Yes, America is doing well today, if you are wealthy and Republican.  President Donald Trump continues to reign supreme over the Republican Party.  His 887-page Big Beautiful Bill sailed through the House of Representatives.  The  minor hangup was not pulling back on the tax breaks to the rich nor easing up on the cuts to liberal interests.  The Freedom Caucus wanted much bigger reductions to medicaid and liberal interests and was worried about the national debt.  Trump will make a big deal of signing the measure tomorrow.   Read the details .  About the national debt, this bill will add $3.4 trillion to the already $29 trillion the country owes.  Interest on this debt will top a trillion dollars/year and will equal our Gross National Product.  From the  New York Times : Further, two-thirds of the federal budget goes to mandatory programs like Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.  The Freedom Caucus wanted to lower this...

 Two years ago, the  BBC said Japan was the future,  but it's now stuck in the past.  I agree. Among the detractions is ownership of real estate.  You buy a home, and after paying off your mortgage in, say, 40 years, it is worth almost nothing. Japan recently had the third-largest economy, is a peaceful and prosperous country with the longest life expectancy in the world, the lowest murder rate, little political conflict, a powerful passport, and the sublime Shinkansen, the world's best high-speed rail network.  Actually, about GDP and the economy, Germany has slipped past Japan into #3, with India in the next few months easing by Japan. When the author of this article, Rupert Wingield-Hayes, first arrived in Tokyo in 1993, a third of a century ago, he was effusive about the country being exquisitely clean and orderly.  Actually still is. But he noted that Hong Kong was an assault on senses and Taipei had horrible air pollution. He could have said...

From the  New York Times :    The USA has 63% Christians, a decline of 15% in 18 years: However, people have stopped leaving churches en masse, according to   a new study released   by Pew Research. Further from the  Pew Research Center : 22%  of Americans are categorized as   spiritual but not religious (SBNR)  because they say they think of themselves as spiritual or they consider spirituality very important in their lives, but they neither think of themselves as religious nor say religion is very important in their lives. 58%  of Americans fall into an overall or   “NET” Religious   category because they say they think of themselves as religious or they consider religion very important in their lives. This group can be subdivided into U.S. adults who are   both religious and spiritual   (48%) and those who are   religious but not spiritual   (10%) 21%  of Americans are categorized as   neit...