The history of the USA is very much a tale of toil, tears, trouble and sweat and don't ever let anyone tell you otherwise.
LOL. Spoken like a true Brit! We still kicked your a$$ in the Revolutionary War!
It’s my theory (remember, I’m 100% right) that just like matter is never created nor destoryed, either is value. Sure the value of currency changes and some can make it big just be exchanging inflating currency for deflating currency. Value always remains constant though. Sometimes markets and industries go up, other times they go down. It has nothing to do with actual growth, it’s just a disproportionate allocation of value. In order for the US to be the richest, most powerful country in the world, we have to take from other countries. We are rich as a direct result of places like Africa being poor. The global GDP is something like 60 trillion dollars (US). With the global population being near 6.5 billion people, that means to be equal, the GDP/ population is about $9,230 per person. For me to have more than $9,230, someone or several people have to have an equal amount less. For a market to grow in production of 50 million dollars, another market or several markets have to lose a total of 50 million dollars. If you have a quality of life the uses more than $9,230, there are people in the world who have a quality of life equally lower in standard.
While the value represented by US currency constantly changes, the true value remains constant. As the population increases, equal value per person lowers.
For the value of houses in a town to raise by 5% (excluding inflation), the values of houses in another town HAVE to lower 5%, or the houses in 2 towns have to each lower 2.5% or some other combination that could go on forever.
This doesn’t mean you can pretty much flip a coin to make decisions. Or that when you add up the rights and the wrongs in your life they always end up being 50-50. The odds in Vegas are much lower than 50%. Actually I heard, for every dollar gambled, the casino owner KNOWS they will keep 20 cents on average.
Edit: To add another analogy:
If the allied forces in Iraq were helping the Shi’ites (food, water, weapons, training, supplies, etc.), we would be proporationately and directly hurting the Sunni. Alive and well Shia means dead and suffering Sunnis. The same works in reverse. If we were (we are) killing the Shi’ites, we are directly and proporationately helping the Sunni. You can’t help one group without hurting the other and by hurting one, your helping the other. So by killing both sides, we are actually hurting and helping both sides. Therefore being stuck in this tug-of-war, the only way for the allied forces to exit without reprecussion from terrorist attacks is with total eradication of both sides.