Let's summarize what the writer said in the article...

• Americans seems unable to grasp the magnitude of the challenges facing us. Too many Americans operate on the assumption that the U.S. is number 1 in lots of areas and will remain in that position.
  
• Our success today is the result of decisions made in the 1950's and 1960's, decisions to invest in infrastructure, education and the like.
  
• A look at the current situation might be a precursor of the future. Amercia is currwntly falling well behind in education compared to all other developed countries. We have the highest level of crime and by far the largest amount of debt among the developed countries in the world.
  
• Other countries are bypassing America in many areas not because we made mistakes, but because they are developing using the same approaches we took decades ago. Yet too many Americans simply refuse to admit how we have slipped with regard to many other countries.
  
• The six things that we did that lead to our success are exactly the same things that China, India and the like are now doing: reliance on competition, modern science, the rule of law, modern medicine, consumerism and a high work ethic.
  
• A worldwide technological revolution has permitted countries bent on improving their lot to out-compete the U.S. in many areas. Yet our leaders spend their time debating inconsequential issues.
  
• Our Congress refuses to consider making the changes so obviously needed to align our spending with our revenues. Instead they are talking of cutting programs that are likely to damage our ability to compete in the oong term, even thought he savings are so small as to be meaningless.
  
• Our elected leaders govern for purely political purposes, serving special interests who fund their re-election and avoiding presumably unpopular decisions even though they are so obviously needed.
  
• History of nations which have declined, Great Britain, demonstrate that with success their populations grew complacent and rigid, and they became more interested in the distribution of wealth rather than growth and the creation of more wealth.
  
• A crucial beginning of the U.S. being able to turn things around would be an honest assessment of where we stand and where we want to be in many areas. Yet because so many believe there is little to be learned from countries that have already surpassed us, that they refuse to consider the need for such a re-assessment. That attitude pervades both the general piblic as well as those they elect to represent them.
• Our government spends way too much on things that do nothing to encourage economic growth and increasingly less and less on those things that do.
  
• Our political system is geared to our elected representatives pandering to those interests that can assure their re-election, with little thought to longer term issues that would enhance our ability to again become more competitive.
  
• The sad thing is that our elected leaders know what needs to be done, but refuse because by doing so, they might sacrifice re-election. Our founding fathers would likely be profoundly annoyed at the growing absence of foresight and leadership among those that followed them.
  
• Our founders rralized that our republic was a work in progress and that their governance would have significant results in the future of the country. Our current elected representatives demonstrate no such foresight. That is very depressing.

There are lots of examples and statistics supporting these statements in the article. JimJoe, you seem to have cherry-picked a few statements or statistics with which you disagree to malign the entire article. I must ask you, do you disagree with any of the summary statements above, garnered from a re-resd of the article?

Or are you among those that beleive that the United States has been a world leader in lots of areas for a century or so and will remain that way, reagrdless of evidence to the contrary?