COVID19- Where Did America Go Wrong?
5 Decades of 3 Grave Fatal Attractions — Result is 66,570+ Deaths and Ongoing Misery! So How to Make America Great Again?
The COVID-19 deaths, the speed at which the virus spread, the confusion, the helplessness, the political conflicts, the neglect, etc., hurt the USA in a big way.
Many foes of the USA and many followers, who could not get a footing in the USA as well enjoyed the suffering of the USA. There’s a mischievous pleasure to be derived from watching the enviable and rich fall from grace. There is even a name for it: schadenfreude [ shahd-n-froi-duh ]. It’s a German word that means secretly enjoying seeing other people go through rough times.
The global common peaceful future is diminishing. I am in New York City. It is the epicenter source for this newly learned human anti-empathy behavior — schadenfreude. Through my ‘stay-at-home’ status, watching the Nature’s spring painting of south of Queens and silent skies of JFK Airport, I am sad to see the naked negative human behavior.
A tiny, tiny virus is teaching the mighty, mighty billion times bigger man a lesson to remember — “There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch”! Isn’t this a simple American expression for a long time? In economics, it demonstrates ‘opportunity cost.’ How did America forget it? Where did all our brilliant brains go wrong?
The United States of America and its founding fathers created a place on earth that can be the most advanced one for ‘Free mind’ to grow, ‘Free man’ to contribute, to advance the ever-evolving man with freedom. At the same time expressing the utmost empathy, the Lady Liberty welcomed millions of immigrants saying.
‘Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
………………………….
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!’
Besides, the USA opened its doors for everyone who has the potential to contribute or stretch the horizons of the human mind. Engineers, Doctors, Scientists, Thinkers, Artists, and several others were welcomed with good jobs and were added to the education system of the USA to enrich it. Millions came flocking in the USA for the past several decades.
Now the USA has 44.7 million immigrants, with 12.0 Million (27%) illegal immigrants, accumulated over the years. Irresponsible behavior of successive administrations resulted in a sizeable criminal noncitizen population.
Yet, the USA prides itself as a nation built by immigrants. Agriculture, Infrastructure, Industrial production, Academic excellence, and every aspect of human excellence flourished here on this land. But, a lot of harm to the country is done. The following three points may explain a good deal of it.
1. The lure of Chinese factories with the cheapest labor that drained the USA’s manufacturing,
2. Cheap labor coming to the USA from various countries made citizens and legal immigrants unable to compete for work.
According to the co-authors George Borjas, Jeffrey Grogger, and Gordon Hanson of National Bureau of Economic Research publication 12518, ‘The 1980–2000 immigrant influx, therefore, generally ‘explains’ about 20 to 60 percent of the decline in wages, 25 percent of the decline in employment, and about 10 percent of the rise in incarceration rates among blacks with a high school education or less.’
3. Meaningless ideological wars have been draining not only more than $ 500 billion annually, and all the moral leadership also.
The United States has approximately 800 formal military bases in 80 countries, a number that could exceed 1,000 if you count troops stationed at embassies and missions and so-called “lily-pond” bases, with some 138,000 soldiers stationed around the globe.
In my view, these aspects derailed the progress of the USA. COVID19 precipitated the uncertain and bleak future upon the USA. The price for the ‘cheap opportunities’ is being paid through the death and suffering of innocent people. This is the price of abusing the founding father’s ideals for vote bank politics.
Why Queens became the Epicenter?
Several politicians pride themselves in that Queens is “The capital of linguistic diversity, not just for the five boroughs, but for the human species, is Queens.” Now ‘New York City intends to serve meals to strengthen its vote bank. This shows that the specific areas of NYC have significant poverty.
The official data presented above indicate that widespread poverty in Queens, much more than some of the developing countries, for example, Dhaka, Bangladesh.
Why New York, the financial capital of the world, has poverty double than the national levels of poverty, 11.8%? Who are these poor people in Queens? Why are they here? How did they come here? Who made them poor?
What is the result of their poverty? See the graph below.
Hoboken, NJ, even though a smaller area is comparable to the New York city population density. Hoboken, NJ, and other comparable regions are not affected this severely. It could be because Queens is home to an estimated 246,000 of the city’s 643,000 illegal immigrants, making much more crowded than the published report.
Thus poverty is the main answer in making New York the COVID 19 Epicenter!
Therefore the BIG lesson from the TINY VIRUS — forget about cheap products and services. If the USA needs immigrants, bring them with good wages and life. Please do not let them live in poverty. It hurts not just morally but fatally also!
Make in America and make America Great again!
