What if the era of American economic dominance is over? What if our rise was merely a wonderful historical anomaly that is now coming to and end?
Think about it. After WWII, both Europe and Japan were in a shambles. China was an isolated appendage of communism; India was still developing; and places like Vietnam and Taiwan had not been incorporated into the global market system (which system had yet to blossom).
Meaning: more money was coming in - a lot more. This enabled us to grow a large middle class of consumers who enjoyed rising living standards with each successive gerneration.
Energy was dirt cheap. Compare the price per gallon in 1950 to 2012. This meant that everything was cheaper to produce.
Those days are over. We are no longer manufacturer to the world, and cheap energy is gone. We are the most spread-out, auto-dependent nation on earth at the dawn of expensive energy. History no longer favors the energy-sucking suburban model. Why can't we take measure of the large storm collecting around our future?
But it's not just an over-reliance on a defunct energy model - it's a much broader entropy. Germany, India, and Asia are now out-producing us. We no longer make anything. We just borrow money from China and hand it out as credit so that jobless Americans can buy shiny plastic objects made somewhere else.
History replaced Roman and British Empires. Why are we so naive as to believe that we are not part of history? Nothing lasts forever. Nations rise and fall. Why can't we be adults and accept our limitations? Why do we have to blow sunshine up our own asses? - clutching after past greatness like an insecure actress who cannot face-up to her wrinkles. Why can't we grow old gracefully and accept our diminished role? Why do we act like an unstable global hegemon, dropping bombs on petty tyrants in order to prove our strength?
Why can't we accept that the jobs and prosperity may not be coming back? Why do we keep promising the sheeple that everything will be ok? Why can't our politicians just treat us like adults and ask us to live within our means? Why can't they be honest and say that our children will have fewer opportunities, as they become paralyzed by the 30yr spending orgy we have just completed. It's time to prepare for a fundamentally different world, rather than cling to a mythological future based on past greatness. The coming generations will have to live with less. Period. Accept it and learn to take pleasure in simpler things, like family and god.
Why can't we face the truth? Even if jobs did come back, they would be low paying jobs because free market capitalism thrives on cheap labor. That is, we are not going to see the compensation model we had during the postwar years where the father's factory wage supported the entire family so that the mom could stay at home and raise the kids. [Don't you people get it: the postwar era (when government supported unions, high wages, & affordable college) was also the heyday of conservatism. High wages and generous social programs gave hard working parents more time to raise the children. The conservative notion of the nuclear family came from New Deal America, when the working class had artificially high wages. This is why the 50s was such a glorious decade - because capitalism had yet to lower the wages/benefits/entitlements of the working class to a level that made it impossible to support a family]
So yes, the good jobs are gone. And if manufacturing jobs do come back, they will be the sort seen in Asia and the 3rd world - ultra cheap wages with zero benefits, i.e., not like 50s union wages where the father could support the family so that the mother could stay at home and raise the kids. The new low wage model brings the highest profits to shareholders, and this is the model our political system chose when we freed-up our corporations to seek the cheapest labor markets overseas. Free Market Capitalism does not support a thriving middle class of high-wage-workers. It supports ultra wealthy owners and poor workers. The Free Market drive for low wages destroyed the Great America Conservative Family by forcing the Mother into the workforce, and forcing the father to work more for less - so he had less time to help raise his children. Because of this, children are raised by MTV, Hollywood, and gangs . . . (but at least the capitalist makes more because he enjoys ultra cheap labor).
Folks, the old postwar America where everyone had high paying jobs and great benefits is gone for good. The owners of business no longer want to support a well paid population. They want cheap labor - plain and simple. The old America is gone.
Why do we keep blaming our political parties for a problem that neither can solve? Each successive administration promises prosperity, but each fails because they refuse to admit a simple truth: the old wage and benefit structure of "managed capitalism" has been replaced by the low wages of free market global capitalism. Our politicians can't change structures this big and powerful. If Washington can't run a laundromat, they certainly cannot figure out a way to change the tectonic economic forces that sweep whole civilizations into the dustbin of history.
Why do we have so much faith that the next administration will solve everything? Where did we get this faith in government? Why did the Left buy into Obama's hope and change garbage? Why does each party's voters buy into this garbage?
What if the ride is over? Why can't we admit we had a good run and adjust to the coming mass poverty? Why do we believe that Dear Leader can fix a crisis that is well beyond the power of Washington? Sometimes history does what it wants, and sometimes you just have to man-up and accept it.
Maybe Gingrich is not the messiah any more than Obama was. Yes, I know he and Mitt promise to make government smaller so that business can re-grow our prosperity - but what if the problem is deeper? What if all this empty rhetoric about freedom and small government overlooks the reality that high wages are not coming back? Why are we so seduced by simple bumper stickers?
Why does the Right and Left have so much faith in their respective models... and the politicians who peddle them?
What say you?
Think about it. After WWII, both Europe and Japan were in a shambles. China was an isolated appendage of communism; India was still developing; and places like Vietnam and Taiwan had not been incorporated into the global market system (which system had yet to blossom).
Meaning: more money was coming in - a lot more. This enabled us to grow a large middle class of consumers who enjoyed rising living standards with each successive gerneration.
Energy was dirt cheap. Compare the price per gallon in 1950 to 2012. This meant that everything was cheaper to produce.
Those days are over. We are no longer manufacturer to the world, and cheap energy is gone. We are the most spread-out, auto-dependent nation on earth at the dawn of expensive energy. History no longer favors the energy-sucking suburban model. Why can't we take measure of the large storm collecting around our future?
But it's not just an over-reliance on a defunct energy model - it's a much broader entropy. Germany, India, and Asia are now out-producing us. We no longer make anything. We just borrow money from China and hand it out as credit so that jobless Americans can buy shiny plastic objects made somewhere else.
History replaced Roman and British Empires. Why are we so naive as to believe that we are not part of history? Nothing lasts forever. Nations rise and fall. Why can't we be adults and accept our limitations? Why do we have to blow sunshine up our own asses? - clutching after past greatness like an insecure actress who cannot face-up to her wrinkles. Why can't we grow old gracefully and accept our diminished role? Why do we act like an unstable global hegemon, dropping bombs on petty tyrants in order to prove our strength?
Why can't we accept that the jobs and prosperity may not be coming back? Why do we keep promising the sheeple that everything will be ok? Why can't our politicians just treat us like adults and ask us to live within our means? Why can't they be honest and say that our children will have fewer opportunities, as they become paralyzed by the 30yr spending orgy we have just completed. It's time to prepare for a fundamentally different world, rather than cling to a mythological future based on past greatness. The coming generations will have to live with less. Period. Accept it and learn to take pleasure in simpler things, like family and god.
Why can't we face the truth? Even if jobs did come back, they would be low paying jobs because free market capitalism thrives on cheap labor. That is, we are not going to see the compensation model we had during the postwar years where the father's factory wage supported the entire family so that the mom could stay at home and raise the kids. [Don't you people get it: the postwar era (when government supported unions, high wages, & affordable college) was also the heyday of conservatism. High wages and generous social programs gave hard working parents more time to raise the children. The conservative notion of the nuclear family came from New Deal America, when the working class had artificially high wages. This is why the 50s was such a glorious decade - because capitalism had yet to lower the wages/benefits/entitlements of the working class to a level that made it impossible to support a family]
So yes, the good jobs are gone. And if manufacturing jobs do come back, they will be the sort seen in Asia and the 3rd world - ultra cheap wages with zero benefits, i.e., not like 50s union wages where the father could support the family so that the mother could stay at home and raise the kids. The new low wage model brings the highest profits to shareholders, and this is the model our political system chose when we freed-up our corporations to seek the cheapest labor markets overseas. Free Market Capitalism does not support a thriving middle class of high-wage-workers. It supports ultra wealthy owners and poor workers. The Free Market drive for low wages destroyed the Great America Conservative Family by forcing the Mother into the workforce, and forcing the father to work more for less - so he had less time to help raise his children. Because of this, children are raised by MTV, Hollywood, and gangs . . . (but at least the capitalist makes more because he enjoys ultra cheap labor).
Folks, the old postwar America where everyone had high paying jobs and great benefits is gone for good. The owners of business no longer want to support a well paid population. They want cheap labor - plain and simple. The old America is gone.
Why do we keep blaming our political parties for a problem that neither can solve? Each successive administration promises prosperity, but each fails because they refuse to admit a simple truth: the old wage and benefit structure of "managed capitalism" has been replaced by the low wages of free market global capitalism. Our politicians can't change structures this big and powerful. If Washington can't run a laundromat, they certainly cannot figure out a way to change the tectonic economic forces that sweep whole civilizations into the dustbin of history.
Why do we have so much faith that the next administration will solve everything? Where did we get this faith in government? Why did the Left buy into Obama's hope and change garbage? Why does each party's voters buy into this garbage?
What if the ride is over? Why can't we admit we had a good run and adjust to the coming mass poverty? Why do we believe that Dear Leader can fix a crisis that is well beyond the power of Washington? Sometimes history does what it wants, and sometimes you just have to man-up and accept it.
Maybe Gingrich is not the messiah any more than Obama was. Yes, I know he and Mitt promise to make government smaller so that business can re-grow our prosperity - but what if the problem is deeper? What if all this empty rhetoric about freedom and small government overlooks the reality that high wages are not coming back? Why are we so seduced by simple bumper stickers?
Why does the Right and Left have so much faith in their respective models... and the politicians who peddle them?
What say you?
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