Headlines: Being an Eternal Optimist is Dang Hard These Days

[eagleseven]

Politicians cannot stop a hurricane, nor can they direct the global economy.

Your personal objective should be to seem wealthy in comparison with the average Homo sapien, rather than in comparison with the average American.

Why?

1. Individual men cannot fully understand a system with 6 billion individual actors, and thus the rule of unintended consequences is always in effect.

2. Our technology has advanced to such a point that gross income inequality between nations is obsolete. Thanks to things like the internet, international shipping, and the mass-adoption of the English language, no single population will maintain its economic superiority over another. For instance, Nigeria is becoming an economic power...a thought once unimaginable.

In other words, because of the very internet we now enjoy, you will forever have to compete against the whole of humanity, rather than just your local neighborhood, for wealth. If you cannot compete against the brightest and hardest-working of other countries, you will become part of the global under-class.

---

Since we are now competing against the whole world, we ought to adjust our standards to include the whole world, else we will be eternally unhappy.

 

[Big Black Dog]

i believe that in the next 15 or 20 years, maybe even less, the US will just be another Third World country. We're heading in that direction so fast that I don't know if we have enough brakes to stop from skidding in there. This Congress and administration is doing everything they can do to ruin America financially for our kids and grandkids. They could care less, because after all, they have theirs...

 

[Foxfyre]

Politicians cannot stop a hurricane, nor can they direct the global economy.

Your personal objective should be to seem wealthy in comparison with the average Homo sapien, rather than in comparison with the average American.

Why?

1. Individual men cannot fully understand a system with 6 billion individual actors, and thus the rule of unintended consequences is always in effect.

2. Our technology has advanced to such a point that gross income inequality between nations is obsolete. Thanks to things like the internet, international shipping, and the mass-adoption of the English language, no single population will maintain its economic superiority over another. For instance, Nigeria is becoming an economic power...a thought once unimaginable.

In other words, because of the very internet we now enjoy, you will forever have to compete against the whole of humanity, rather than just your local neighborhood, for wealth. If you cannot compete against the brightest and hardest-working of other countries, you will become part of the global under-class.

---

Since we are now competing against the whole world, we ought to adjust our standards to include the whole world, else we will be eternally unhappy.

Well as a modern conservative (i.e. classical liberal), I am pretty much sold on a laizzez faire approach to economics anyway on the theory that there is no government made up of people smart enough, educated enough, or innovative enough to manage any economy, let alone a global one. But give people the freedom and incentive to look for ways to prosper honorably and ethically, and they will find them.

 

[DavidS]

I need beer.

 

[topspin]

Pessimist often focus on the closed buggywhip factory without giving the same analysis to the new wireless businesses.

 

[Foxfyre]

i believe that in the next 15 or 20 years, maybe even less, the US will just be another Third World country. We're heading in that direction so fast that I don't know if we have enough brakes to stop from skidding in there. This Congress and administration is doing everything they can do to ruin America financially for our kids and grandkids. They could care less, because after all, they have theirs...

It is real easy to feel this way Count, but deep down do you really believe it? When you look back at all the times when things looked most hopeless--the American Revolution, D-Day, massive disasters that made recovery look impossible, etc. etc. etc., and every time the human spirit was able to overcome, repair, rebuild, persevere, and succeed.

Have we lost that? I can't bring myself to believe that we have.

Yes, we have a government now that seems hellbent on bringing us to our knees. But I hope beyond hope that there are enough of us with the gumption to rise up on our hind legs and say NO. And throw them out. And put people in who do love America and are willing to do what it takes to succeed.

Maybe I am still a bit of an optimist.

 

[topspin]

crybabies who can't get over mommy separation issues create wealth opportunities. Please keep crying losers.

 

[Foxfyre]

Pessimist often focus on the closed buggywhip factory without giving the same analysis to the new wireless businesses.

That is true. And that is part of the problem and people who can't accept that times change and we have to change with them are going to be very miserable people.

On the other hand all change is not change for the better, and there is such a thing as hope that is misplaced or too fuzzy to be of use. And forcing change based on unproven expectations or projections is maybe more destructive to progress than the guy who is still lamenting the closed buggy whip factory.