A very good post, Robert, but I hope you don't mind if I add a few clarifications.

First you point out:

OF COURSE we are the greatest consumer of oil in the world. One in four barrels in the world production for just 4% of the population. Hurrah for us.

... and then you point out:

The GDP for the world is 54 trillion in 2007, and we were close to 14 trillion of that total. That is 4% of the people with over a quarter of the goodies.

Now, let us assume that America is consuming other world resources roughly at the same rate that we are consuming oil (4% of the world's population consuming about 25% of the world market for that resource --- this probably is very generally true, except for food, since America is still a major exporter of raw food commodities such as corn, soy, wheat, etc.)

Next, let's be very clear that the GDP, the Gross Domestic Product, is the total value of all the goods and services that we produce --- so, likewise, 4% of the world's population is also producing over 25% of the world's output.

In other words, American consume resources roughly in the same proportion to the rate at which they produce valuables. Moreover, a very good slice of the 25% of world resources we consume constitute simply the raw materials that are inputted into our economic engine --- for example, we use a lot of petroleum, but a certain percentage of that petroleum is used by farmers to produce their corn, soy, and wheat. So when looked at this way, one can see that a certain amount of these astronomical stats about American consumption is a consequence of America being an economic engine that is running at supersonic speed while the rest of the world's economies (generally) run at 30 MPH or slower. America takes raw materials and ... CRUNCH! turns them into ready-to-use products and ready-to-benefit services like crazy. Not that I love John McCain, but he is correct when he says the American worker is strong ... stronger and more empowered than any other workers in the world: CRUNCH! CRUNCH! CRUNCH! It bears pointing out that some of this export is survival products (such as corn and soy) while some of it is intellectual products (such as academic research results, new theories in about every area of study imaginable, literature, and entertainment products such as theater, movies, music, television and sports).

Another part of the Big Picture, and Robert, you allude to this briefly, is that no other country in the world exports foreign aid at a level anywhere near what we do. The 79 billion surplus in Iraq came from two sources: (1) oil money they stockpiled, and (2) American foreign aid that they stockpiled. My guess is that it is more (2) than (1).

But yes, China and India are learning the CRUNCH! routine pretty well. In the meantime, the routine itself is undergoing massive re-design because we (the world) needs to learn how to make it run on renewable resources instead of the petroleum that we will eventually run out of --- and we will need to learn how to dump our waste heat into space if we can't make the CRUNCH routine a net zero-heat process.

P.S. Robert, you also said:

Of course, no golden parachutes. Those who broke the law should be punished accordingly ...

Unfortunately, for the most part, the business executives that made this mess did not break laws: The genius of their criminality was in manipulating the system such that they prevented the appropriate and necessary laws and regulations from being enacted in the first place.

I haven’t been forced to sit through an “Up with America" sloganfest since high school, but the paytriotism of supporters of the bailout reminds me of that painful experience.

The truth is that no fig leaf is large enough to hide the economic open sores of the US nor will they prevent sepsis. The US is a debtor nation because of the massive amounts of capital consumed by the one tenth of one percent of the population who dispose of unassailable wealth and power. And now they demand that we pay their debts. That’s arrogance personified.

The US may be headed for a depression and will definitely experience a deep recession combined with stagflation, which is inflation combined with a dwindling of jobs, losses in wages and the end of social programs and they want us to pay for it! Immediate collapse is not inevitable, but whatever happens working people will pay an awful price for this latest failure of capitalism, for the war, and for a Congress and White House who grovel at the feet of the rich.

Because they’re rich and get even richer during recessions and depressions, they’re able to smirk and advise us saying “Don’t Worry! Be happy! We’ll get through this together!”

There are good reasons though, to feel optimistic about the US. In 1776 a great revolutionary upheaval rocked North America. Unrelenting and unyielding, the struggle for sovereignty shook the entrenched tyranny of the Brits, and shattered dreams of empire. In 1860 another great social upheaval put down the arrogance and treason of the criminal Southern slave-owners. Both events fundamentally altered the nation.

A new temblor has been powering up for decades. In the last thirty years growing numbers of working people have taken a beating, forced to work longer and harder to make ends meet. From the end of the Second World War until the 1970’s the economic successes of working people, based on the victories of the unions smoothed over the jagged edges of a society run by and for the rich.

That period ended with the NAFTA union busting by Clinton, the deregulation of Carter, Reagan, Clinton and the Bushes, and the Clinton/Bush war, fissuring and fracturing are again showing up across the social landscape.

