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Current Challenges to the U.S.

Current Challenges to the U.S. . Session 7. Contents. The American Century The 9.11 Crisis The Financial Crisis in 2008 Political Challenge Challenge from Inequality Education Challenge Environmental challenge A Fundamental Challenge from the American Way of Life Conclusion.

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Current Challenges to the U.S.

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  1. Current Challenges to the U.S. Session 7

  2. Contents • The American Century • The 9.11 Crisis • The Financial Crisis in 2008 • Political Challenge • Challenge from Inequality • Education Challenge • Environmental challenge • A Fundamental Challenge from the American Way of Life • Conclusion

  3. I. The American Century • A term coined by Henry Luce in 1941 • 1945: Leading to the victory of WWII • “Made in America” a logo of the time GM, Ford, Mobil, IBM, Coca-Cola, McDonald, Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Apple, Google, Wall Street, Hollywood, Peace Corps

  4. Continue • 1991: Leading to the victory of the Cold War • Fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 • Fall of socialist countries in Eastern Europe • Collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 • US-the only superpower in the world • Francis Fukuyama published his provocative essay: “The End of History?” “The collapse of Communism in the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe signaled the end of historical progress and the de facto victory of liberal democracy over all other forms of political ideology”

  5. Continue • America has the money, the political nous, the military might, the industrial capacity, the high tech, the labor and the talent: it knew where it wanted to go and, had the muscle to get there.” Dambisa Moyo • The Apollo program vs. Sputnik • “We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things not because they easy, but because they are hard.” JFK in 1961 • The NASA: $20-25 bn ($135bn in 2005) • Talents: from 100,000 in 1960 to 376,000 in 1965. “Where the talent did not exit, NASA created.” Dambisa Moyo

  6. The Washington Consensus in 1990sNeo-liberalism • it advocates deregulation, praises market fundamentalism and opposes government interference. • it advocates privatization, blazons the perpetual role of the "private ownership myth" and opposes public ownership. • it stands for global liberalization, protects the liberal economy under the US' dominance and opposes establishing a new international economic order. • it affirms the individualization of welfare, emphasizes the shift of responsibility of social security from the government to individuals and argues against welfare society. • Internationally unilateralism -The Iraq War

  7. II. The 9.11 and Its Impact • Impact of the 9.11 on the Americans http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=owfKzWkOZ70

  8. Discussion What is the impact of the 9.11 on the U.S. and Americans?

  9. The Impact of the 9.11 • Unilateralism and two wars of Iraq & Afghanistan • Alienated friends like Germany and France • Huge deficit because of the two costly wars • According to the Center for Defense Information, the estimated cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan will reach $1.29 trillion by the end of fiscal year 2011. • Psychological fear & Insecurity • A loss of innocence, trust & confidence • A loss of liberty of the people: the PATRIOT Act • abuses by the US military have undermined America's standing in the world • Ignore the importance of East Asian countries

  10. III. The Financial Crisis in 2008 Understanding the financial crisis http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h4Ns4ltUvfw

  11. Continue • There were roughly twenty-five million subprime and other nonprime mortgages outstanding, with an unpaid principal balance of over $4.5 trillion. • The twenty-five million subprime and Alt-A loans amounted to almost 45 percent of all single-family mortgages in 2009. • Current foreclosure rates are 30 percent (in the worst downturns in history, foreclosure rtes rarely reached 4 percent). P.10, Friedman

  12. Continue • It resulted in the collapse of large financial institutions, the bailout of banks by national governments and downturns in stock markets around the world. • The housing market also suffered, resulting in numerous evictions, foreclosures. • Prolonged unemployment. • It contributed to the failure of key businesses, declines in consumer wealth estimated in trillions of U.S. dollars. • Significant decline in economic activity, leading to a severe global economic recession in 2008.

  13. Continue • "that the crisis was not a natural disaster, but the result of high risk, complex financial products; undisclosed conflicts of interest; and the failure of regulators, the credit rating agencies, and the market itself to rein in the excesses of Wall Street."[12]the Levin–Coburn Report from the Senate

  14. IV. Political Challenge • Constructive Partisanship • The Marshall Plan was supported in 1947 by both parties, particularly, Arthur Vandenberg, Republican leader of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee-restored Europe economically and politically. Moreover, Germany became a close ally. • GI Bill-made American workforce the best one in the world

  15. Continue • Destructive partisanship • Partisan bickering has paralyzed American capacity to take action: the budget control & the debt ceiling.

  16. Campaign Corruption • Presidential election campaign • 1976, Ford vs. Carter: $67 million • 2000:Bush vs. Gore $343 million • 2004: Bush vs. Kerry $718 million • 2008: McCain vs. Obama $2.4 billion • 2012: both Obama & Romney $6 billion • Congressman campaign: • 1974 $44million, average $53,000 • 2004: $581 million, average $773,000 • Senate campaign • 1974: $28 million, average $437,000 • 2004:$367 million, average $5.4 million

  17. Continue • In the 2010 midterm election cycle, candidates for office, political parties, and independent groups spent a total of $3.6 billion on federal elections. • The average winner of a seat in the House of Representatives spent $1.4 million on his or her campaign. • The average winner of a Senate seat spent $9.8 million.[5]

