two signs the USA is becoming 3rd world

[cindy25]

I noticed in the past few months the following:

1) people are using homemade envelopes, by folding and pasting/taping a pc of paper.
the only other time I remember this is when someone I knew rec'd a large amount of mail from Africa in the 90s, and the mail from Zimbabwe tended to be with homemade envelopes.

2) people are not using rain slickers
when I was in college in the 70s nearly every girl, and many of the guys had slickers, usually yellow. we moved quickly from car to class, from bldg to bldg. now there seems to be a complacency or a slowness. I remember being in China/HK in the mid 80s, and HK people moved fast especially when it rained. In China they just got wet.

[Dreamofunity]

I see people here in rain slickers.

I thought it was a weird fashion trend. At least now I know my area is 2nd world +.

[KCIndy]

I've NEVER used a rain slicker.

Rain slickers are for wussies! :p

[Icymudpuppy]

Slickers? Are you kidding me?

I wear a hat and leather. Oiled leather is warmer and just as waterproof as that silly plastic jacket.

[Bruno]

Not sure how to respond to these observations...

[silentshout]

It rarely rains where i live, sadly, so i don't even know what a rain slicker is. I do use an umbrella sometimes.

[Ekrub]

I just got a "Members Only" Jacket. Kind of like a fashionable rain slicker.

[MelissaCato]

I noticed with the new group of school kids my son hangs out with this year all come over after school to do homework. My sons bedtime is 8:30pm so we eat dinner early around 4:00pm with a fruit snack before bed. The kids don't leave till we eat dinner.

Yesterday as soon as the kids got to my place they were anxious to know the weeks menue ? I was never asked that before so seriously from 2 of the kids.

I asked themf their parents knew they eat here every school day and they said yes, they are allowed to. I got the group of 4 kids together and asked them all what they usually had for dinner and all 4 said they usually only eat in school and on the weekends. Brought tears to my eyes.

Of all the years living here and my sons friends coming over ... this is the first and it is bad.

Ron Paul has to win in 2012 ... this is BS kids not eating because the parents don't make enough @ work and only pay bills to keep roofs over their head... noone should go hungry in this country for Gods sake.

If more kids start showing up here to eat, I'll have to start a chip-in to feed them .. I can't afford to feed 4-5-6 extra kids myself. Wish I could.

[Zippyjuan]

No rain slickers = third world, huh? The definition has really changed over the years.

[fisharmor]

this is BS kids not eating because the parents don't make enough @ work and only pay bills to keep roofs over their head... noone should go hungry in this country for Gods sake.

When I was very young, the culinary boogeyman-du-jour was sugar.... regular old sugar. Parents were as apoplectic about sugar then as they are about HFCS today.

My mom asked our doctor about sugar and whether it was that big a deal... and his response put a pretty fine point on it:
This is a generation of kids where we worry about what they eat, and not that they eat.

That was the 1970s. It really hasn't been that long since people in this country went hungry sometimes, and it won't take long to get us all back there.

Of course, there's also the stark reality that those kids' parents have two cars and cell phones and laptops and hi-def cable pumped onto their LCD TVs.
Ron Paul isn't going to protect us from bad parenting.
Nobody is.

[oyarde]

I've NEVER used a rain slicker.

Rain slickers are for wussies! :p

Affirmative .

[oyarde]

No rain slickers = third world, huh? The definition has really changed over the years.

If you have been in the third world , the middle class uses a trash bag .

[amy31416]

Ya know what else people don't use anymore?

Galoshes!

Oh noooooo!

This has to be the silliest thing I've read in a while, when I was a kid, my mother used to "reinforce" the waterproofing in my boots by making me wear bread bags over my feet--and we were solid middle class. Nobody made fun of it either. Nor did they make fun of the fact that my mom packed my lunch every day--only the poor kids bought the crappy food in the cafeteria using some sort of gov't subsidy program.

[KCIndy]

Ya know what else people don't use anymore?

Galoshes!

Oh noooooo!




Galoshes? You mean those crazy newfangled things that seem to have replaced spats?

I'm 102. I miss spats.

[Natalie]

I've never worn a rain slicker in my life.

[KCIndy]

If more kids start showing up here to eat, I'll have to start a chip-in to feed them .. I can't afford to feed 4-5-6 extra kids myself. Wish I could.

Try 'em out on a dinner of liver and onions with sides of creamed spinach, Brussels sprouts and Lima beans.

If they come back for more after that, you'll know they're seriously hungry. I'll even chip in for the liver if you surprise them with it and YouTube it!! :D

[fisharmor]

My daughter begs my wife to buy Brussels Sprouts every time they're in the grocer together.
Lots of vegetables are fantastic if you reject the war babies' basic premise that anything with cellulose in it needs to be boiled to a mush.

[oyarde]

Try 'em out on a dinner of liver and onions with sides of creamed spinach, Brussels sprouts and Lima beans.

If they come back for more after that, you'll know they're seriously hungry. I'll even chip in for the liver if you surprise them with it and YouTube it!! :D

I actually like liver and onions every great once in a while .

[amy31416]

Galoshes? You mean those crazy newfangled things that seem to have replaced spats?

I'm 102. I miss spats.

lol

I honestly wasn't that familiar with galoshes, I looked 'em up and they go all the way back to the Middle Ages, so yer safe. :)

[JustinTime]

When people get poor, they cant afford proper fasion and start trying to dress like the guy on the fishsticks box. Sad.

[QueenB4Liberty]

I have a rain slicker and wellies. (galoshes) I got soaked walking from the bus to my building in downtown Houston one day, so I figured I'd invest in something to keep covered. (This was with an umbrella too, the wind blows the rain so the umbrella doesn't help much) and it hasn't poured like that since. :p

[BlackTerrel]

I noticed in the past few months the following:

1) people are using homemade envelopes, by folding and pasting/taping a pc of paper.
the only other time I remember this is when someone I knew rec'd a large amount of mail from Africa in the 90s, and the mail from Zimbabwe tended to be with homemade envelopes.

2) people are not using rain slickers
when I was in college in the 70s nearly every girl, and many of the guys had slickers, usually yellow. we moved quickly from car to class, from bldg to bldg. now there seems to be a complacency or a slowness. I remember being in China/HK in the mid 80s, and HK people moved fast especially when it rained. In China they just got wet.

This sounds exactly like Somalia. It's uncanny really.

[james1906]

I noticed in the past few months the following:

1) people are using homemade envelopes, by folding and pasting/taping a pc of paper.
the only other time I remember this is when someone I knew rec'd a large amount of mail from Africa in the 90s, and the mail from Zimbabwe tended to be with homemade envelopes.

2) people are not using rain slickers
when I was in college in the 70s nearly every girl, and many of the guys had slickers, usually yellow. we moved quickly from car to class, from bldg to bldg. now there seems to be a complacency or a slowness. I remember being in China/HK in the mid 80s, and HK people moved fast especially when it rained. In China they just got wet.

Andy Rooney, is that you?

[libertybrewcity]

wth do rain slickers have to do with being 3rd world? I was thinking more along the lines of the insane regulations, more federal government control, and movement of wealth from the middle and poor classes to the upper class.

[libertarian4321]

This thread is just weird.

Last time I wore a rain slicker was maybe 1975.

I can't explain the envelope thing.

Get some of the truthers to come up with a fanciful conspiracy theory that will explain it.

[Daamien]

These are really weird observations. My area is still clearly 1st-World.

By the way, this guy just looks awesome:
http://www.outfitterssupply.com/images/WRG355Y.jpg

[Daamien]

andy rooney, is that you?

rofl!