There is all types of waste in life, in which, many people are rightly concerned about the unnecessary waste of natural resources and efforts have been made to better recycle waste; but as important as that might sound, the waste that really matters is not so much the waste of resources, though that waste has importance in regards to sustainability, but rather the waste of lives, and thereby the waste of opportunities never taken or pursued.
The most important resource that any country has, is the individuals that make up that country, so that, to waste that talent but not providing as many as possible with a good education, with a good family structure, with safe and fair housing, with a fair and good opportunity at these things, alongside a clean environment, is to waste that human resource. America, because it is known as a nation of immigrants, should be well aware, that talent can come from any origin and anywhere; for great scholars, successful business executives, and incredible artistic talents, have come from all sections of the globe, of which, some of these people have come here under the most humble and modest of circumstances, but have ended up by achieving wonderful good for this country and its people.
This means that every life in America, should be looked upon as an opportunity to develop fully and as much as possible the talents that each are gifted with, for to do less than that, is a waste of those lives, and a waste of opportunity, because often the difference between those that succeed as compared to those that fail, is not so much because one is innately more talented that the other, but rather that one received all the accouterments that would lead to success, while the other was denied virtually all those very things needed in order to succeed.
America is the world's richest country, it is also the biggest economy in the world, of which, many people that live outside America, believe, quite wrongly, that everyone in America must therefore have a very good and a high quality life. In fact, it could be argued and should be argued, that America should have the lowest poverty rate that the world has ever known and that not a single person or family should be below the poverty rate, for the New Deal as envisioned by FDR and the Great Society as envisioned by LBJ was essentially for that very purpose, but, in effect, this has not occurred.
The failure for America having millions upon millions of its citizens that are ill educated and therefore functionally illiterate, in addition to all those that are denied fair housing as well as fair opportunity, as well as a justice system that is wholly prejudicial to the poor, and a nation that disappointingly still suffers from systemic racism despite Constitutional laws precluding such, can be laid at the feet of many people, politicians, as well as a capitalism system that is functionally corrupt.
This waste of human resources is the greatest waste that America should be justifiably ashamed of; especially for a country that claims that it is the beacon of liberty for the wretched refuse of the world and that its golden door offers free and liberating passage to the tired and the poor of which all of this is just a damn lie, for this America wastes its most precious resource, time and time again, which is its people.