The Land Of “Rapacious Capitalism”?

Yours truly has not spent this much time in the States in over a decade.  And we have now been here a month.  Our house we’ve been (very) slowly having built in upstate New York is nearly finished.

But, to be honest, living forever in “failing” Britain is looking increasingly appealing.  In experiencing day-to-day “non-vacation” current America, the country seems in many respects in even worse shape than is Brownite Britain.  And if you’ve spent any length of time in (or are in) that Britain, you probably realize asserting that is saying quite a lot.

It is scary to find oneself thinking these things, by coincidence, on July 20, forty years after the Moon landing.  Regular readers likely understand.  If you are new, please realize this post is not meant as “hyper-criticism” so much as an expression of sheer incredulousness.

Is America finally really losing its edge?  Is it exhausted morally?  Or are Americans just so discouraged and down that they no longer care?

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The Wife remarked that America used to be held up in Britain and Europe as the global business leader in “customer service.”  However it certainly doesn’t seem to be trailblazing in that realm any longer.  Maybe it has something to do with the creeping impact of “Obama-ism”: the populace being told day and night that “no matter what, they will be looked after?”

In too many stores, in what we are told by so many is virtually a “depression,” staff rarely pay attention.  If you finally find someone to ask, dare ask about “this PC” and be prepared to be told they don’t have it in stock.  And, nope, they don’t have the one next to it either.  They can get it, maybe, in a few weeks.  Like the former Soviet Union, apparently: it is in “the window,” but it may not be for sale.

Incidentally, this has just come to mind.  No, I will not use a self-checkout.  You hire someone to speak to me nicely while I am forking over my money for your goods.

America as the home of “rapacious capitalism” according to many a European?  Hmm.  The car industry should not be handed another dime in government money.  At least not before they actually try to sell cars.  When we were scoping out a new car back in February, we thought afterwards that our experience then might have been an isolated incident; but just a couple of weeks ago we had a very similar experience yet again.

The fun and excitement of buying and getting that rare new car?  Remember how that felt?  Evidently, that was another era.  Walk into a car dealership to look to buy a car of late, and they seem to glance at you as if suppressing a desire to mumble disdainfully, “Oh, a customer?  What do you want?”

Never before in my life has yours truly told salespeople of an intention to buy a car that very afternoon, cash — the easiest sale imaginable — and found myself walking out of more than one dealer without them knowing who I was.  Years ago, they used to chase you around the show room to get your details and a binder.  We finally got the car we wanted (in Connecticut, due to our own researches on the internet, for goodness sake), but only after what seemed a near Herculean effort.

Take my money, please!  I want to buy something!  Uh, well, call back a week from Wednesday.  This is not universal, of course, but a manaña attitude that wasn’t here 20 years ago, and has always been common in a Spain or Italy or France, appears to be taking hold here too.

Ourselves, we have been regularly stunned at the shockingly often unapologetic inefficiency and blasé attitudes.  Few return business phone calls in a timely manner.  Some never do.  It takes days, or even weeks, for emails to be answered.  If they ever are.  They’ll get to you maybe eventually sometime.

Also, seemingly everything is branded in both English and in Spanish.  It appears the country has during the last decade become effectively “bilingual” — even if most of the population doesn’t speak Spanish.  Even many jobs appear to require proficiency in it, which has been the main pathway followed elsewhere towards “inducing” increasing numbers of a (unwilling to learn it otherwise) majority to learn to speak a minority language.  Much as in Canada.

Banks appear to be still functioning in the 1980s.  What is with the rickety procedures Britain left behind over 20 years ago?  Even getting them to change your address is a near adventure.  Everything is done seemingly in triplicate, in a time-consuming, paper-producing manner.  Stamp this four times.  File that.  Yet to what end?  Too often, no one appears to read any of it anyway.

“High tech” is all we hear about.  And we are all so “connected.”  Uh, huh.  And in the not inexpensive condo we are renting, the electricity has gone off for 5-7 hours twice in the last four days.  For no discernible obvious reason, such as extreme weather.  Two freezers full of food have been close to ruined.  Oh, and when it has rained, the roof leaked.

A lot like in a “Third World” country.  Ironically, as the Wife observed yesterday, the most responsive large U.S.-based entity we have come across recently that has produced as and when promised has been — guess what?  U.S. Immigration.

Regarding her status, government did exactly what they said they would do, almost precisely for when they said they would.  Whoever thought they would be an example of timely delivery and kept service promises?  In too many parts of the private sector here, in sharp contrast, it appears that over-promising and not just under-delivering, but not delivering at all, is becoming part and parcel of the acceptable norm for doing “business.”

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It often feels like one is trying to push spaghetti in a straight line.  Or herd cats.  Of course, though, what is reliably still produced in ever increasing hordes are TV commercials.  Especially ads from pharmaceutical companies.  To watch TV for a time, one cannot avoid the impression Americans are certainly the sickest people on the planet.

Probably the Wife and myself are just suffering from some as of yet undiagnosed condition and “should ask our doctor?”  Undoubtedly there is some new wonder drug that will surely help.  When it isn’t bringing on constipation, confusion, hallucinations, shortness of breath, swelling of the tongue, loss of motor skills, and, in some few extreme cases, stroke and risk of suicide, that is.

Even in “inefficient” and “blasé” France or Italy, though, women don’t wear baseball caps in church.  Nor do parishioners saunter into a service disrespectfully 15 minutes after it has started.  As if it were just another after-school activity?  And then some pop their gum or text message?

A police officer serves as a church usher; and there is nothing wrong with that.  But in uniform, with his handgun — the ultimate means of intimidation and coercion — bulging off a hip?  Suddenly, even going to church can include the feeling one may have to produce a license and registration?

Speaking of law enforcement, the other day yours truly was actually proofed in a supermarket when buying some alcohol (of very low alcohol content).  While yours truly (age 43) was not entirely displeased at the implication, the Wife joked that the fellow doing the proofing was the one who needed to be proofed.  20 year olds are now “children” as we know.  And while they trudge through mountains and cross deserts on murderous missions (sometimes to themselves) aimed at killing Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, heaven forbid when safely in their States that alcohol pass their “childish” lips.

And “children” should never be exposed to “sex” or “bad language” on TV either, because they will be “corrupted?”  It is to laugh.  We now can understand why so many people no longer have TVs, for if we had children we’d ban network TV and cable news not so much for their inane broadcast content, but for the increasingly crass commercials.

One can’t say “s-it” on network TV even after 9 PM.  But it is perfectly legally proper that “erectile dysfunction” drugs are allowed to be advertised on ABC on Sunday morning smack in the midst of British Open golf coverage?  Or on NBC during a Wimbledon men’s tennis final?  (“Mommy, what’s a four hour erection?”)

All that for starters.  Frankly, it is all so astounding and more than a bit disconcerting.  And, moreover, when you yourself are at an explanational loss, it is even that much more exceedingly difficult to try to decode such to someone not from these shores who has herself always greatly admired America from afar.

What is going on here?  It wasn’t like this?  I’m sure it wasn’t?

[Posted 9:10 AM, NY time.]