The flag at the end...

It's perfectly clear why the flag was used, but in my opinion a better ending would have been an image of ordinary citizens helping each other out: People on other boats helping survivors out of collapsed buildings and out of the water, tents and signs being erected to help look for lost loved ones, something like that. The image of people helping each other would have been much more powerful than the ridiculously cheesy image of the United States flag.

---------
Just because you are too stupid to understand it, it does not mean that it is a plot hole

Not nearly that fast, though. And they wouldn't just put it in some random partially collapsed building that's probably extremely dangerous to climb up

---------
Just because you are too stupid to understand it, it does not mean that it is a plot hole

American here.
As a matter of taste, I felt the flag display did not ring true, and was cheezy.

And why on earth would you rebuild on a fault line?

It would have been much more effective to show people being rescued from the rubble of demolished buildings and getting medical care. However, to be fair to the filmmakers, that kind of scene would be more expensive to shoot and take longer to show.

As has been pointed out repeatedly, there are a lot of things America is not number one at.

The lack of universal health care in this country is a total disgrace.
We are number one, however, in per capita dollars spent on health care. That was true even before obamacare, which seems to be mainly designed to give more money to health insurance companies.

While very poor people see America as the land of opportunity, the working poor here cannot afford medical care for injuries, let alone sicknesses and preventative care, because it costs hundreds of dollars to see a doctor and get a few x-rays, money they don't have. This is not propaganda. This is a fact that I see verified almost on a daily basis among my family, friends and acquaintances.

The middle class is pretty much gone now, but even those who are and think they have medical coverage often have a rude awakening when they find out that their insurance company can opt out of paying for anything very expensive that they might need by calling it "experimental." A middle class person who is very ill, of course, doesn't have the health and strength to fight their own insurance company, or the money to hire high-powered lawyers. All the insurance company has to do is stall until they die, and then they are no longer on the hook for those expensive surgeries or treatments that would have saved the life of the person who spent years making payments to them for mostly unused medical insurance.

And no, the super rich are not paying for anyone's social services -- they have lawyers to make sure that they don't pay even their fair share of taxes, let alone more. It's what's left of the middle class that is paying for everything.

America has made our share or more of major mistakes, but we have also made many major contributions to the world. As far as our national debt, maybe if we stopped handing out foreign aide as if it were candy bars, we could get some traction on that. There are also plenty of Americans who are always making personal contributions to the needy in other countries, most recently the victims in Nepal.

As far as having our flag be displayed in a certain way, that is true in our country and at our embassies. In other countries, they of course would give their own flag precedence.

I'm sure there have been lots of "rich, stupid Americans" who have not behaved well abroad. That's probably because, in the land of opportunity (that we previously were), even people who were not terribly bright or educated were able to make enough money to travel abroad.

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam
