Roughly half of the US population thinks the economy is in dire trouble…that the US dollar is about to collapse and that financial Armageddon is about to be unleashed on a poorly prepared and vulnerable population.
Roughly half of the US population thinks that while the US economy is not as strong as it has been that it is heading in the right direction and showing signs of strength. They believe the US dollar is fine and the dark storm clouds on the horizon hide nothing more sinister than a silver lining.
The small part of the population who believes neither of these things are probably in that blissful state of ignorance brought about by lack of caring for anything but their next government handout and the next re-run of The Brady Bunch….the biggest question on their lips is “Will Marsha get caught sneaking out to kanoodle with the boyfriend nobody likes…or will she get away with this deceit?” (This group of people will almost all be rooting for her …they have long abandoned any sense of personal responsibility, integrity or sense of “right or wrong”.)
We have the republicans blaming the lazy, the unemployed, the unions, the democrats, and the welfare queens.
We have the left blaming the right wing nut-jobs, the religious, the employers, and the wealthy.
We have the 1% blaming the 99%.
We have the 99% blaming the 1%.
We have the tree huggers blaming the energy producers and the manufacturers blaming excessive government intervention.
We have the government demanding more taxation as the solution…and the people demanding less taxation.
Every possible interest group has found someone to blame…and e=very possible interest group is blamed by someone else.
Even our President is not insulated from this…he is blamed and in turn blames everything he can think of, from his predecessor to tsunamis in Japan and economic crises in Europe.
The blame game.
While I am sure it makes everyone feel better if they can find someone or something to blame, it does absolutely zero to address the problems this country faces.
(As a side-note, the German state in the 1920’s was not far different than what is happening in America today…every interest group was blaming every possible target for the ills that befell the country…from the conservatives, to the socialists, to the Jews, to the government…you name it…it was a target. History shows us the fears were well-founded…and the cure in the form of a tyrant named Hitler, was ill conceived. )
But I digress….
Let me start with a very broad statement….the roughly 50% of the population who fall into the second group I mentioned above…are simply naïve. They are not necessarily bad people, they are not necessarily stupid people, they are not necessarily uneducated or unthinking….in my opinion they have simply checked their logic at the door as they line up for more government handouts in the same way as the addicted think of nothing more than their next hit.
So…given that I am clearly in the first group described above…it is fair that my readers want to understand why I think that way.
There are several reasons.
The first is that government debt is out of control.
The second is that the Fed continues to create money from nothing, while the government continues to print money. The effect of this is to devalue the currency.
The third is that entitlement programs (and yes, I consider SS an entitlement program) are responsible for using over 100% of all government revenues from taxation. This means that the government must borrow to spend on things like defense. (43% of every dollar the government spends is borrowed!)
The fourth is that few politicians from either party are prepared to make the tough decisions, and take the actions required to reverse these trends. (Many believe it would be political suicide to do so.)
The fifth, and final, reason is the worst….the American people want to keep things as they are.
How did we ever allow the country to get to this state?
To answer this question fully requires a short visit back to the 50’s and early 60’s. Many refer to this period as the golden age following the second war…an age where optimism was high, an age where the impossible was believed to be possible. An era where a man saw his role in life as being important, as being responsible for his own well-being, and for that of his family. Where a man was proud to work hard and provide for his children and his wife…where to be unemployed carried a stigma…and few remained unemployed for long. An era where hard work was real. Back breaking work over long hours was the norm…and was accepted with pride. An era where workers were proud of their efforts, proud of the results of their labor and proud of America.
Now we fast forward to 2010. Advances in technology have reduced the number of back breaking jobs. They have been replaced with machines, and a higher trained workforce. So…why is that fully 5% of today’s workforce cannot work because they are disabled (when in the 60’s that number was less than 1%)? Why is this so?
Why is it that today we have people unemployed for 2 years…when back in the 60’s nobody would dream of being unemployed for that long?
Why is it that today nearly 50% of the population is expected to be the recipient of food stamps at some time in their life, when back in the 60’s such a thought was incomprehensible?
For all of you who say the economy is suffering today and it wasn’t back in the 60’s, you are right. But that is not an argumnent6 that answers my questions. The mid eighties through 2000 or so saw the greatest economic growth ever experienced in America (or the world for that matter)…and yet the statistics quoted above were not significantly different during that boom time?
So…how do you account for that?
While the blame game is used to divert attention from the truth, we will never accept the reason the country has arrived where it is at today.
I believe there are two very simple reasons:-
1. Free money
2. Greed
The good people of America have over time abrogated their responsibility to their families and replaced that with the expectation that the government will take care of them.
All they need do is ask (or demand) and the government coffers will be opened up and they will be showered with all sorts of monetary gifts.
And the greed starts…the scamming of the system starts…when a man is addicted to free stuff, he wants more…and more…and more.
Free money and greed have led America by the nose to the brink of self-destruction.
But we can’t sit here smirking and nodding our heads in agreement without first considering our own role in this tragedy.
It is the American people that have not only allowed greed and free money to bring us to the brink of ruination, but we have encouraged it.
Every time we hear about a proposed change to Social Security, the shouts go up…”don’t touch my SS…I paid for that!”.
Every time we hear talk of cutting the subscription drug benefits for the elderly, the chorus erupts…”You want to kill granny? No way!”
Every time we hear talk of freezing the debt ceiling the angry mob tells us about all the children who are going to die, all the people who will lose their jobs, all the helpless unemployed who need the stimulus to have any chance of getting a job.”
And the few true conservatives amongst us who shout loudly about the wrongness of all this, find their words blown away in the winds of hate…our warnings fall on deaf ears.
Yes, WE are to blame for where we are today…it is our greed, our love of free money that brought us here.
As for the government? She also loves free money. When the gold standard was abolished, it paved the way for the government to create free money.
SO now, the peoples demand for free money is answered with the provision of free money.
Can you really argue that this is sustainable?
Do you really think that all is well?
Do you really think the dollar can sustain its value in the face of free money?
Or greed?
Financial Armageddon is heading this way…she is galloping in on the heels of the four horseman of the apocalypse…and she is a crazy bitch.
None will avoid her revenge.
When will she arrive? I don’t know. Maybe tomorrow….maybe ten years or more away…but arrive she will.
…..devereaux
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