We ARE a third world country

[nadinbrzezinski]

but...

Look people when I was growing up in Mexico City, having silly shit like a bridge fail was something that did happen... pot holes were all over the place, and my first "big call" was that minor explosion at San Junaico. Of course we accepted it... I mean a lot of the contracts had a lot of extra padding for all the fines... fees and bribes.

Fast forwards a few decades and bridges collapse in the US... sixty year old pipes, not surprisingly, go boom... and let me count the pot holes.

It may not be official but we are there...

I just wonder how many bribes are now padded into our government contracts?

[Swamp Rat]

1. Once our middle class is gone, we will certainly be there.

I realized this after I lived in Norway.

[nadinbrzezinski]

2. It will not be gone

it is starting to stir... labor in particular is starting to...

But it WILL get ugly... and people WILL die.

[Swamp Rat]

3. dupe

[Swamp Rat]

4. Hope Springs Eternal!!

not about the people dying part

[Selatius]

5. If we use 1980 BLS methodology, we're looking at roughly 22% unemployment.

What was the national unemployment rate in Mexico during your time there? You know, there's still billions of Katrina reconstruction dollars that have not been spent down where I live, and I have a belief we're never going to see that money. Some bureaucratic nonsense about money being tied up in earmarks and committees at the state legislature. But privately, I think most of that money has been taken.

[nadinbrzezinski]

6. The official rate

has remained at oh 5% for decades.

Unofficial well over 50%. You see, if you sell gum in the streets they consider you employed. No, I am not shitting you. The panhandlers round these parts, are fully employed... by the methods they used.

[Selatius]

7. Wow, they really massaged the numbers. Wait until our gov't officials start using that method.

If I collect cans on the street and turn them in for a nickel per can, I'd be considered "self-employed." I'd happily accept that categorization until I gather up enough metal to melt them down into bullets.

[nadinbrzezinski]

11. It is an open secret

so it is hard to massage numbers when people know the numbers.

But after NAFTA it got worst, which we have seen in the vamonos para el norte.

[jeanpalmer]

8. People are too willing

to spend money on military conquest. We have to save the world from burqas and bankrupt ourselves in the process. People won't be able to grasp it until it's over. Sad. Meanwhile, let's vote for the lesser of two evils, who is bankrupting us.

[Lars39]

9. I remember not long after the Soviet Union collapsed, reading

about people there being scalded to death when steam pipes burst...thinking stuff like that could never happen here. :(

[nadinbrzezinski]

12. sixty year old pipes

operational life for those should be, iirc thirty years... need I say more?

[stray cat]

10. I have friends who would like to trade birth certificates with you

[gophates]

13. That's a hell of an insult...

...to third-world countries.

[Orsino]

14. ...but the TV cameras are all pointed where you can't see that very well. n/t

[xchrom]

15. There will be no 'new'' American revolution.

Not gonna happen.

[alittlelark]

16. Yeah, I've been trying to tell my dad for years....

We are the definition of a 'banana republic'.

[nadinbrzezinski]

18. And your dad looks at you weird, right

Truth be told, what we are is... Guiled Age II... but the differences between those and oh Mexico, are not that deep. We have power elites that only care about money... check... attacks on unions....check, a few problems with bribes and corruption... check... no investment in the public sector... check... disappearing safety net.... check.

Yes I could go on.

At this point the only thing that will change the dynamic is for people to wake up from slumber, en masse. Hoping that things like this finally wake up this country.

It is not one explosion in a swanky (Not really but think of this from fly over country) California neighborhood... instead of going... HOLY SHEET... just how bad is MY infrastructure and perhaps it is time to work together.

[Contrary1]

17. I've lived in this house for over 20 years...

The nearest main street is just half a block away. It's the most popular route to the local high school. Three housing additions and one new elementary school later, the street has never been resurfaced. The edges are crumbling.

They fill the pot holes a couple times a year, but that's about it. And the property taxes out here are among the highest for Indiana.