Third World

The Republican oligarchy has done its best to turn the US into a third-world country not only socially but economically as well. I noted a couple of days ago the impact the Bush administration and its policies have had on the economy. There's more evidence of the sad truth in this story from NYT:

Fierce competition from new providers has pushed the level of broadband subscriptions in eight European countries above the levels in the United States and Japan, according to figures to be released Wednesday.

Growth could accelerate further if the European Commission succeeds in a drive to jolt those countries still dominated by former state monopolies, according to the top telecommunications regulator in Brussels.

The commission says the European Union added 19 million broadband lines in 2007, the equivalent of more than 50,000 households per day.

“We have four countries that are world leaders — Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and Finland,” said Viviane Reding, the European telecommunications commissioner. “We have eight countries which have higher penetration rates than the U.S. and Japan. We are not doing badly at all.”

Did you notice -- the European regulatory agencies are pushing for competition. Meanwhile, our own FCC wants to give all of our media outlets to Rupert Murdoch, while Congress wants to give the Internet to Verizon and AT&T.

And nobody wants to be holding dollars, once the prize currency of the world.

The state of the American economy may not matter as much to corporations as we might think. Most of the biggest are multinationals, and as long as the European and Japanese economies can hold their own, they're not gong to be hurting.

Welcome to the plutocracy.