America living on the laurels of the past

At one time, America was great, Freedom, education, manufacturing, the largest cities, tallest buildings, innovation and invention. Now what are we?

We still walk around saying we're great, the best country. When asked why we say, well, freedom of speech. Well friends, that's about it, we're free to say we're great, of course almost everything we use and buy comes from another country. our education system falls behind most other nation's, and We are in debt to the world. The majority of the jobs we have in this country are service based, we are the waiters, waitresses, and janitors for ourselves. Our primary money making industry is information which honestly could be hacked into oblivion in a heartbeat. 

The worst part about this is there is almost no way to fix it. We buy inexpensive crap because that's what most service employed people can afford, and because of that, it becomes what the stores carry, because if it don't sell you don't carry it. We buy shirts that rip out in two months, we buy shoes that fall apart, why?, because we can afford to replace the cheap stuff over and over. The other issue is we have over priced our own labor. If it's made in this country the labor rate is too high so the price of the product is too high. We price ourselves out of our own market. 

Do you see those ads on television? A pair of pants for $8.00? There is a reason they are $8.00 they are cheap junk made in countries where people get paid a thousand times less. 

So many people who are service based say they don't make enough money, it's true you don't, you never will, service jobs don't pay. But they complain so the Government responds by increasing minimum wage, yes they make more money now, but the cost of what you get is included into what ever service you perform, the price goes up, the people are right where they were before, except now, you have to buy the foreign junk because that's all you can afford.

The only way the economy will ever be right is for another major collapse of the system. A great Depression, world wide collapse. Because then people will be working for anything they can get, wages plummet, because you can't afford anything, prices plummet as businesses attempt to stay alive. The weak companies depart, the people realize again what they can live without and they do without it. How badly do you believe the average person struggling to survive with what ever job he can find needs the internet, cell phones, computer games. Hey, wait a minute, that's where this nation's money comes from, oops, not any more. 

Do you know how to tell an economy is bad, look at the railroads. Business is booming, those container trains are stretching they're way across the country. You know what's inside those containers? Foreign made products.