You mean....we are not #1? America first, or last?

I am glad I don't hear that nonsense being shouted out anymore. The more stats you look at, the more America looks like it is slipping down a greasy slope into becoming a cesspool of the World, a 3rd-World pit. The current MisAdministration has done everything in its power to accelerate that decline, IMHO, from policies to appointees. It's a high-speed train to desolation.

I am not being a Debbie Downer about it. When you start with an accurate assessment of the situation, it becomes possible to reverse the trend. Truth works. We cannot pretend that the last thirty-years or so have been a period of general improvement for Americans at large; it is only for the few at our expense.

If you doubt that, look at the shrinking of the middle-class that requires debt just to keep playing. Look at the increases in homelessness and poverty and resorting to draconian measures to deal with what are actually symptoms of systemic and economic problems and a crisis that is blooming. Look at debt vs. savings. Look at our crumbling infrastructure, it's still dissolving before our very eyes, (hey, what was that sound?). Look at the unabated and growing flow of wealth, property and resources to a small percentage of our population. Look at the move to literally take food out of the mouths of children and seniors by attacking the vital SNAP program we have. Look at access to health care and the skyrocketing costs both for the care itself and the coverage of insurance where premiums go up along with deductibles, etc. Look at the dramatic shift from home ownership, etc., to a rentier system where investment groups buy everything up and we rent it. Isn't ownership a key aspect of capitalism? What happens when it becomes exclusive to a few? Oligarchy?

That's the short list. Look. Number one at what? Maybe exploitation, privileged and exclusion from the process?

San Diego is an awesome town...Pay us visit...but please leave when you're done! LOL!

Nashville when I was there a couple weeks ago, LOL.

Lucky you, to live in San Diego! I was conceived there, before Dad shipped out to the South Pacific in WWII.

But my mother returned to her family in MT to wait out the war, so I was born in MT, as were my other siblings.

Even though we loved MT, I never could understand why she would have left SD!!! She had a job there and her landlady wanted to babysit so that Mom could continue in the workforce. I could have even grown up bilingual because her landlady was Latina.

Ah, the paths not taken!

Yeah, I know, San Diego is a Navy & Marine town...so why did an Army officer end up here!

I was conceived in Dachau and born in Munich. I always joke that when the East Germans found out I was born they built a wall in Berlin to keep me out!

We had a German nanny to help out (sort of, but not full on nanny...Mom wouldn't stand for that). Her husband was killed in WWII, Frau Rauscher (I think). 5 kids, and the last two, me and my brother are 11 months apart...so yeah, Mom needed some help.

things ended up working out for you. But your poor mom! She must have been quite a woman!