than imparting knowledge and critical thinking skills to our children, it goes on and on and on... There's no one thing - it's a lot of things which are all related if you stop and ponder it for a moment.

It mostly comes down to a change in mindset, attitude and expectations en masse which results in people never admitting they're wrong and ought to reconsider their thoughts, values, WTC. If they want different results.

Please keep all politics in PARF.

Thank you! ;)

Ho hum. Just another empire crumbling . . .

Ian

Excellent post!

The disintegration of the "Family Unit" and regard for others may have something to do with it.

Have we become a more self-centered culture?

In our Pelican community...our forum.....how does that manifest itself as it relates to society?

Members who post without consideration of others? So called keyboard commandos?

Yup

What happened to architecture?

When is the last time you saw architecture like this?

http://www.ralphcarlsonblog.com/wp-c...midcentury.jpg

http://media.treehugger.com/assets/i...ler-walker.jpg

http://daddytypes.com/archive/tarantino_usonian_nj.jpg

Look at this pad......wow!!!

http://www.modernaustin.com/wp-conte..._d-590x451.jpg

LOL, +1

We had a head start on industrialization post war but the rest of the world caught up or passed us. Some of the early advantage was unsustainable environmental degradation and unfair/unsafe labor practices that other nations are currently ignoring to their short term advantage. LBJ's "Great Society" has saddled us with progressively massive debt and government dependent, entitled, and essentially unemployable lower class that has forced reliance on illegal labor while third world birth rates and container shipping have eroded first world wages. On top of that, we have felt compelled to play world policeman at the expense of the American tax payer and their children and children's children.

That is a thread all to itself, that will more then likely end up in parf. I detest the mindset of our "superiority"

Look at your original question: "We went to the moon, built the fastest plane to fly, had affordable higher education and healthcare, and free love.

What went wrong?"

The moon/space successes--government programs.

Fastest plane--government/military program.

Affordable higher education--government (state and federal) programs.

Affordable health care--lost through uncontrolled rises in costs generated by for profit health insurers, hospitals, pharmaceutical companies, and medical suppliers. Exacerbated by government mandates to provide service when patients cannot afford rising costs.

My only point is to show, given the original question, that government has played the leading role in those things you deem honorable and worthy. I agree with much of what Porsche-O-phile posted but would only add that everything in his post could be traced back to the decline of his parenthetical definition of "traditional values." If government's role has changed (and it has) it's because too many people abrogated their responsibilities to themselves, their families, their communities, and to their country. "Let the government handle it" became the easy way out. As trite as it sounds, we get the government we deserve. It can be changed.

We basically had all of those before LBJ.

I would argue, somewhat tongue in cheek, that all of the blame rests on Lee Harvey Oswald. Without him, we would never have had LBJ.

This went wrong, neither of these are "affordable" or even reasonable anymore.

At a certain point even a great work ethic is not enough to rule the world.

Look at Apple; an American invention, wildly successful, but who benefits the most? I would say probably China.

The industrial manufacturing powerhouse of America is disappearing and becoming increasingly irrelevant. If that was your 'core strength, then what follows on is inevitable.

Short answer.. No more competition from the USSR.

I'd say this biggest factor is when corporations focused on share value above all; it transitioned a change in the business relationships with the country from symbiotic to parasitic. They pay China to build the products, pay India to provide tech support, and that leads to few here being able to buy them - which is somehow the government's fault. ;)

One thing capitalists hate to admit is the fact that the government plays a HUGE role in the economy. Look at 2008. Massive federal intervention to prop-up the monetary system. (No help for the little guy. "Socialism for the rich, capitalism for everybody else.") The Cold War was fueled by massive government spending paid for by higher tax rates. We have disassembled that since 1980. Taxes were slashed, deficits took off (politicians addicted to spending on their pet programs), Cold War ends, more tax cuts, more deficits, wars of choice (not paid for), more tax cuts not paid for by spending cuts, politicians gutting social programs such as college tuition grants and other support money. (College goes from a few hundred bucks a year in the '80s to tens to hundreds of thousands a year now.)

Banks can fail with no repercussions while graduates dare not miss a payment on their massive college loans--and are not allowed to legally declare bankruptcy.

