[John Filson]

You're conveniently forgetting how optimistic the 1950s were. You can measure the economic health of a nation by its birth rate. Native-born American birthrates were very high in the 1950s. Now they're practically negative. Why is that, bayourod? Show me the native-born economic optimism. It's gone missing. You're clueless as to where it's gone, but it's definitely gone. It would be easy to bring it back, but that's not what interests you.

[A. Pole]

Native-born American birthrates were very high in the 1950s. Now they're practically negative.

As it should be according to the free trade rules. See my tagline.

[henderson field]

To John Filson - don't blame bayourod. People like him have been told what to think.

[bayourod]

"Show me the native-born economic optimism. It's gone missing. You're clueless as to where it's gone, but it's definitely gone."

Consumer confidence is very high right now according to the latest numbers released this last week.

And you're right, when optimism goes someplace I don't know where it goes. Probably someplace up North.

[Nowhere Man]

You say America has the strongest economy ever? In the 1950s America was the economy of the world. We made and consumed our own products. Those were real jobs for real people, not the imaginary ones in the shrinking service sector we have now. In the 1950s we still had homesteading in Alaska. Property values were reasonable even in growing areas. You live in a fantasy world if you think America is stronger today economically than it was in 1950. But then again, you'll say anything to keep us in the status quo. That's what you do: shill for the status quo.

I know a part of that was that most of the world was blown up in World War II but even so we still produced most or all what we need or at least we had the capability to. We are lacking that today and I believe "free trade" or at least the free trade contingent fail to see that we are trading our souls, sovereingty and well being for the sake of quick profits. We are too busy looking to the next quarter instead of the next year, 5 years, 10 years or even 50 years. I talked to an online acquaintence in Holland where he weighed in on some of this and came up with the perfect "cliff notes" to this problem, a lot of the free trade business crowd are like "calculators without a vision." Plus in the 1950's and 1960's, we had vision, such as the space race for example, today we are lacking in that and sad to say, President Bush is a bit deflated in vision when you go beyond the War on Terror. I listen to Michael Savage a lot and he made a good point to where we need leadership and we ain't quite getting that.

[Melas]

You can measure the economic health of a nation by its birth rate.

No, actually, the more affluent a nation, the lower its birth rate. 3rd world countries tend to have very high birth rates, like Mexico, the very subject of this thread.

[janetgreen]

Native-born American birthrates were very high in the 1950s. Now they're practically negative.

Many young American couples realize that they can't support a large family when they are also forced to support the welfare state too.