@pete321 I think that you are on to something there. Mediocrity is self-perpetrating. Teaching chess to young children, I frequently hear bad strategies and misunderstandings of rules that are passed on from one generation to another. Such things as, "If you don't say check, it doesn't count," are commonplace in my community.
One wonders if the US is unique in this respect, but I am certain that Soviet Pioneer clubs never would have permitted such nonsense. Where chess is highly valued, the competence of teachers of beginners may be more thoroughly monitored.
we suck at chess because most people learn the moves from bad chess players. No offense but how many people learned chess from say your father. My dad was a good father but a real bad chess player, consequently i came to believe you had to calculate 10 moves deep. I did not learn that chess was mainly patterns...when i did my pattern recognition skill was bland....it took not playing almost 20 years to start again. If more people learned from experts and better then we would not suck....also if money could be made, then forget about it the USA would dominate