America Is Not The Greatest Country Anymore - "The Newsroom" (Jeff Daniels)

How can you say Iceland is the greatest country! They only have a population of 318,000, that is pretty close to being a small town in comparison to the metro Chicago area population of 9.4 million. I would imagine its easier to run a small town than it is a giant city. Geez, New York has 18.8 million metro population. Between Chicago and New York, Iceland is just some small town.

Just trying to put things in perspective for all you haters.

After an interesting little tidbid on Ordoliberalism let me offer another on the US

There once was a convention in Bern, Switzerland. The year was 1886. Folks had realized that IP protection wasn't worth squat if it wasn't recognized in a country a stone throw away.
So they negotiated a worldwide copyright and patent system, with minimun standards and mutual recognition. Under copyright in france? Same goes for Ireland.

The US joined. 102 years later, in 1988. In the olden days the US wasn't afraid to copy (Or dare i say steal?) best practices from all over the world!

reply to post by nwtrucker

Originally posted by nwtrucker
reply to post by ColCurious

 

I was lumping Germany with the Union to an extent. Is that not a fair assessment? I'm a little surprised that you suffer from a skilled worker shortage. To what do you attribute that shortage?

Otherwise, it's good to hear that Germany is doing well.

No it's not a fair assessment.
No matter what Van Rompuy and his buddies want us to think, we still define ourselves first and foremost as Germans, not Europeans.

Our shortage of skilled technicians and specialists is a little difficult to explain, but I'll try.
It's a mixture of an overall fall in population, low unemployment rates (~6.5%) and increasing demand... there is just not enough people left qualified enough to satisfy our demand in certain branches.

On the other hand we have cultural changes - sadly leading to different choices of adolescent apprentices and students in their respective working fields.

For example, we're currently trying to hire a third master for training in our company (for construction and structural engineering), but we just can't find anyone qualified enough.

Originally posted by torqpoc

One question to your title: Was it ever the "greatest" country? Please kindly define how it was/is/may have been and provide statistical comparative data to back it up.

T

The answer to your question, is yes...

History goes like this ... at one time, thousands of years ago there were the greeks. In their time, society advanced almot to modern times. Then the Roman empire came, with it's great war machine and the dark ages emerged ...

for two thousand years, we were living in fear of ourselves. Books banned, you had to believe in God or die ... obey god, or die. Advancements were slow ... then suddenly Americas was discovered. ... and from the time the Americas was discoverd until modern times, no more than 300 years. We have advanced phenominally ... and wether you want to describe the role of the US as a catalyst, or something else ... it's role is undeniable.

It achieved the title of "greatness" when it won WWII. And for a short time afterwards, the western world enjoyed seeing fantasies become reality, as we went into space. Jobs were plentiful, advancements in every field as the US did not discriminate ... it valued intellect, not bloodlines. It was a magnet for all intellects in the world, and everyone wanted to go to the US. That was prior to the dumb populace of the US elected actors and porn stars into office, and followed up with the dream of being the greatest warmachine ever, being the greatest superpower ever, with the biggest weapons ever. And in one generation, went from being Greece to becoming the Roman empire.

That era was prior to the era of the redneck ... and the redneck wife, who thought and think, that greatness is measured by the size of their vibrator toys.

reply to post by bjarneorn


Dear Bjarneorn,
Thank you for the response! I'm not sure I entirely agree, but it's refreshing to have a non egotistical response at the very least.

"It won WW2" - This is a real stick in the throat one for me and a common problem for us Europeans. Historically it's untrue, realistically it's untrue. America did not "win" WW2. It was on the side of the winning "team", the Western one anyway, but the real answer is that combined forces won the war. That includes the English without which I think even the might of America would not have succeeded, and less we forget the French underground who helped piece the way and without which, again, I don't think anything could have been gone so smoothly.

I also think that you cannot deny the involvement of the French when it comes to the age of liberty. America's independence is, again less we forget, due to their assistance in the fight for it's independence against the English. Something which seems to be slowly erased from the history books, much like France's own struggles.

The last point is it is undeniable that certain aspects of America's history would lend themselves to be referred to as "greateness", but "Greatest country" as the title suggest I still firmly do not agree with. It's young historical age alone does not make it so (even though in that time it has achieved considerably), it's lack of global Empire and centuries of global rule like other countries does not make it so. Great, yes... greatest, well that is still a matter of opinion, but I personally don't see it.

I don't believe you can even compare the Americas to the Roman Empire for instance.

I do thank you for the response though, it was an interesting view point.

T

reply to post by Ben81


I wonder how much hate mail the writer for this show got after this episode aired?

People always get burned for telling the truth. It breaks the illusion that we bought for cheap, because we didn't want to break our backs for the glory that we deliberately made unreachable.

I have watched the show and I agree with Jeff Daniels monologue we just like all other previous empires slowly succumb to both internal and external problems and begin to fade.All those beating their chests,claiming this "won't happen." to the US is only fooling themselves.

reply to post by Ben81


I love this video. It's ironic to me that the star of the video was once the co-star in Dumb and Dumber, but yet he is more informed then most of sheeple.

The best country in the world is defined by how it helps it disadvantage. Would America be even in the top 5 na doubt it.