The Truth of the Matter

"Hey guys! It's the Hero here! …Really? 'It's the "hero" here'?" Alfred sighed with annoyance, casting a disdainful glare at the author.

"Hey! I'm just trying to keep you in character!" she whined back.

"Dude, EVERYONE freaking does that. I know that I'm the hero but why on God's green Earth does everyone insist upon me saying that when they start their stories with me as the lead? I mean, come on!"

"Ok, sorry. Can you just get on to the rest of the script? I bet this silly little back and forth between us has already dissuaded a few people from reading the rest of this story and I actually want people to read this you know."

"You say that as if you don't want people to read your other stuff."

"Just shut up and get on with reading what I wrote damn it!"

"Fine. Sheesh. No need to get so riled up," the blond country said, sighing and pulling the papers back up to his face, missing the frightening and evil scowl directed towards him.

"Alrighty, I'm here to clear some seemingly common misconceptions about me, America!

First off, my economy is not nearly as bad as everyone thinks it is. The news honestly just hypes it up because it's their job to get ratings and people are concerned about the economy so if they tell you it's tanking, you're sure as hell gonna tune in over when they say it's managing. Now, I'm not saying it's perfect. I do have a high national debt at the moment but the debt I accrued after World War II, once adjusted for real inflation prices, was greater than the debt today. Also, it's not like other nations are doing any better. Kiku holds a higher debt than me, although admittedly, it is held internally while mine is external…which reminds, I need to pay Yao soon. Anyway, Francis, Ludwig, Lovino and Feliciano, Vash, Antonio, and all those other EU guys are actually seeing a decline in their GDP, that's Gross Domestic Product, while I'm seeing an increase. Now, I know that some of you may disagree citing the fall in the dollar as one reason but dudes, the weakening of the dollar isn't that bad. It means that we can export more because now that our currency is weaker, other people are more inclined to buy from us than other countries how charge more. It's equilibrium people. The market always works itself out. I am not declining in the slightest, I promise. Things are just different and yes, there are problems but I'm not the only country who has them. Iggy has quite a debt too I'll have you know. As of last week it was around 635,600,000,000 trillion U.S. dollars! I only have 16 trillion racked up, plus my population size is WAY bigger. Not to mention, I've been tapering off my expenditures as of late so that should really help too!

Second, Russia is not evil. I mean, I'm not bros with him cause he can be pretty demented at times but he's not a bad guy. For real though people, if freaking Ludwig isn't evil after what happened in World War II and Kiku isn't evil, just do some research on the Rape of Nanking and you'll get what I mean, and China isn't evil, boy did he used to get into a lot of fights in his younger years, and Iggy's not evil, because he did keep half the world under his boot at one point, and I'm not evil, because I have done some pretty screwed up stuff, then Ivan can't be evil so lay off him.

Also, for those of you who read the comic strips, I DID NOT INSTIGATE THE GREAT DEPRESSION! Freakin' A man! I was so pissed when I read that. Sure, I was a big producer but that didn't mean I started the whole thing. What happened was most of countries were hooked to something called a Gold Standard meaning that for every bit of currency we had, we had to have a matching amount of gold. Well, I don't know who, but one day some guy just starts to speculate that the price of gold is gonna rise and then other people start to follow his lead and in economics once you get enough people to think something, it happens so the price of gold rose. So here we are trying to keep enough money in our banks to cover the increasing price of gold but it is just not working. So yeah, no one could keep up so we all crashed and burned, some worse than others. I took it hard because I was one of the very last ones to get rid of the gold standard ya know?

Anyway, that's it for now. Just some quick tidbits of information for all y'all. If you have any questions you want to ask me and learn the truth of matter, just write! Hero out!"

Ok so yes. This is all true. We aren't really screwed and are by no means a country in decline. I absolutely abhor people who compare the U.S. to Rome because it only proves to me how ignorant they are. Anyway, I'm currently a senior in college majoring in Political Science and minoring in Economics (hence why I've taken such a shine towards Hetalia) and that is how I know what I know. If you disagree with anything that I've said, please write me. I would love to hear what you have to say and hopefully read whatever CREDIBLE resources you can provide me with. I am more than willing to provide any of YOU with credible resources that mirror what I have written. I hope you all enjoyed this and like I said, if you're curious about anything, particularly a topic not mentioned in here, I will do my utmost best to give you the information you desire as accurately as possible even if it refutes everything I've said up until now. Thanks for reading, you're awesome just like Prussia!