IRAQ's Civil War

VP Biden deserves credit for the suggestion, he made long ago: Let the Kurds, the Sunnis and the Shiites form their own states in a loose federation.  However, against all odds, we imposed the artificial Iraq boundaries set up by Churchill on the 3 distinct ethnic/religious groups, forcing them to  get along with each other in spite of their differences.   We never ask them!  Even now Hillary says, it would be unfair to let them have separate states.  Who are we?  Who is she?   Doesn't anyone in the West have respect for their civil and political liberties?

As it happens, they may finally get their own way in spite of our interference.

The decline of the Middle Class

The decline of the Middle Class and the increasing income disparity is a symptom, not the cause of our decline. In the after WWII years, we didn't have a global economy and it was easy to find well paying jobs without a getting college degree. Globalization has changed all that. Nowadays, industry needs more highly skilled employees to compete in a more technology oriented global market and low skill jobs have been taken over by robots. On the other side of the equation, our public schools have not kept up with demand and the rest of the world, especially in mathematics and the sciences. College students have not tuned in on the high paying curricula. So unemployment among the technically skilled (i.e. engineers) is practically zero, because the graduation rates of engineers and technicians is far below demand.

Decline starts when our primary education is not keeping up with China, not with inequality of income.