- the largest amount of military spending as a portion of GDP;
- the largest amount of international arms sales;
- the largest negative balance of payments (except New Zealand, Spain and Portugal);
- the lowest scores for student performance in math (except for Portugal and Italy) (and far down from the top in both science and reading);
- the highest high school drop out rate (except for Spain);
And now, to top it off, America is leading all other industrialized democracies by bringing back debtors' prisons!
Millions of folks around the good ol' USA have been
screwed over by predatory lenders and fine-print credit card contracts, and
now, partly because of that, many of them are swimming in debt. And now, some
of these people are actually being thrown in prison for going into debt.
That's right, America
in the 21st century is bringing back debtors' prisons! People who can't pay off their credit cards
can now be thrown in jail in a third of the states in our nation -- and since
the start of 2010, over 5,000 arrest
warrants have been issued against people who owe as little as $1,000 to massively profitable corporations like
Capital One. (Source: Thom Hartmann's emailed newsletter)
So let me get this straight. A few years after the financial crisis, where massive fraud was perpetrated by Wall Street, not one bankster is in jail, but 5,000 lower- or middle-class Americans, who were screwed over by these banksters, were sent to debtors' prison??!
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