‘Mick, seriously man. America is a third world country.’
‘You’re a Wally mate, how can you say it is a third world country.’
‘Where are you going?’
‘Gunna take a piss.’
‘Get me a beer while you’re there.’
‘K.’
John took a swig from his stubby, finishing it. He sat there for a moment looking around the backyard. They’d been sitting out here for a few hours. Michelle and the girls had gone to bed long ago, and it was just him and his good mate, sitting outside in the cold enjoying the fire, catching up.
The fire was starting to die down so he lent into the fire, poked it around a bit with the fire poker, reached into the sack beside him and pulled out two pieces of wood. He’d placed it there for this exact reason.
He figured Mick had the smaller bladder, so with him running to the loo after every beer, and returning with two fresh ones, John was set, he could sit here without his seat going cold for hours.
‘Here you go.’
‘Thanks. I am serious, you think about it, the place is all mixed up. The richest 1% of the place has about 40% of the wealth, whilst the bottom 90% hold, like 75% of the debt. The minimum wage is $7.25 American, that’s like $9.66 Australian. My 16 year old nephew pulls about 16 bucks an hour.’
'How Does that make it a third world country.'
'Mate there are 45 million people below the poverty line, there's about 30 shootings; manslaughter or murder every day. 175 people die every day due to opioid's. Add to that about 1,000 police shootings a year, It's incredible.'
'That's some serious numbers. How do you know all of this?'
'I read and look at stuff, and I'm not talking about leftie or fascist sites, simple statistics sites. Did you know in the 14 years of the Iraq war, there's only been about 4,500 american soldiers killed, a lot injured but only 4,500 odd killed.'
'what do you mean Only, that's a lot for a year or two.'
'Mick, that's not a year or two, that's 14 years, 2003 till now. Think about it. 11,000 people a year killed by guns in America in any one year. Do the math, American's kill Americans at 34 times the rate of soldiers dying in the iraq war.'
'That's mind boggling. Still doesn't make them a third world country.'
'So you say there a first world. What's that mean?'
'I don't know, it means that they are the wealthiest I s'pose.'
'So Wealth is the measure of a society?'
'Well, Yeah; isn't it?'
'Sort of, it came after the 2nd world war. Sort of splitting the world up on geopolitical lines. First world was the democratic-industrial countries, Second was the Eastern Bloc you know, Russia, China, Cuba. Then the 3rd world is the remaining three quarters of the globe.'
'Oh.'
'OK so you could explore it in the definition of a third world. Third worlds have high infant mortality, America has the highest mortality rate out of the so called first world countries. A third world has low economic development.'
'Hang on a tic, America has great Economic development.'
'Do they?'
'Yeah I'm sure of it.'
'Actually, I don't know, I was hoping you did. Anyway, third worlds have little to no middle class. that is the have a very small elite upper class controlling the countries wealth and resources.'
'S'pose Trumps galling it again, wanting to make America great again.'
'Funny, that reminds me, third worlds have economies dependent on the developed countries; he definitely has something right, he needs to work out how to tackle that.'
'So Trump. I imagine you've got quite an opinion on him.'
'Should I put another log on the fire?'
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