No matter what metric you use, America is not set up for success, at least not 100 percent success. Unless and until this country provides every opportunity to every citizen, America cannot reach its full potential.
For anyone who thinks America is the land of opportunity, this sentiment may have been true decades ago. Today however America is the land of opportunists. America is a nation where ambition has been supplanted by greed, merit by nepotism and d.e.i., equality by wealth. To succeed in America's late stage Capitalism, one must own those who regulate them, win an elected office by raising the most money and care less about people than your competitors. This is why the Food and Drug Administration is mostly funded through users fees, "users" being those who the FDA are supposed to regulate. This is why Congress can conduct insider trades while this is illegal for the rest of us. This is why there are so many examples of CEOs failing their way into million-dollar, golden parachutes. This is why the American empire is declining before it's time.
Regardless of statistics, data and facts, one would be hard-pressed to argue against the following truth: A nation in which almost all, if not all of its citizens can put their best skills to their greatest use. To this end, its citizens must have access to the tools necessary to hone their greatest skill. Each citizen must also be presented with opportunities to put those skilled to use. In a nation where fast food, big box, online store and gig workers are proliferating as they are in the United States, your civilization nor your Society could ever reach their true potential. In a nation as described above, the majority of its potential is wasted on making a minority fabulously rich. Any advancements that can improve the lives of the masses are lost when the highest bidder deems them a threat to their business and its profits.
I imagine that anyone reading this post could identify at least one person in their life whose skills are either dwindling or lost working at some menial job. We all know someone who we'd advise to go back to school or change jobs if only school was affordable.
While every country on Earth may be stifling its true potential by limiting opportunities for growth, America seems to excel at it. Instead of moving forward and beyond Capitalism, America seems to be moving backwards towards a neo-feudalism as a smaller group of owners keep a larger group of renters in debt for life.
In 2018, I wrote a book highlighting the problems Humanity would face if more power, wealth, and control was funneled to a small group of elite individuals, groups, or organizations. In my book, I provided solutions (from myself and others) to the inevitable problems and also a means for the Public to analyze, compare, and contrast the words and deeds of those we choose to follow against reality. In my book Solutions: Enough complaining. Let's fix America.
In "Solutions...", I provide the means for readers to disseminate information as provided by their news sources of choice, their elected officials, and any other authority they choose to follow. The book also offers a means to hold their leaders up, not just to a higher standard than is currently accepted but to one that would improve their lives and the lives of those for whom they care.
