if you don't like realizing you suck, don't read this

America, the country that defined the capitalist system, has recently moved further and further away from it, instead straddling the line between it and socialism, a sort of pseudo-socialism. This is one of the biggest reasons our economy has stagnated in recent years: the lower class thinks its entitled to the standard of living of enjoyed by the middle class, who in turn thinks that it deserves the standard of living of the upper class. This belief most likely originated as a result of Europe's experimentation with socialism (which stagnated the European economies as well), which many Americans hope to emulate, as was shown through the widespread support for movements like occupy wall street, which adopted these socialist principles as their main platforms. And while it is a good thing for the lower classes to hope and strive for social mobility, it can lead to devastation of the economy. For example, many Americans felt that they should be able to buy a huge house that they couldn't afford and as a result the housing market exploded. One of the best ways to fix the economy is to limit people's ability to get more than they can afford, which is what leads to recessions and depressions. In the above example of the housing market, the banks were required to give out bad loans that they never would have if the government hadn't required them to. The economy will not function correctly if a government run by people who know they can get votes from the lower class by strangling the economy has so much power. So to summarize, the first step is to limit the government.

The second step is to fix the education system. For a country to get ahead it has to create innovative thinkers who can create the world of the future. Our education has consistently failed to do so for various reasons, the biggest being a lack of accountability for students due to an emphasis on pushing failing kids through without fixing their failure and the teachers union's unwillingness to let awful teachers be held accountable. If we can fix these problems of accountability, we can fix the education system and catch up to countries like China, which currently leave us in the dust. If we can fix the education system our economy will fix itself, as a smarter population will better be able to manage it.