America, now behind France, Germany in opportunity...

[codger]

Quote:the fact that there was more liberty here than there was in other lands that made it possible for some people to get rich here, and made millions of people want to come here and try.

Sounds like you're saying that the US's wealth is built on a foundation of shady foreigners, who took advantage of our loose legal system.

[John Masterson]

David C.,

Social programs don't create the wealth directly, they just give people a small but significant financial cushion, or safety net, that allows them to slowly work their way upward without being wiped out.

I believe in 'tempered Capitalism", and this is an example of where adding a touch of social programs to unbridled Capitalism is a good thing.

The American Dream is primarily about equal opportunity, a level playing field. Unlike other countries where you absolutely must have connections in high places or to the rich to be successful...at least here that was much less. Hard work and a good idea would do the trick.

Now, I am wondering if the field is still fairly level.  Maybe it is. And maybe the Internet is just as available to a single-owner business who wants to outsource something.

But I wonder about the laborers. You can't seem to do very well here with a factory job any more. And with the illegal workers driving wages down, down, down for unskilled labor...well, what do you do?

We can't all be business owners and engineers.

Where's the American Dream for the blue collar folks now?

[expat]

Quote:However, keep your eye on Europe. Europe is rapidly becoming the same thing: two countries in one. The third world country inside Europe is muslim rather than Mexican, but it's the same phenomenon.

Hence the debate about Turkey applying for entry to the European Union: are we welcoming and helping yet another country into the relatively democratic and prosperous EU, or would we be bringing in (as the largest member country) an undemocratic and backward muslim country that would change us more than we would change it?

[David Cressey]

"Shady"?  

I beg your pardon.  My ancestors didn't quite come over on the Mayflower,  but they were only about 10 years later.

They were immigrants.  I don't consider them "shady"  although some who stayed in England might have thought of them that way.  

I don't consider those who came through Ellis Island "shady".  

And I suspect that what I mean by "more liberty here"  overlaps with your sense of a "loose legal system".

We are a nation of foreigners.

[David Randolph]

For a lot of time, the wealth of USofA was predicated on the idea that people could come over here and get free land. We took the land from those who were there before us and gave it to foreigners who immigrated in. People started with nothing and got the land for living on it for 5 years or they paid the railroads for the land when the railroads got it for free. The railroads paid for agents to go through Europe signing people up to come over for this land.

Homesteading made a huge difference. It took a generation or two to have the compound interest pay off, but 50 years of having a farm in the family made for some wealth. Today, look at the wealth of 100 year farms.