We are going back to the world before 1914 where the few wealthy elites control the world's governments while the rest of us fight over the scraps. 1914-1980, and especially 1945-1980, was an anomaly. Wealth was destroyed globally by two world wars and a long economic depression and then the post-WWII rebuilding (massive government spending) allowed for massive manufacturing growth and that spread wealth among the populations of the west, especially in the U.S. The west came out on top, after destroying the manufacturing competition of its enemies, and thus enjoyed an unusual 30-year prosperity for a majority of the U.S. population. It's over. Politicians are--have been for three decades--dismantling the government's propping-up of the population and giving the windfall to the wealthy elite.

I would like to add two things to those already mentioned: egos and empire building. Big egos and the game of one-upsmanship with the efforts to impose wills and philosophies have contributed mightily to the partisan atmosphere, waste, inefficiency, and gridlock in government. By empire building I'm referring to all the programs started that the bureaucratic infrastructures strived to increase in size, longevity, power, and funding. The welfare system and the VA are two examples of the many.

Marv, by "welfare system" do you mean Medicare and Social Security for old white folks or poor-people Welfare? I assume poor-people Welfare because most other people would kill anyone who dared mess with their Medicare and Social Security.

If the poor (and wounded/maimed/PTSD vets) have it so good with their "empires" and "egos" then feel free to trade places with them.

I think people of any culture are willing to dig in their heels and work when they're hungry.

Do Americans look hungry to you?

Unless they are living under a bridge, even the poor have cars, tvs, cell phones, microwave ovens, etc. What is peoples motivation to strive? If you have low aspirations, and all of the those aspirations are met already, what is there to work for?

What went wrong? Lots of things.

We overreached. As SJF911 said, "we have felt compelled to play world policeman at the expense of the American tax payer and their children and children's children." Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, and all the meddling that didn't result in wars have cost us dearly in blood and treasure.

We shifted our focus. We started paying attention to poverty and inequality. Fixing those problems is not as sexy as moon shots and fast planes, and there is a large number of Americans with the "screw you, I got mine" mentality who have jammed sticks in the spokes of every attempt at change.

The price of energy skyrocketed. The Arab oil embargo put the brakes on the post-war industrial prosperity.

We lost an enemy. The collapse of the USSR left fundamentally angry Americans without a unifying international boogyman. Liberals, women, and minorities who were looking for a place at the table and the "screw you, I got mine" crowd became domestic enemies.

In the 1960s underclass Americans were given hope that opportunities for upward mobility would open up more than they did. Racism and sexism resulting in continued economic inequality remained in spite of new laws, resulting in more domestic enemies to hate.

Other countries, India in particular, put a huge emphasis on education as a way of improving their economic status while the US's historic recognition of the value of education nosedived. Competition from them took US jobs, while becoming educated was looked at as elitist by some in the US, and just too much trouble by others.

Easy.

The rise of the 24 hour news cycle and the need to fill it.

300 channels of shlock.

Glorification of guns in movies and video games.

Complete absence of standards or the willingness to understand and enforce them.

Debating the definition of "is".

The fall of education. Compare HS curriculum from the 50's to today and you will understand.

The fall of the Fourth Estate into cheer-leading politicians of their ilk.

Drugging our children when they act like, well, children.

Excuse making as an option.

Making fun of religion, except Islam.

The lack of understanding of basic economics and the terms required to understand basic economics, micro or macro.

Tribal political parties.

Locusts!

20 minutes ago?

Porsche-O-Phile nailed it - Well said.....

Now, getting back to this "Free Love" thing........I met a few willing soldiers in the Sexual revolution back in the day......Feel sorry for those in their 20's today. Seems they just have their phones to play with?

Don't you love it when the guy on the freeway onramp with the cardboard sign stops to answer his phone!

Human sacrifice, dogs and cats living together... mass hysteria!

A lot of symptoms are being mentioned but real cause? I think the beginning of the end started when you began to think that you were the best. Then you started to act like it & spend like it. Coming out of WW2, the rest of the world was broken & over the next 3 decades you tried to fix it – but in your own mold. An impossible task as others have discovered in the past. Of course, the Soviets were trying the same thing from their end of the stadium but they started with some severe handicaps - thankfully. Even though this tussle led to some colossal foreign policy mistakes, it directly & indirectly (NASA etc) provided a lot of fuel for domestic growth. And when you weren't fixing the world you were spending your spare change in an orgy of capitalism & consumerism. Reality started smacking you in the face in the 70s but you brushed it aside for more of that good ole economic orgying again. Except that this time you borrowed the money. And you ignored the awakening of the world, seeing it merely as an economic opportunity & not the very real threat that it has become. At a time when you should have been readjusting, you were getting fat. The last two decades have just been the start of the spiral around the drain.

