In Reply to: We need a new word to describe the situation posted by amadbruin on April 09, 2026 at 14:48:29
There is one America that's tied into the stock market, making money off of the money it already had, trading real estate, farming data, financing startups for the returns, knee-deep in mergers and acquisitions, all that stuff that the uber rich do to get uber richer. They are certainly not n decline at the moment, but though they may not realize it yet, the way they have been hoovering up the wealth that the nation produces, they will soon run out of (human) resources to exploit.
There is another America that's made of low wage earners, fixed income families, living in poverty with little or no hope to move out of income bracket. This is the group that has been completely forgotten by our socio-political system, and by both parties in equal measure simply because they no longer have any semblance of wealth for the upper crust to suck up. So they're basically a social and economic discard.
Then there is mythical "middle class" that the political system continues to court all day long. They're the professional-manager class who's been getting by, and who up until recently, had a fair shot at upward mobility because this is the skilled class.
I think whether we are in decline or not as a nation, as a whole, is indexed to where that professional class ends up in the next decade or so. My suspicion is that it is going to keep shrinking and most of them will start sliding down the scale. They are the ones, incidentally, who are beginning to realize that the American Dream was always a fairy tale and most of them will not be able to acquire wealth in traditional ways: by acquiring property.
I would say overall that we *are* in a state of decline, but different parts of the society are declining at different rates, which is stretching us thinner all the time, and lack of moral or social fiber that connects us together as a whole is partly downstream from that stretch.
Remember that Tolstoy line about how happy families all look the same, but every unhappy family is unhappy in its own distinct way? I'd say that probably applies to nations in decline. They all decline in ways that are unlike other nations in decline.
But who knows? Maybe all we need is a little emotional and moral shake up and the next thing you know, the nation is renewed with a common purpose after we get past whatever it is that we're living through right now.
Signed, the sunniest guy on this forum!