it's cultural. it started with the baby boomers/hippies, and has bacame a mindset. the hippies believed in some good things, but were too stupid to know how to implement them. the country started to get more in debt after every generation and evolution of the hippie mentality. it spreads like a disease and can't be cured. that's the inevitibility that any historian will tell you about every rich society through histroy. China is hungrier and harder working. we all watched Rocky when he got knocjked out by the hungrier Mr. T. same concept, only we won't get a rematch.