I disagree.

What makes country to roll down to a third world status?

Their citizenship? Their race? Their flag or their beliefs? Their self love?

No. You have to separate between poor country and a third word country. A third word country is a country that nobody is asking for a permission to invade, a country on "who cares" list. Typically, it is a country that does not have nuclear weapons (including delivery systems).

This is why we are so much against anyone developing those, because once they do, we would have to ask permissions to invade.

Now, to become a third word country, all one needs to do is to become poor and lose his nuclear weapons.

We can become poor. May-be it is tough to lose the nukes though. However, once we become poor, we can no longer continue to develop new weapons. And there will be a day when others develop newer, stronger weapons, so much stronger that the possession of simple nuke and it's delivery system, wouldn't even count.

Then it could be sad that we are a third world country.

(Just to be sure we are clear that statement of being in agreement was not made to you it was made to Fanta)
I understand what you're saying, my point was that it won't be just us the falls it will be everyone. So the typical definition of 3rd world really won't apply, the entire globe would be in the same position.

Ive been thinking of buying real estate.
The Market is ripe right now!

The Stock-Market's been doing pretty good lately.

Not getting rich overnight false growth,
but its doing Okay!

Calculate the time, when most people with money decide to buy property, up to 80% OFF deals, then add the time the person makes profit on it and invest the extra and it gets circulated into the system. As the result, you get the upward cycle, but don't forget that, we aren't starting from zero, but a huge negative number, and it takes time to go zero first, before positive (don't forget, we are coninuously going negative as we speak)

I'd say, that's gonna take more than a couple of years, possibly a couple of decades, or...there might be something very drastic (like a huge war or a huge civil disobedience due to no jobs and money) and then there is the dawn of a new system possibly, but again, I'm just running my theories. Either way you look at it, it's naive to consider to have this economy recover in a short time, and it's impossible to go back to the status of 15-20 years ago.

This definition of a Third-World country is out of date!

The definition you use is early cold-war.

They judge third-world now by the degree of basic human services enjoyed by the avg citizens of said country.

I dont believe N Korea, Pakistan, nor India are 1st world countries.

Why would you say that? Does the globe depend on us in some way? Imagine that we had some serious natural disaster, and there is a huge hole where we are right now. You think the world (rest of it) will jsut disappear as well?

True. But then, there never was a definition that ever made sense.

Since the beginning of the use of this definition, it was used not to categorize, but to separate the world on "us", "against us", and "those funny ones that think they can ignore us". (I am skipping the French, since we didn't know of such division when French were using it).

There is always an emerging empire to fill in the vacuum. Maybe another system, maybe a revises system, somebody will become stronger, other become weaker. It's been going on for thousands of years. USA is absolutely not unique, beside that it's not in Asia, neither in Middle-East, and not Europe.

Somehow people think, that "ohh great" This is a multicultural country a "united" States...it's a modern society.

Well well...wasn't Greece multi cultural? How about Rome? They were, in their limited way (distance) and all of them went out the same way.....laws becoming harsher...empire building beyond the limits of stretch...finally a dictator and the unavoidable break up. This is a cycle every empire goes (gone) through.
Meanwhile another place became stronger...gained power and wealth and took over the lead.

Is this really a "conspiracy theory"? No, it's what history shows, how it happend so many times already..

Have you looked at most major downtowns lately and compared them to third world contries??? The question is not when but for how long it's been.

AS soon as China, Russia, N Korea, Iran and their friends decide that we are no longer an asset to them and their pursuits...

Let us not forget that until recently we thought we were the only ones with operable air-craft carriers...

It's not gonna become a 3rd world country, in a sense of seeing mud houses and dirt roads . Rome used to be the "beacon of civiization"..the capital of the 'western civilization'.

Look at it now, beside the Vatican and some truly beautiful art and weather..Italy is hardly the center of western civilization, it's just an ordinary country, trying to live within its means... same with London in England. Look what happened to the British Empire...It's only a big island now, with the remaining influence of the english language spoken around the world, that's the only reminder of what it is left of it, and it's already fading with the Spanish becoming mainstream in USA as a secondary language. With the internet influence, the Enlgish is becoming the 'universal langague" but it's getting mixed away a bit, distancing from the original spoken English in UK.
Latin was the same way a couple of hundred years ago, and now it's a "dead" language.

isn't much of America already a third world country?

You're speaking Physical disaster, the discussion is about a fiscal disaster. And yes monetarily the entire globe is interdependent. We may be in bad shape but we are still the worlds largest economy by far. If the rest of the world were in good shape it might weather our downfall, but it's not if we go down the rest of the worlds economy will follow.

By personal choice, no less...

What if it is through force though?

Those who choose it lose nothing... those who do not, possibly lose everything...

Who then, would be the ones in a priveleged position?

A civilian uprising would be the worst thing that could happen to this country. It would be the opportunity that those(if they have been waiting for) would have...

The world no longer depends upon America... does it?

The choose to, they are not required to.

True!

Take a look at this picture:


Kenya. This is a typical picture of abject poverty.

Now, let us look at this picture:


This, on the other hand, is the golden state of california, Los Angeles , - a city in the country where everyone can be whatever he wants to be (as long as it is approved by the government).

Why the similarity?

The answer is that the people on both pictures are either denied, or ignoring or are simply to dumb to be aware of a private property.

It doesn't make any sense to clean the public property. Instead, it makes all sense to dirty it, since that is the lowest cost solution.

As more and more people accept the socialist ways, America will increasingly look like either of this two pictures.

How do we know if we are the world's largest economy? Secondly, why should the rest follow the largest?

Our largest banks failed. Does this mean the smallest now are bankrupt too, by definition?

I would argue that there is no interdependency of world economies in monetary plane. Everyone is simply using the USD, because we have a 5th fleet ready to find Osama's friends anywhere USD isn't the first choice. But that is all there is. Nations have their goods, that they are ready to swap for other countries goods, and they can find some medium of exchange to get this done.

There is a lot of money parked in US right now, but this money is slowly but surely leaving. We will be notified when all capital is gone, by Obama announcing "temporary" capital controls. He can't do it now, precisely because not all rich have moved out their capital yet.

Don't forget, people bring their culture and tradition and lifestyle with them, so to speak..they think, something is ok and accepted wherever they are from, it's also fine to do in USA. And the USA bends over for it... I get fined for 500 dollars if i throw away a little piece of paper here in CT and the place is very clean. People who just refuse to follow the rules are out. I guess California and other places just more appeasing and due to larger majority mob rule, people do whatever the hell they wanna do without any consequences.

How do we know if we are the world's largest economy? Secondly, why should the rest follow the largest?

It's a simple fact more money exchanges hands within the US than anywhere else in the world and it's by a significant amount. And the rest will follow because all the worlds economies are tied via credit systems. When we fail we will default on trillions of dollars in loans much of that to other countries. If you haven't watched the news you might not realize that the rest of the worlds finances are not doing so hot either.



No economy has not collapsed yet, if it does collapse (not a certainty yet IMO) yes those banks will fail as well.



Then you would be in direct disagreement with nearly ever economist foreign and domestic.



Yup they are trying, and other countries are frantically trying to do the same. They are hoping it will only be a partial failure of our economy which the rest of the world might survive. I personally don't see that happening. My opinion (that is what we are doing here, is giving our opinions. ) is that we will either start a very very very slow recovery now or the economy will totally collapse I don't see a partial failure, other than what we are experiencing now, as possible.

third world America in New Orleans

third world America on the navajo Reservation