Are we becoming a 3rd world nation?

[FinsnFur]

What makes a nation third world?
Despite everevolving definitions, the concept of the third world serves to identify countries that suffer from high infant mortality, low economic development, high levels of poverty, low utilization of natural resources, and heavy dependence on industrialized nations. These are the developing and technologically less advanced nations of Asia, Africa, Oceania, and Latin America. Third world nations tend to have economies dependent on the developed countries and are generally characterized as poor with unstable governments and having high rates of population growth, illiteracy, and disease. A key factor is the lack of a middle class â€" with impoverished millions in a vast lower economic class and a very small elite upper class controlling the country's wealth and resources. Most third world nations also have a very large foreign debt.

Copied from NationsOnline.org

[Okanagan]

We're not quite there yet but we are working hard at becoming a third world nation, and way closer than most people think.

I've travelled and worked in a dozen or so truly third world nations, maybe two dozen.  Poverty, bribes, patronism, nepotism, local strong man bosses, unwritten laws, constant low grade fear and worry, enormous amount of time spent on the basics such as procuring and preparing food, poor sanitation, unreliable electrical power, etc. etc. It's not something I look forward to for my grandchildren.  Detroit is there.  Much of DC is there. 

[Rich]

Obama is moving us closer and closer to being a "new world order", and under the rule of the United Nations. I am guessing that our new dictator will be a Muslim. The U.S. constitution and the civil rights we once treasured will be history.

[FinsnFur]

Yeah some of the things described there are just eerily close to home. 

[Hidehunter]

Scary stuff right there...and what is bad is that 52% of 'us' elected to put us even closer.

[Rich]

"Scary stuff right there...and what is bad is that 52% of 'us' elected to put us even closer."
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Yes, and those 52% thought they were just gonna get more free stuff.

[KySongDog]

Somehow these words seem true.

    A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can only exist until the voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship. The average age of the world's greatest civilizations has been 200 years.

    Great nations rise and fall. The people go from bondage to spiritual truth, to great courage, from courage to liberty, from liberty to abundance, from abundance to selfishness, from selfishness to complacency, from complacency to apathy, from apathy to dependence, from dependence back again to bondage.         ~usually attributed to Alexander Frazer Tytler (unverified)


Me thinks the US might be in the "apathy to dependence" stage. 

[Carolina Coyote]

Good article Semp,  and it is so true and the Politicians and Liberals keep pouring the fuel on the fire and being a stupid an uninformed Conservative it makes my blood boil when they talk about wealth distributions, but I still remember as a little kid you don't mess with the Goose that lays the golden eggs.  cc