It began during Nixon’s second term as inflation, ignited and fueled by the war in Vietnam, began to smolder through the economy. Carter continued it with deregulation, Reagan busted the Air Traffic Controllers unions, Bush1 and Clinton went to war, decimated welfare, deregulated the predators and decimated social programs. Bush2 carried it forward and added a dangerous attack on civil liberties, which McCain and Obama support.

Now, 40 some years later, the economic security that many took for granted is lost, replaced by mounting anger and anxiety. Unions, our first line of defense against the arrogant greed of the rich, operate at a disadvantage. Subject to a government of, for and by the rich, they’re boxed in on all sides by anti- union laws like NAFTA, and the rich who wouldn’t dream of regulating themselves enforce anti-union regulations with a vengeance. Many of the leaders of the AFL-CIO leaders are mired in accomodationist Democratic (sic) Party and have tied their own hands. Their weaknesses, combined with the steady wearing down of our standards of living and mounting poverty has cracked the daydream of social harmony.

Like the disquieting jerks and shudders that occasionally rumbled through the body politic before the detonations of 1775 and 1860, new shocks and tremors are signaling the approach of another great shaker. Razor sharp divisions are once again shredding the national consensus. The ‘middle ground’, once so beloved by slippery politicians, is now just a place where they’re sniped at by all sides.

What really makes this country great is that Americans are ready to unleash the convulsive energies of latent social antagonisms. In 1776, 1860, with the growth of unions, civil rights struggles and the antiwar movement, working people and farmers have proven their willingness to turn on their masters with sudden and explosive fury. These deep-rooted processes evolve at their own tempo and nobody can say when it’ll happen again but the next one will give us the chance to again fundamentally restructure North American societies. It’ll be great fun.

And in the elections, remember to write in a protest vote, or vote for the US Labor Party, or for socialist or communist candidates. It’s better, paraphrasing Gene Debs, to vote for what you want and not get it than to vote for what you don’t want and get it. If you can stomach four more years of war, pandering to bigots and bailing out the rich Obama’s your candidate. Or McCain, it makes no difference.

What we definitely don’t want are any more big defeats like Clintons DOMA so vote against the anti-GLBT same sex marriage initiatives in Californian, Arizona and Florida.

Mr. Gym Teacher, a man your age should not stay up so late. I have lived overseas one year next Wednesday. My ancestor came to Indiana in 1816 and the land he farmed is still in my family. I know a little bit about working people because they were the only people I knew growing up.

I know the ills and disparities of income of the United States which are trivial when compared to the big wide world you are afraid to visit. You know I have a burning desire for universal health care, but you are showboating for your self imagined "audience" as usual.

Your criticism betrays your coddled lifestyle in your apartment building with all those postage stamp sized swimming pools, running water, electricity, air conditioning, telephones, food and all the leisure you have to submit your voting commercial over and again.

Seventy percent of the world can only dream of what you have deservedly or not. The starving billion of our fellow humans and those just getting by are the people worst affected by our economic downturn

If a sizable percentage of the American voters are not stupid, selfish, lazy and uninvolved how do you explain their voter turnout?, or for that matter the right wing fundie voter turnout? And if they are suffering and are not bright enough to organize to effect change they would view to be in their interest (which would mean leaving their precious television sets) who am I or you to tell them what to do as they consume the most calories per head in the world.

How can you explain that Americans are so poorly traveled outside the United States. Oh, they might miss McDonald's too much! They have no curiosity to find out why "terrorists" wish to attack them while they nest deeper and deeper into their sofa with their dish of ice cream.

And no, gym teacher, I don't get you. For that much I am grateful.

Without us producing, and a vibrant banking system to support our production, the suffering in the world would be too awful to think about.

Vibrant banking system?

And without the violence we perpetrate on other countries in the name of Freedom. Democracy and yes even Aid much of this suffering wouldn't occur. At www.globalgagrule.org you can read about the effects of the global gag order.

we are also the luckiest people in the world.

We are not lucky. The positions we are in now have been provided by racism, imperialism, war, etc.

I agree with pooboi on a lot of what he says: we're not lucky, and you can't look at the economic disparity between us and other countries without first looking at violence, since violence is how we got that wealth.

Besides that, I'd dispute the math scores fact, because the last international test on that subject tested only the college-track kids in most western countries, and up to age 21 in many of those countries (including France). The US was the only one that tested a random sampling of high school seniors.

But it doesn't justify how we live. We think it's OK to steal wealth from other countries and then bicker over who gets more in the US, but it's not.

Don't hold back, Robert. Tell us how you really feel!