Posts
The
USA Is Now a 3rd World Nation
By
Charles Hugh Smith
26
November, 2014
Dividing
the Earth's nations into 1st, 2nd and 3rd world has
fallen out of favor; apparently it offended sensibilities.
It has been replaced by the politically
correct developed and developing nations,
a terminology which suggests all developing nations are on the
pathway to developed-nation status.
What's been lost in
jettisoning the 1st, 2nd and 3rd world categories is the distinction
between developing (2nd world) and dysfunctional states (3rd world),
states we now label "failed states."
But 3rd
World implied something quite different from "failed
state": failed state refers to a
failed government of a nation-state, i.e. a government
which no longer fulfills the minimum duties of a functional state:
basic security, rule of law, etc.
3rd World referred
to a nation-state which was dysfunctional and parasitic for the vast
majority of its residents but that worked extremely well for
entrenched elites who controlled most of the wealth and political
power. Unlike failed states, which by definition
are unstable, 3rd World nations are stable, for the
reason that they work just fine for the elites who dominate the
wealth, power and machinery of governance.
Here
are the core characteristics of dysfunctional but stable states that
benefit the entrenched few at the expense of the many, i.e. 3rd
World nations:
1.
Ownership of stocks and other assets is highly concentrated in
entrenched elites. The average household is disconnected
from the stock market and other measures of wealth; only a thin
sliver of households own enough financial/speculative wealth to make
an actual difference in their lives.
2.
The infrastructure of the nation used by the many is poorly
maintained and costly to operate as entrenched elites
plunder the funding to pad their payrolls, pensions and
sweetheart/insider contracts.
3.
The financial/political elites have exclusive access to parallel
systems of transport, healthcare, education, etc. The elites
avoid trains, subways, lenders, coach-class air transport, standard
healthcare and the rest of the decaying, dysfunctional systems they
own that extract wealth from the debt-serfs.
They
fly on private aircraft, have their own healthcare and legal
services, use their privileges to get their offspring into elite
universities and institutions and have access to elite banking and
lending services that are unavailable to their technocrat lackeys and
enforcers.
4.
The elites fund lavish monuments to their own glory disguised as
"civic or national pride." These monuments take
the form of stadiums, palatial art museums, immense government
buildings, etc. Meanwhile the rest of the day-to-day infrastructure
decays in various states of dysfunction.
5.
There are two classes that only interact in strictly controlled
ways: the wealthy, who live in gated, guarded communities
and who rule all the institutions, public and private, and the
debt-serfs, who are divided into well-paid factotums, technocrat
lackeys and enforcers who serve the interests of the entrenched
elites and rest of the populace who own virtually nothing and have
zero power.
The
elites make a PR show of being a commoner only to burnish the absurd
illusion that debt-serf votes actually matter. (They don't.)
6.
Cartels and quasi-monopolies are parasitically extracting the wealth
of the nation for their elite owners and managers. Google:
quasi-monopoly. Facebook: quasi-monopoly. Healthcare: cartel.
Banking: cartel. National defense: cartel. National Security: cartel.
Corporate mainstream media: cartel. Higher education: cartel. Student
loans: cartel. I think you get the point: every key institution or
function is controlled by cartels or quasi-monopolies that serve the
interests of the few via parasitic exploitation of the powerless.
7.
The elites use the extreme violence and repressive powers of the
government to suppress, marginalize and/or destroy any dissent. There
are two systems of "law": one for the elites ($10 million
penalties for ripping off the public for $10 billion, no personal
liability for outright fraud) and one for the
unprotected-unprivileged: "tenners" (10-year prison
sentences) for minor drug infractions, renditions or assassinations
(all "legal," of course) and institutional forces of
violence (bust down your door on the rumor you've got drugs,
confiscate your car because we caught you with cash, so you must be a
drug dealer, and so on, in sickening profusion).
8.
Dysfunctional institutions with unlimited power to extract money via
junk fees, licensing fees, parking tickets, penalties, late fees,
etc., all without recourse. Mess with the extractive,
parasitic bureaucracy and you'll regret it: there's no recourse other
than another layer of well-paid self-serving functionaries that would
make Kafka weep.
9.
The well-paid factotums, bureaucrats, technocrat lackeys and
enforcers who fatten their own skims and pensions at the expense of
the public and slavishly serve the interests of the entrenched elites
embrace the delusion that they're "wealthy" and "the
system is working great." These deluded servants of the
elites will defend the dysfunctional system because it serves their
interests to do so.
The
more dysfunctional the institution, the greater their power, so they
actively increase the dysfunction at every opportunity.
The
USA is definitively a 3rd World nation. Read the list above
and then try to argue the USA is not a 3rd World nation. Try arguing
against the facts displayed in this chart:
I
know it hurts, but the reality is painfully obvious: the USA is now a
3rd World nation.
A
report out this week from the Department of Housing and Urban
Development finds the median price for a single-family home in the
Bay Area is now $935,000. A family earning $117,000 now qualifies as
"low income" in the region.
CBS
News went to see California's red-hot housing market with realtor
Larry Gallegos. He showed us a house you would think he couldn't give
away. But Gallegos says the home, complete with leaks in the roof,
sold for $1.23 million. The buyer beat out six competing offers, all
above the asking price.
"It's
a little mind-blowing, but it is the norm around here," Gallegos
said....
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