Is it sunrise, or sunset, for America the Beautiful?
"O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years.
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!"
~ "America the Beautiful,"
a poem by Katharine Lee Bates (1895)
"America the Not So Bad?"
by Joel Bowman
"We’re looking at the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, in roughly that order. (Catch up on Part I – Argentina, the “Good” – right here). Today, our wending narrative takes us north of the Rio Grande where, since at least 1971... and perhaps as early as that interventionist ghoul, Woodrow Wilson, darkened the doors of the Oval Office, in 1913... the trajectory of a once great Republic has been in steady decline.
It brings us no joy to report what our dear American readers know all too well; that the Land of the Free and Home of the Brave has been systematically captured by a managerial caste, whose insidious meddling daily transfers from the productive class to the parasitic class unimaginable amounts of wealth, talent and industry.
On the private, productive side, there is no engine room in the world quite like the United States of America. It is still the world’s brain magnet, where the best and brightest go to study... its financial capital, where aspiring startups hunt for big game investors... and an energy powerhouse of gargantuan status; the US led the world in oil production last year, churning out an incredible 22 million barrels of oil per day... equal to the total production of second and third placed Saudi and Russia... combined. It has been the world’s number one producer – by a widening margin – since the fracking revolution catapulted her ahead of her global peers.
America the Bountiful: To put America’s colossal economy into perspective, it’s useful to consider each state as a country unto itself. In an apples to Big Apples comparison, we see New York state’s economy alone is larger than Russia’s... the Texan economy is on par with Italy’s... and California, with its curious mixture of hooded techbro innovators and Hollywood’s plastic pretend people, is larger than either France or the United Kingdom, and almost equal to India, the most populous country on the planet.
In terms of material wealth, America has come a long way since Herbert Hoover allegedly promised the nation’s citizens “a car in every garage and a chicken in every pot.” Today, Americans have two cars in every garage and a cellphone in every hand. The US enjoys (or suffers, depending on your view) the highest smartphone penetration rate in the world, at 96%.
Hard as it may be to imagine, many of the “poorest” Americans enjoy a level of comfort simply unfathomable to citizens of other, supposedly developed nations. If the United Kingdom was a US state, for example, it would rank 51st in per capita GDP... right behind Mississippi. France would be lower still.
Meanwhile, at the other end of the scale, the US is also home to most of the world’s uber-rich, with fifteen of the planet’s seventeen centibillionaires amassing fortunes enough to make a hip hop icon blush. The combined net worth of these bejeweled bipeds – roughly $2.2 trillion – is equal to the entire GDP of Brazil, home to 210 million souls.
All of which is to say nothing of the country’s spacious skies and amber waves of grain, its purple mountain majesties above the fruited plain. (Your tragically romantic editor once wrote an entire novel dedicated to the “idea of America” set against a road trip from sea to shining sea. Notes members can download it here... we also mail physical copies to Founding members, for the old school readers who prefer physical copies. Join here.)
One Nation, Under Debt: Indeed, so embarrassingly bountiful are America’s gifts, a visiting extraterrestrial might be forgiven for thinking that the country would therefore be the planet’s largest creditor... that her streets and subways would be paved in platinum, her bridges inlaid with precious stones... and that her exalted citizens should enjoy the highest standard of living in the world, that they would all be healthy, happy, enlightened, and at peace with themselves and one another... Imagine his/her/its surprise!
Perusing what passes for today’s newspapers, our discombobulated guest would soon discover stories of death and despair, of an underpaid and overmedicated citizenry, and of deep cultural and political division. On the (alas!) asphalt streets, pockmarked and potholed, our galactical gallivanter would find the high and the homeless, described by dumb anchors on smart screens as “unhoused,” proving only that they, the far fallen press, are collectively unbrained themselves.
As to the nation’s financial health... ET would soon see what we all know to a tee; a $36 trillion hole where the future used to be! The world’s largest debtor by far, I.O.U.S.A is now in the hole for $107k per citizen... or $323k per taxpayer, figures that are set to hit $130k and $339k, respectively, by the end of this decade. For those keeping score at home, that’s a debt to GDP ratio of 122%, set to clock 140% by 2030, when the debt will be teetering on $50 trillion.
Even the savings from DOGE – which have cost the department’s unpaid captain tens of billions of dollars personally... and brought a degenerate mob of violent looters and hissyfit marauders to the very brink of a nationwide tantrum – so far amount to less than $2,000 per taxpayer. What would the scene look like if those cuts were multiplied 10x... 50x... 100x?
With so much death and despair... debt and deficits... debauchery and debasement... honest, hard working Americans are surely left wondering: What gives? How did our exceptional nation, founded on the ideas of freedom, inalienable rights and self-determination, come to... this?
A clue, patient reader: While Mississippi ranks as the state with the lowest GDP per capita in the country (at $53k per person)... and New York comes in on top (with $117k per person)... the GDP per person in the glittering District of Columbia weighs in at a hefty...$263,220! What are the nation’s public servants... her lobbyists, lawyers and litigators... her congressmen, conmen and crooks... doing to deserve 5x what the average Mississippian takes home in the great Magnolia State?
Scratching his bulging green cerebrum, our enlightened, intergalactic interloper ventures a polite suggestion, “Why don’t you just do as the man says and ‘drain the swamp?’” And lo! Here comes the country’s white knight in a red cap, the once and present president, who has promised to Make America Great Again. But is St. Trump the man to restore his country’s forgotten glory, to lead its citizens into a glorious second act, to reorientate the trajectory from Bad to... not so Bad?" Stay tuned for more Notes From the End of the World...
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