The state of affair that our country has landed itself into is very sad but was surely predictable. This write up by spiegel confirms what many of us suspect and fear in the back of our minds. Our country has followed the path of Rome and we are burning.
The banking crisis is upending American dominance of the financial markets and world politics. The industrialized countries are sliding into recession, the era of turbo-capitalism is coming to an end and US military might is ebbing. Still, this is no time to gloat.
This is a five page comprehensive examination of where our country is and how we arrived there from an outside point of view..most of it looks accurate...I have highlighted a few points but there is much much more that I recommend you read. Here is the link:
News Article from Spiegel
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Bush has turned our country into a laughing stock of the world:
George W. Bush has grown old, erratic and rosy in the eight years of his presidency. Little remains of his combativeness or his enthusiasm for physical fitness. On this sunny Tuesday morning in New York, even his hair seemed messy and unkempt, his blue suit a little baggy around the shoulders, as Bush stepped onto the stage, for the eighth time, at the United Nations General Assembly.
He talked about terrorism and terrorist regimes, and about governments that allegedly support terror. He failed to notice that the delegates sitting in front of and below him were shaking their heads, smiling and whispering, or if he did notice, he was no longer capable of reacting. The US president gave a speech similar to the ones he gave in 2004 and 2007, mentioning the word "terror" 32 times in 22 minutes. At the 63rd General Assembly of the United Nations, George W. Bush was the only one still talking about terror and not about the topic that currently has the rest of the world's attention.
"Absurd, absurd, absurd," said one German diplomat. A French woman called him "yesterday's man" over coffee on the East River. There is another way to put it, too: Bush was a laughing stock in the gray corridors of the UN.
We have willfully relinquished our economic dominance in the world:
Is it only President George W. Bush, the lame duck president, whom the rest of the world is no longer taking seriously, or are the remaining 191 UN member states already setting their sights on the United States, the giant brought to its knees? UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon referred to a "new reality" and "new centers of power and leadership in Asia, Latin America and across the newly developed world." Are they surprised, in these new centers, at the fall of America, of the system of the Western-style market economy?
It's not only our jobs that have been outsourced:
The banking crisis in the United States has shaken many things in recent days, not just the chancellor's affection for America and the respect the rest of the world once had for the US as an economic and political superpower. Since the US investment bank Lehman Brothers plummeted into bankruptcy two weeks ago, the financial crisis has developed a destructive force of almost unimaginable strength. The proud US investment banks with globally recognized names like Merrill Lynch and Goldman Sachs have all gone bankrupt, been bought up or restructured. The American real estate market has essentially been nationalized. And the country's biggest savings and loan, Washington Mutual, has failed and been sold at a loss.
In light of the almost daily reports of losses in the financial sector, it seemed almost secondary to note that the disaster had also turned into one of the biggest criminal investigations in American history. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is already investigating 26 large financial corporations as well as 1,400 smaller companies and private citizens for possible fraud.
USA a much weaker nation:
This is no longer the muscular and arrogant United States the world knows, the superpower that sets the rules for everyone else and that considers its way of thinking and doing business to be the only road to success.
A new America is on display, a country that no longer trusts its old values and its elites even less: the politicians, who failed to see the problems on the horizon, and the economic leaders, who tried to sell a fictitious world of prosperity to Americans.
Also on display is the end of arrogance. The Americans are now paying the price for their pride.
Republicans understand what they have done to our country:
Republican Senator Chuck Hagel has acknowledged that the "world's largest debtor nation" cannot simultaneously shape the course of the world. The challenges America faces have multiplied, especially in recent times.
Confirmed...all of our resources have been used up by the Bush Administration and the next President will have an extremely challenging situation left to him due to the enormous debt and the recession that he inherits.
Even before the financial crisis, there was lively debate in the United States over whether the world's largest economy could become overtaxed in the long run as a result of its international obligations and the global deployment of its armed forces. The war in Iraq costs the country $3 billion a week. And it is already clear that Bush's successor will find his powers in the White House further limited by the enormous mountain of debt he inherits.
And then there are the costs of the financial crisis -- and the recession that will inevitably follow.
The end of the Reagan Economics Revolution:
The effects of the financial crisis are already serious, both for the American taxpayer, who will end up footing the bill no matter what, and for the relationship between the government and the economy. An era of American economic policy is coming to a close. Ironically, and surprisingly to many, the last few months of the Bush administration will mark the end of the so-called "Reagan revolution."
I can't begin to express how sad and disappointed I am in seeing how far we have fallen as a nation that has been so great, for so long. I suppose we brought this on ourselves by electing the leaders we have and accepting insane policies, being completely naive and removed from reality. I am ashamed that I will have to leave my son and daughter and their children with a country that is just a shadow of what it could have been, and a remnant of what it once was. I am afraid this is what happens when you elect a President you can have a beer with...everyone has a big party and gets drunk,..now its time for the hangover.