Talk:United States

Please consider reading the frequently asked questions for this article before asking any questions on this talk page.

Current population (est.): 338,357,000 as of September 4, 2024. The USCB projects 439 million by 2050

Civil War and Industrialisation

"High tariff protections, national infrastructure building, and new banking regulations encouraged growth."

I propose this sentence be removed. American economic growth during that period was spectacular, but "high tariff protections" and "banking regulations" especially are uncited and had historically dubious effects on growth.

Rainpat (talk) 19:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

I second that.Prussian725 (talk) 02:50, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

The sentence has already been edited to address the concern raised by Rainpat.—DCGeist (talk) 03:09, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not see any significant mention of slavery. Of course, there was slavery in other societies; however, there is a certain American exceptionalism within the philosophical and cultural views of slavery that need to be mentioned, particularly since Slavery is considered to be a large component of in the culmination of the Civil War. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Citizen477 (talk • contribs) 00:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

WWII

"Participation in the war boosted the American economy, spurring capital investment and job creation."

This sentence has problems. Some economists (mainly Keynesians) would agree with this, but many others would not. While it is true that the US achieved a very strong economic position after the war, the US was not in great shape during the war. During the war goods were rationed and soldiers died - definitely a hindrance to the consumption of goods (the primary definition of a good or "boosted" economy).

The US produced a lot during the war, but this was production for the war effort. Life simply was not improved during the war because of material benefits. And because of loss of life and leisure(most in civilian population worked 80-hours a week), living standards were not high and therefore the economy was definitely not "strong" during the war.

It was the end of the war which caused the economic boom with the return of the Greatest Generation, the US's dominant political/economic position, their ability to help Europe with rebuilding, and their advantage of not having had their country physically destroyed by war. It is important not to confuse the concepts of war-boom and post-war-boom.

20:16, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Any sources for this?[[Slatersteven (talk) 22:39, 3 June 2009 (UTC)]]

Hmm I don't have a source, but I agree with what he says. I think it would be more accurate to say that the war drastically cut unemployment and spurred investment in heavy industry (ie factories to make war machines) as well as other industries and leaving it at that. Saying that it "boosted the economy" certainly seems disputable to me, does North Korea have a strong economy because it maintains the industrial complex to produce lots of weapons? I think not. A tank, for example, is not productive, it is not adding to the economic well being of a nation in the way that a car, tractor or commercial airplane would. So I would agree, the sentence should just read "Participation in the war reduced unemployment after the great depression and spurred capital investment in many industries". TastyCakes (talk) 22:52, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

But the US did not only produce, it sold and in vast amounts. How do you cut unemployment without creating jobs, so that part of the statemnt is accurate and does not need to be alterd. Tyhe economy was boosted by investment and sales of war materials. The US became the first aliance leader to make a proifit from its allies.[[Slatersteven (talk) 23:10, 3 June 2009 (UTC)]]

---

This article contains the following sentence

"On December 7, 1941, the United States joined the Allies against the Axis powers after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan."

This may lead a reader to suppose that the United States declared war on Germany as a result of being attacked by Japan - but this is NOT the case. A better statement of events is contained in the article on the "Attack on Pearl Harbour", wherein it states

"Germany's prompt declaration of war, unforced by any treaty commitment to Japan, quickly brought the US into the European Theater as well."

Therefore, it would be better if the sentence in this article was amended to read

"On December 7, 1941, after a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor by Japan, the United States declared war on that country and Germany's prompt declaration of war on the United States, unforced by any treaty commitment to Japan, quickly brought the US into the European Theater as well."

Fredquint (talk) 10:57, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The United States of America

No reliable source calls The United States of America (commonly referred to as America), and thus advocating for its use here is original research and not permissible.

America has never been an entity of The United States of America and is barely a nickname for The United States of America, as America consists of the 35 American countries respectably.

• The United States of America is in America, and has never been America as an entity of it's own and should be removed from the intro.

• All American countries of America are referred to as America, and not just the United States of America.

• America commonly refers to it's 35 American countries respectably, and is not subjected to The United States of America.

• The United States of America is a country in America, and does not contain the same entity as America.

• America consists of 35 independant nations of, and is not related to The United States of America.

• America is not related to The United States of America directly, but an entity of.

