Mind's Eye What is really going on in America?

http://www.spiegel.de/international/world/us-debt-problems-threaten-to-send-the-country-and-globe-into-crisis-a-866151.html

The Germans are considering the USA as a potential Greece.

I'm remembering attitudes towards Japan in the 1980s. There was a
dreadful book called 'The Japan That Can Say No' which summaries thus:

+ Japan must use its technological superiority as a negotiating
weapon, and it should
even threaten to trade secrets with the Soviet Union as a bargaining
tool against the US and refuse to sell components that go into US
missiles.
+ The quality of American goods is low because the level of the
workers is low, while the superior education of Japanese workers is a
big advantage.
+ The Japanese character is innately superior to the character of
Americans.
+ Americans believe that the Caucasian race is superior since the
modern era is dominated by the western world, and this prejudice will
hurt them in the end.
+ Former American colonies are rife with problems, while former
Japanese colonies are thriving.

+ America's dropping of the atomic bomb on Japan and not Germany in
World War II arose from racism because Germans are white people and
Japanese are not. (Though at the time of the German defeat in April
1945, the atomic bomb was as yet incomplete and untested until July
16, 1945, so that may have been a factor)
+ The trade surplus with the U.S. is caused by the lack of desirable
products made in the U.S.

I read it on a plane out there on a journey to discover their
shipbuilding secrets. I met a lovely bloke out there who told me the
idea of copying Japanese management secrets filled him with dread.
The only secret was they were rotten, sexist and callous. Japan fell
off its fiscal cliff when I left (1980s). Almost sadly, this wasn't
because of anything I left behind. The 'brilliant' Japanese
management techniques were taught by lazy lecturers for the next 20
years.

The coming fiscal cliff in the US isn't like Greece in that USD can be
printed at will. Der Spiegel says this:

The US has more in common with heavily indebted southern European
countries than it might like to admit. And if the country doesn't
reach agreement on deficit reduction measures soon, the similarities
could become impossible to ignore. The fiscal cliff looms in the near
future, and its not just the US that is under threat.

The US has finally voted and the dark visions of America's future
broadcast on television screens across the country -- and most
intensively in battleground states -- have come to an end. Supporters
of both Barack Obama and Mitt Romney had developed doomsday scenarios
for what would happen if their candidate's opponent were to win. Four
more years of Obama, the ads warned, would result in pure socialism. A
Romney presidency would see the middle and lower classes brutally
exploited.

But following Obama's re-election, Americans are now facing a
different, much more real horror scenario: In just a few weeks time,
thousands of children could be denied vaccinations, federally funded
school programs could screech to a halt, adults may be forced to
forego HIV tests and subsidized housing vouchers would dry up. Even
the work of air-traffic controllers, the FBI, border officials and the
military could be drastically curtailed.

That and more is looming just over the horizon according to the White
House if the country is allowed to plunge off the "fiscal cliff" at
the beginning of next year. Coined by Federal Reserve head Ben
Bernanke, it refers to the vast array of cuts and tax increases which
will automatically go into effect if Republicans and Democrats can't
agree on measures to slash the US budget deficit.

The answer is to abolish debt instead and start again with new world-
wide agreements on workers' rights that abolishes races to the
bottom. This isn't much in comparison with losing wars and having to
rise from real ashes as Germany and Japan did.

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