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I know it used to be this way in America. In Japan, honor and respect are much more valuable than money. If you had a guest come to stay in your house in Japan and you had no money, you would borrow money - you would do something - in order to treat your guest with the utmost respect. It is absolutely unheard of to ask a guest for money.
It reminds me of that Chevy Chase movie Vegas Vacation where he and his family visit his wife's broke family and the brother-in-law says to Chevy, "Would you like a cold one?"
Chevy answers, "Sure!"
To which the brother-in-law replies, "Me too. Got any money?"
That was a joke in a movie released in 1997. It's not a joke any more in today's America.
From what I've seen, the average 30-year-old college-educated guy in America today is getting paid less than I was paid in 1975 as a part-time commission salesman at Sears Roebuck department store. I have friends who tell me that they are getting six or eight dollars an hour right now. At 40 hours a week, that works out to about $320, less taxes. In 1975 I was getting paid over $1,000 per month after taxes - and those were 1975 dollars. I'm no economist, but it sure comes as no surprise that today's young American has no money left to save after receiving this paltry income.
When my friend took me around, driving through the city and out to Camp Casey, we stopped at a gasoline stand. Of course I volunteered to pay. He was complaining about the sudden rise in the price of gasoline. Here was where I witnessed just another small item that made me sure that America is headed for third world status, if it is not already there. He was complaining about gasoline at $3 a gallon. I hear that in Atlanta, after Hurricane Katrina, it hit $6 a gallon.
I shook my head and thought, When are these crazy people going to wake up? Apparently it's good that the USA invaded Iraq to secure oil. Japan has no natural resources. America does. America even has its own oil. Guess what? About seven years ago, the price for a liter of gasoline in Japan was 100 yen (3.78 liters per gallon). The price today is about 125 yen per liter. That means today's price for a gallon of gasoline in Japan, a nation that produces no oil, is about $4.58 - an increase of 25% over the last seven years. Now, it doesn't take much of a math whiz to figure out that if the prices at the pumps in America - a nation that produces oil - have doubled in the last few years, there's something strange going on. How is it possible that Japan's gasoline prices have just barely inched up over these past few years, at about 3% per year, while USA prices have doubled or more?
Is it just the Iraq war? Or is it the decline of the dollar? Probably a bit of both, but you can definitely be sure of one thing, it is the US government taking advantage of you - regardless of whether you are a Democrat or Republican. And the average American still cheers on the federal monster.
After filling up, we headed back onto the freeway. I looked at the scenery and had a feeling of déjà vu. I thought to myself, Hey! I've seen this before. Now where did I see it? Then it came back to me: The road leading to Crawford looked an awful lot like the road leading from Phuket International Airport towards Patong Beach - a nice place, but definitely not a road leading through a world power.
Every once in a while we would pass through some small town - the buildings decayed and shuttered, a shadow of what it once was. And besides the rundown buildings and the empty streets, there was the filth. It was everywhere - everything seemed broken down. Public restrooms reeked as if they'd never been cleaned. Every once in a while I would see a solitary homeless figure - dazed and disheveled - walking by the side of the road. It looked just like some third world nation. You'd never see such poverty in Japan. But that's today's United States.
Americans are always boasting about how they are the richest and the freest, etc., etc. But from the eyes of this American son, America's twilight has fallen. It is getting dark. I cannot see any way out of the disaster you folks are headed for. The problems are too numerous, the needed debate unheard, and the psyche already destroyed.
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