  In their unedited state, I provide you with two lengthy emails from someone with a Master in Political Science. Ian I promise I will let this go, but we have in this country a WIDE GULF between reality and perception. Let me just pose a question: who do you suppose the largest recipient of foreign aid in the world is? The answer would be the US. Now in our case we get the vast majority of our aid in the form of huge net influx of foreign currency this comes about because of relatively high interest rates paid on what foreigners perceive to be secure investments (real estate, blue chip stocks, gov't securities, T-bills...etc.). Since under Reagan, Bush I & Bush II we have run huge budget deficits our lifestyles are financed by foreign debt. Americans are notoriously poor savers...most Americans spend more than they make every year...by world standards the American people are horrible savers...that presents and economic problem in itself. However, with the federal government racking up $500 billion in debt/yr. than means that as a nation we spend counting gov't., consumers, and businesses about $750 billion more each year than our economy produces. This is possible only because of the huge debt to foreigners we are racking up. However, suppose you're a poor farmer in Nigeria (or wherever) how do you suppose he/she feels? Because, in this example, they live in a nation rich in oil reserves, but all of the money (and it amounts to $30-40 billion/yr.
) that Nigeria makes in oil revenues winds up in American banks financing American consumer purchases and gov't debt so the rich can pay even less of their fair share. How do you suppose that Nigerian farmer feels when he watches his son starve so that some American can buy and SUV? I'm thinking he probably doesn't love us for it...go figure...thus the seeds of terrorism. We the people and gov't of the U.S. are by far the leading funders of international terrorism.
Saudi Arabia is a leading funder of Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, al-Quida...etc. (even hosting telethons on state TV to raise money for terrorists). Whenever, you see someone in an SUV, truck or car proudly flying the American flag remember about 5 cents out of every gallon of gas they buy goes to terrorists groups, and another 20 cents or so to the governments that support and shelter them. Given Americans rank dead last among industrial nations in charitable giving it is fair to say most of those good patriotic Americans donate more money every year to terrorist groups than they do to any domestic group (indeed on a big 10 mpg gas hog SUV driven what has become the per capita average for Americans 15,000 miles/yr.
) that person contributes $750/yr. directly to terrorist groups and another $3000/yr. to the regimes that support them. Bush is the terrorists best friend his "energy" policy, so heavy on fossil fuel consumption, guarantees them a funding source for many years to come. The problem with running an economy and a federal gov't on borrowed money is sooner or later people who loan you money are going to want it back...at that point we are in big trouble.
If we were using the debt to fund education or research or some other activity with obvious productivity payoffs then we are doing a good thing, but debt to pay for a 0 productivity tax cut to the wealthy is a disaster with no positive economic benefit. Eventually foreigners will conclude the U.S. isn't such a good investment option when they do we will either have to increase interest rates to compensate them for there added risk or do without the money...either option is going to hurt.
After all increasing interest rates means higher mortgage rates, credit car rates, auto, student loan rates...etc. All of that means a recession if not full blown depression. My candidate for worst job in America would be whoever follows Bush and has to clean up this mess...a thankless job. In 2000 (Clinton's last full year in office) the federal budget SURPLUS was nearly $300 billion. In three yrs. Bush not only blew the $300 billion, but $500 billion more to boot...an amazing record of incompetence.
And... That's a good question...we've had two Ph.D. - Woodrow Wilson (Thomas Woodrow Wilson in fact...Woodrow was his middle name) and Herbert Hoover. A number of Lawyers (Bill Clinton, Nixon, JFK, William Howard Taft, who AFTER he was president, was chief justice of the Supreme Court), a few others plus some more lawyers (Abe Lincoln being the most notable) who "read" for the law...that is they apprenticed with a lawyer and then took the bar exam without going to law school (or even college in Lincoln's case). Harry Truman was last president not to go to college at all. Jimmy Carter had a master's in nuclear physics which probably brings him as close as any president to being able to say "I am a rocket scientist (well he was close anyway). " Some have gone to prestigious universities (both Bushes and Clinton to Yale), JFK & FDR Harvard...others to obscure colleges Reagan went to Eureka College in Illinois (don't even know if Eureka is still around), LBJ to SW Texas teachers college. I may well be forgetting some others, but that is sort of a cross section. Should mention Wilson was President of Princeton Univ.
before he became governor of NJ and then president (also holds the distinction of being the only sitting president in history to be married in the White House...to Judith Gault...after his first wife died), Hoover became president of Stanford Univ. after he left the White House. I should note we've had some president's who have gotten into college as affirmative action entries (i.e. grades were not good enough to be admitted on that basis). Both Bushes fall into this category (ironically so does John Quincy Adams who for my money may have been the smartest of 'em all)...the Bushes (and Adams) were admitted as "legacies" (i.e. mommy/daddy attended the university and contributed to the alumni fund, at Yale the preference for legacies was nearly absolute...although the policy was modified in the early 1990's requiring that legacies show at least some academic potential). 