  18. Continue • “Politics today is all the money.” David Boren • “Senators & representatives spent at least a third of their time raising money instead of what we elected them to do” p.65, Boren • Impact of Interest groups’ lobby • Deregulation from the Wall Street led to housing bubble and global financial crisis in 2008 • Auto industrial lobby led to slow improvement of energy efficient car, pp.41-4 Friedman’s Hot, Flat & Crowded

  19. Continue • Senators/representatives became lobbyists http://www.republicreport.org/2012/make-it-rain-revolving-door/ • Republic Report’s investigation found that lawmakers increased their salary by 1452% on average from the last year they were in office to the latest publicly available disclosure. • out of the 44 lawmakers who left office in 2010 for a lobbying-related business. • Former Congressman Billy Tauzin (R-LA) made $19,359,927 as a lobbyist for pharmaceutical companies between 2006 and 2010

  20. Continue • Former Congressman Cal Dooley (D-CA) has made at least $4,719,093 as a lobbyist for food manufacturers and the chemical industry from 2005 to 2009. • Former Senator Chris Dodd (D-CT) makes approximately $1.5 million a year as the chief lobbyist for the movie industry. • Former Congressman Steve Largent (R-OK) has made at least $8,815,741 over the years as a lobbyist for a coalition of cell phone companies and related wireless industry interests • ……

  21. V. Challenge from Inequality • Congressional Budget Office (CBO) -- "Trends in the Distribution of Household Income Between 1979 and 2007". The report found that real household income after federal taxes and including government transfers (payments from Social Security, unemployment insurance, etc.) grew by 62%. • The top 1%: income of households grew by 275%, • The next 19%: 65% • The next 60%: under 40% • The bottom 5%: 18%

  22. Continue • The top 10 percent of American collect almost 50 percent entire national income • 90 percent received the other half. • The shrink of the middle class threaten the health of the US. • “You can have a democracy and a society sharply divided between the rich and the poor, but you cannot have both for very long.” - Justice Louis Brandeis • The Shay’s rebellion is between "the class with, and [the] class without, property." James Madison

  23. VI. Educational Challenge • College tuition has a rapid increase when the government funds became smaller & smaller • UMass: state funding from 80%- current 19% • Among the 20 OECD (the Organization for Co-operation Development) countries, American high school students’ math performance ranks in the bottom forth. • 15 fewer days than those in OECD countries and 28 fewer days than students in East Asian countries • The quality of education depends on quality of teachers. But low salary and social status cannot attract the best and brightest teachers.

  24. Continue • The GI Bill of Right helped create the best educated force, which made the US the most productive country • One of the reasons from the global outsourcing is the shortage of knowledge and skillful workforce • “This education failure is the largest contributing factor to the decline of the American worker’s global competitiveness, particularly at the middle and bottom ranges.” – Todd Martin

  25. Environment challenge • The U.S. is the second largest energy consumer next to China in 2010. • The U.S. is also by far the biggest per-capita energy consumer, with the average American burning five times as much energy annually as the average Chinese citizen. • the United States is the second largest emitter of greenhouse gases. In 2008, China contributed 22% of global emissions, followed by the US with 20% of emissions.

  26. Continue • Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have increased by 11.0 percent from 1990 to 2010 • If greenhouse gases continue to increase, climate models predict that the average temperature at the Earth's surface could increase from 2.0 to 11.5 ºF above 1990 levels by the end of this century (IPCC 2007)

  27. Energy Footprint

  28. Challenge from the American Way of Life • The Protestant way of life in early colonial period • worldly asceticism • Hard work ethic • Shrift and simple life • Fortune accumulation not for personal pleasure, instead for the service of God • No drinking alcohol • banned many secular entertainments, such as games of chance, maypoles, and drama, on moral grounds

  29. Continue • Consumerism replaced Puritanism • May 7, 2001, White House spokesman Ari Fleischer’s reply to this question “Does the President believe that, given the amount of energy American consumer per capita-how much it exceeds any other citizens in any other country in the world-does the President believe we need to correct our lifestyles to address the energy problem?” • Fleischer: “That’s big no. The President believes that it’s an American way of life, and that it should be the goal of policy makers to protect the American way of life. The American way of life is a blessed one.”

  30. Continue Hot, Plat, and Crowded – Thomas L. Friedman • At the core, the China-America growth engine worked like this: We in America built more and more stores, to sell more and more stuff, made in more and more Chinese factories, powered by more and more coal, and all those sales produced more dollars, which China…

  31. Continue • We cannot just be the consumer and China the producer, and neither of us can allow the good produced on the scale that we have been. This way of growing standards of living is simply unsustainable - economically unsustainable and ecologically unsustainable……

  32. Continue • The Great Depression was the moment when the Market and Mother Nature got together and said to the world’s major economies, starting with the United States and China : This cannot continue. Enough is enough.

  33. Movie • The Chinese Are Coming http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6617B1HMBak&feature=related

  34. Discussion • Can the American way of life become sustainable? Why?

  35. Conclusion • The Pilgrims came to this new world with a dream of “building a city upon the hill” in 1620. Their dream became true after great efforts from many generations. The victory of the Cold War in 1991 made the U.S. the only superpower. The victory and superiority led to a new critical crisis. As Paul Romer has said “A crisis is a terrible thing to waste.” Could Americans learn from this crisis and move forward?

  36. Questions?Xie XieZai Jian

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