Visions of what the US should be

Here's a Nicholas Kristof article from a few months ago, describing the problems inherent in countries with high income disparity and weak governments. He is worried that Republicans are so bent on increasing the US's income disparity and weakening its government, lest we end up like Pakistan or the Congo. As if to underline his worrisome prognosis for the US, Mother Jones recently ran a story on the rising income equality and dire job outlook for most of the people in the US. Mother Jones worries that there is such high demand even for non-union, low-paying jobs like McDonald's offers. Business Week takes a different view, heralding the bright new future of super-efficient fast food chains, even hinting that these bastions of streamlined processes are a decent replacement for the US's lost industrial capacity.