Kind Regards, American(Can) (talk) 21:14, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That barely makes any sense at all. Based on your similarly incoherent posts as Canada, I believe what you are trying to say is that the word "America" should not be used to mean the US alone. But as the disambiguation page for America shows, and as many, many reliable sources will show, the word America is frequently used to designate the US - although this use in no way excludes the use of the word America to designate the Americas. It might be confusing, sometimes, to have one word describe two very different entities; but Wikipedia cannot change the fact that this is the case, and it is not our job to: we merely report and explain the state of affairs as it currently exists. Hadrian89 (talk) 21:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

If nonsense is all that is understood here then, Wikipedia and The United States of America is the one incoherent to the rest of the world and not making sense at all with it's ambiguous nature, you might as well call America and The United States of America the City Of Winnipeg, located in Central North America. There is no use to continue this discussion when we are dealing with a country and non-profit organizatoin on the web who has it's mind and heart set on a goal allready outside the truth. Kind Regards, American(Can) (talk) 00:45, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Can someone please translate this to sane? --Golbez (talk) 01:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hectares conversion needed for acres

Under the section "Geography and environment", the "convert|<value>|acre|ha" template (e.g., 1,000,000 acres (400,000 ha)) should be applied to provide the international standard hectare value equivalent for land areas given in acres. Could some registered user please make the fix? Thanks.... 75.44.51.105 (talk) 01:05, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Caption for religion photo

I never saw any particular reason to pick that one church for photo in the religion section. The comment that "most Americans identify as Christian" is not about the photo AND is already included in the relevant section, so is itself "redundant". If the caption is intended as a summary of the section, then restricting comment to the majority under-represents the information in the section. If we have precise numbers, they are preferable to "most", and if there is a significant trend regarding the majority, that is also worth summary mention. I propose the caption either include 'roughly 77% of Americans identify as Christian, down about 10% in the past two decades or that the selectively redundant info that most identify as Christian also be removed. --JimWae (talk) 04:45, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's obviously insensible to duplicate fine detail that is immediately accessible in the accompanying text. As for the other suggestion, the present summary point is made in part precisely to indicate that there is nothing particularly exceptional about this church (the way there is about, say, the Texas Medical Center, whose image also appears in the article); it is representative of the demotic religious facilities of the faith to which the majority of Americans profess adherence.—DCGeist (talk) 05:03, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

That caption is a bit too long too, and definitely too specific. As for the image, I'm in the process of taking a few photos that could possibly replace it. wadester16 05:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The argument about redundancy could be applied also to the lede, yet we do not delete the lede. Yes, that caption is long-er, but what criteria make it "too long"? Newspapers and Encyclopedias often have captions that repeat info in the article - in that way the caption can serve as a summary for the section. "Most" is itself also redundant of the article text - AND more vague than "77%". It is unfair and unbalanced that the only summary comment is about Christianity. The longer comment is meant to indicate that there is no hegemony. --JimWae (talk) 05:58, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Webster's: "hegemony": "preponderant influence." On what WP:V-standard basis have you determined that we should go out of our way to indicate that "there is no hegemony"?—DCGeist (talk) 06:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

B. Fairbairn

Can we just go to ANI with this guy? He's taken his anti-American pap from the Proposals village pump (where he proposed that people have the option to omit articles on American topics when viewing the Main Page) to here. Just see his talk page on how obsessed he is over DYK having American topics. Maybe two out of his 50 edits have stuck. He's engaging in edit warring without actually reverting (most of the time). Multiple editors here have reverted him. We don't have to put up with this. --Golbez (talk) 15:39, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I concur. Just looked at his edits. The guy is clearly an idiot (if the bizarre story on his user page is true, he clearly has long-term neurological effects from his injuries). He doesn't even know the difference between a shopping mall and a strip mall, which most 14-year-olds understand (it's much easier to get lost in the former than the latter). If he keeps up his nonsense he should be summarily banned. --Coolcaesar (talk) 16:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Golbez, could you link to the village pump site/thread. At first blush, his edits appear to be in good faith, although misguided. To me it seems, he just needs to familiarize himself with some of our guidelines, like WP:UNDUE, WP:WEASEL, WP:BRD & WP:NPOV. However, if he is, as you suggest, pursuing an agenda, that's a whole different ballgame. --Evb-wiki (talk) 17:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Here's the VPP discussion:[1] (That's the last revision before it was manually archived) And FYI, I [admittedly rudely, in response to his note on my talk page] suggested he come to the talk page before his next edits. He did not.[2] --Golbez (talk) 17:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Thanks for providing the context. --Evb-wiki (talk) 17:56, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The City of Winnipeg

The United States of America (commonly referred to as the United States, the U.S., the USA, or America) is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district. The country is situated mostly in central North America, where its forty-eight contiguous states and Washington, D.C., the capital district, lie between the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, bordered by Canada to the north and Mexico to the south.

As we all know the City Of Winnipeg geographically and by GPS is excatly Central North America, thus The United States of America aka America is ambiguous to the location of the City of Winnipeg and needs to be changed. Kind Regards, American(Can) (talk) 02:03, 9 June 2009 (UTC)