Reversible? No. Survivable? Yes. But your time at the top of the heap is gone forever.

Ian

BE911SC - I think you understand what I'm saying. I don't begrudge veterans the right to treatment and care connected to their service. They suffered that in service to their Country and should be taken care of. As a veteran myself, I qualify but didn't suffer any service related wounds or trauma and, in my opinion, reserve that right to those who have earned it. Obviously Social Security (which I qualify for), Medicare (which I qualify for), welfare, etc. for those white folks(as you say) or otherwise are also parts of our giant welfare system. As far as "Welfare" to the poor, I personally am not against helping out people in need either, but not for a lifetime. I've said on here a couple of times, I worked with the welfare system for a number of years. I witnessed first hand the inefficiency, waste, and dependency it fostered. All these need to be redone and streamlined to efficiently do what they were intended to do. However we all know that will never happen.

People are just lazy, unmotivated and lack self-discipline. They don't have to worry where their next meal will come from. Social welfare will always take care of them.

NIXON and the nut con's in 1968 began the down hill slide
also opened trade talks with china [gee that went well]
killed the gold standard resulting in high inflation
and favored the rich over the normal people

raygun just made it all much worse

Zatcly! This is why Canada needs to take over America.... then together we will take over Mexico... we will become Canamerico... we will be unstoppable!

Just in reading this thread, I see an America where everyone favors their own interests and views over what would work for everyone.

Baz Knows better than to post this here, yet he does anyway, and the seagulls come flocking...

It's always someone else who has to improve. As for me, well, let's just leave well enough alone...

When it comes to the addict, the dysfunctional or the obsessed, there is never a desire to change until one is driven to his knees. And even in dysfunctional relationships, the nuclear group will band together to fend off those who would intervene to improve the situation.

Well, America has become a dysfunctional social unit. Not some of it, but All of it, as a whole. We will change only when changing becomes less painful than staying the same. For many years now, we have stayed the same, in a gridlocked dysfunctional failure to move forward. This has benefited some, but I see no great calling toward greatness, but rather a crass movement toward self aggrandizement.

Will we be brought to our knees before we again hear the call to greatness, or will we find that it is a sustainable future that favors our planet and our future , perhaps though at a time when it will not be so easy to achieve ?

Well, if we wait to hit bottom, it may come in a way that many here will find hard to fathom and impossible to come to terms with. Indeed, it may be happening already.

But hey, I've got mine. SO laugh it up and keep pointing the finger at others...

Traded productivity for debt through the Financialization of our economy.
One could argue the root is 1913.
Tabby is more kind and lets it fall on LBJ going all in for guns And butter.
Certainly Nixon put a dagger in us in 1973 with the destruction of Bretton Woods.

That is a common and completely incorrect belief.

The great majority of the iPhone's economic value goes to the US.

Here is the iPhone 5's bill of materials.

Groundbreaking iPhone 5s Carries $199 BOM and Manufacturing Cost, IHS Teardown Reveals - IHS Technology

Of the $750 price of the phone, $550 is profit for Apple, that pays for its employees who are overwhelmingly in the US.

$200 goes to various makers of semiconductors and other components. Almost all of those are made in semiconductor fabs in Taiwan (TSMC etc) or Korea (Samsung etc) with package/ test done in various countries including China. Roughly half of those chips are sold by US semiconductor companies (Qualcomm, Broadcom, Cerus, etc) so their profit margin (60% or so) goes to pay for their mostly-US employees. The battery, case, and a few minor chips are from China.

$7 is the packaging and the accessories in the box (AC adapter, earbuds, cable). That comes from China.

Assembly is $8. That is done in China.

So basically, about 70-75% of an iPhone's value flows to the US, about 5-10% to China, the rest to Taiwan and Korea.

The iPhone is awesome for the US. We need more products like that, not fewer.

Yah, I just bought more Apple stock. How's that helping those lazy bums who need to go out and get a job ?

The world needs more "products" that are not intended to rendered obsolete in 5 or fewer years.

This is actually my favorite post.

We could be more like the Germans. And I mean those in the present.

Priorities...