Bob, re: "I want whomever the candidates are in 2012 to tell the truth so that their election is a mandate for their proposals. Another round of free lunch for all to be paid for by the top 2% is not telling the truth or an agenda for solution."
Yes, we're due for an upheaval of epic proportions, not just here but all over the world. Ideas about societal norms and the future course of humanity are going to change over the next century as the ability to kill large numbers of people commodisizes and as populations and the competition for scarce resources, food, and land increase.
In addition, we'll have to deal with the problems of what to do about those who get left behind in terms of their ability to make a living in an increasingly technological and mechanized society.
But I think you had a little more of a near term view in mind (g), and I agree with you. Like a guy who lost his high dollar job, can't get it back and keeps spending as though he will, as a nation we can't pretend that we're going to recreate the past. We've borrowed too much and spent our national treasure too foolishly on things that didn't have any payback (wars, pork projects, star wars pipe dreams, etc.) and now we're infrastructure challenged, our population is poorly skilled to compete in the global economy and our trading of short term comfort for long term growth has come home to roost.
In reality these are not insurmountable problems. They can be solved if we're willing to accept some short term pain. Unfortunately, it seems that no one is willing to tell the American people that they're going to have to pull in their belts a notch, share a little more if you have more and pay back some of the excesses. I think many Americans are willing to do that...i.e., pay more taxes if the money is really put to use for a better future.
What Americans seem unwilling to let go of, unfortunately, is the idea that we can continue to build better lives for ourselves (in material terms) into perpetuity. The rest of the world is shouldering their way up to the table and the inevitable result is that when the food gets passed our way there won't be the rich helpings that used to be the norm for us.
I'm fine with that as long as we find a way to share what's left so that we don't have the kind of income inequalities that are starting to tear at the fabric of our society. Ed |
