Third World America: How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Ordinary Citizen - Softcover

Arianna Huffington

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007437315 ISBN 13: 9780007437313

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers, 2011

Synopsis

It's not an exaggeration to say that "middle-class" Americans, the hard-working, average citizen on an average income, are an endangered species and that the American Dream of a secure, comfortable standard of living has become outdated. The United States of America is in danger of becoming a Third World nation. The evidence is all around: its industrial base is vanishing, taking with it the kind of jobs that have formed the backbone of America's economy for more than a century; the education system is in shambles, making it harder for tomorrow's workforce to acquire the information and training it needs to land good twenty-first-century jobs; its infrastructure - roads, bridges, water, and electrical systems - is crumbling; its economic system has been reduced to recurring episodes of Corporations Gone Wild; and its political system is broken, in thrall to a small financial elite using the power of the chequebook to control both parties. And America's "middle class" (roughly defined as having an income bracket of GBP15k - GBP65k per year), the driver of so much of the country's economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing this democracy to confront the fear that it is slipping as a nation - that its children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - it is an American Nightmare of their own making. Arianna Huffington, editor in chief of the must-read Huffington Post, has her finger on the pulse of America and unflinchingly tracks the gradual demise of the nation as an industrial, political, and economic leader in the vein of her fiery bestseller Pigs at the Trough, and details who's killing the American Dream. Calling on the can-do attitude that is part of America's DNA, Huffington shows precisely what needs to be done to stop the free fall and keep the country from turning into a Third World nation. Third World America is required reading for anyone who is disturbed by the United States' steady descent from twentieth-century superpower to backwater banana republic, and serves as a cautionary tale for other industrialised nations.

About this title

About the Author

Arianna Huffington is the cofounder and editor in chief of Huffington Post, a nationally syndicated columnist, and the author of thirteen books. She is also the co-host of Left, Right & Centre, American public radio's popular political roundtable program. She was named to Time magazine's list of the world's one hundred most influential people and to the Financial Times' list of fifty people who shaped the decade. Originally from Greece, she moved to England when she was sixteen and graduated from Cambridge University with an MA in economics.

Review

From Booklist -Starred Review Huffington argues that overspending on war at the expense of domestic issues and the alarming decline of the middle class are troubling signals that the US is losing its economic, political, and social stability... She pinpoints the beginning of the decline to the Reagan era, with its denigration of a government safety net. But she is nonpartisan in assigning responsibility to George W. Bush and Bill Clinton for supporting monied interests over those of the middle class; she then takes aim at Obama for expending more money to bail out Wall Street than Main Street. She also points to loss of manufacturing jobs, outsourcing, and globalization, all with emphasis on corporate profits at the expense of workers. Although the US has faced similarly fearful times during the late 1800s and the Great Depression, the middle class was not threatened as it is today...An engaging analysis of troubling economic and political trends. An alarming account - Joseph Stiglitz A voice of conscience in a time when we need conscience more than ever. - Elizabeth Warren, Harvard Law School professor and author of The Two-Income Trap In precise, graphic, and shocking terms that will bring the crisis home to everyone...Huffington explains why special interests have become too powerful, money dominates our politics, and there is no sense of empathy or even shame amongst our elite. The national spirit that built America...lies in tatters. - Simon Johnson, professor of economics at MIT Sloan School of Business and co-author of 13 Bankers Huffington is one of the very few people in America committed to saying things the way they are and to expose the monstrous elephants in the room ignored by the dominant discourse -Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author The Black Swan A book for our times - Robert B. Reich, former US Secretary of Labor

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers
• Publication date: 2011
• ISBN 10: 0007437315
• ISBN 13: 9780007437313
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288