tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2093394597569235990.comments2014-10-19T07:58:07.463-07:0021st Century New Liberalanonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14853660025159924459noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2093394597569235990.post-67291292103383475912014-10-19T07:58:07.463-07:002014-10-19T07:58:07.463-07:00The US is first among equals in the sense that the...The US is first among equals in the sense that the British were just before WWII. There are some serious structural problems. America's welfare state was funded on tax receipts from its working class; however, US trade policy has more or less outsourced that working class. The Chinese do not pay FICA taxes to the US Treasury. In spite of comparative advantages, these trade policies lead to strategic disadvantages. America relies on China for rare Earth minerals rather than mining its own. That gives China the upper hand in those situations.<br /><br />Large-scale projects are now routinely over-budget and take much longer than projected. Boston's big dig or the replacement of the Eastern span of the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge are examples of how America isn't competitive anymore. It took uneducated hard laborers 4 years to build the Oakland-San Francisco Bay Bridge back in the 1930s, but it took 25 years to replace half the span after a serious earthquake. The bottom line is that countries like China don't have all of the political institutions like environmental groups, race-norming, labor practices, procurement rules, etc. that America does now. America may have the F-22, but we only have 140-150 or so, not a 4-5k plane wing. <br /><br />We still fly B-52s from the late 1950s, but we're retiring A-10s built in the 1970s. It's pathetic. We should be able to buy off-the-shelf jet engines for a 737 and build a new A-10 in short order. Yet, we don't have that ability. The procurement system is far too corrupt.<br /><br />We used to be able to put a man in space. We have no national manned space program either.<br /><br />Then you get to even weirder political grounds: the left pushes completely pointless notions like homosexual equality and homosexual marriage with the assertion that it was somewhow wired into our constitutions even though the founders of the United States would hang sodomites by the neck. Our political class is decadent and useless. I'm often puzzled as to why our enemies don't just attack us while we have such weak leadership.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com