I posted my last blog about a month ago where I said in essence; pessimism will drag us down to unacceptable paralysis. For some of us, every where you look, read hear and sadly experience is how bad things are going. For me, the question is no longer whether times have been better or not – but how much of the current situation is of my own making due to my discouragement; and what part is due to the less than good and/or unfair circumstances?. I also said: There comes a time when a difficult situation becomes a normal existence and either you accept it or move on.
I am not immune to the current situation; I do admit to having problems associated with this economic downturn - more than I would like to talk about, or even think is fair. I have been affected just like the folks on the political left and the right. But that doesn’t matter, we’re still here. But then I had a fortuitous thing happen, during my lunch hour a couple days ago; I saw a PBS special: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/europe/jan-june09/eu_background_01-01.html . There were several things that became very clear to me:
1). Hegemony and preservation of the wide variety of races and cultures have been and are being observed and preserved by the union since its inception around 1993.
2). The process, makeup and lessons learned from the EU can be used by us in the US as object lessons to leave our current life robbing recession behind.
3). The formation of the Union has virtually guaranteed that another WWII type war in Europe is about impossible. In other words – war is obsolete; whether it is amongst themselves, Russia or Islam.
The partisan bickering had become a much smaller priority than the desire to move towards peace, prosperity and evolution of economic life. Just to quote a few numbers; the EU posted a GDP of around 12 trillion dollars compared to the just over the 11.8 trillion in the United States. The EU is comprised of 8 countries with a population of about 500 million people compared to our population of around 310 million.
I wrote a blog just before my anti-pessimism blog, in which I wondered if we’re becoming ‘2nd best’. In retrospect, the question was an apple versus orange situation. I was comparing the solitary nation of the US to all eight nations of the European Union. In truth, there is no one country that yields more economic might than the US, no one country that provides as much opportunity for small business, nor access to an advanced education that can be immediately applied to the building of a nation than the US.
Though, I might have failed to adequately verbalize this in my lasting writing, my optimism lies in the sheer opportunity and obvious need for the rebuilding of our infrastructure and the potential spin-off of new and existing small business to meet the coming demands. If we can stop our propensity to engage in wars of philosophy around the globe, we can put that money to use employing the 10’s of millions of workers out there trying to find the jobs. We have the opportunity to create and maintain the jobs that will feed families and provide the sort of post WWII stability that we’ve become accustom to and now miss in the wake of this downturn.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will consume about 600 billion dollars this year alone, and we are still on a record pace for home foreclosures. We officially have about 10-12 percent unemployment depending where in this country your reality has bit you in the butt. Worse, if we include all the various categories of people who have fallen on their versions of tough luck.
Rather than get into partisan battles over healthcare (because it’s coming anyway), get anxious over our involvements of other countries, you would better serve yourself and your nation over issues of rebuilding it – in every sense. How? Learn the lessons of ‘too big to fail’, unhealthy corporatism and special interest lobbying. Don’t vote for those politicians with a solid record of backing from the corporate machine.
Decide where you are politically and understand that there is no Utopia. Go to a ‘mom and pop’ store sometime rather than a conglomerate like Wal-Mart or Target. Pay attention to your community and shop in it. The people there understand you and your needs better than some faceless and huge corporation headquartered nowhere near you.
The EU has a bullet train – we haven’t even initiated the research to find out the details of how we will develop our own. Our banks hurt us with our own money and it needs to stop. In Europe this has been dealt with new regulatory legislation without the usual charges of socialism that we hear so much about hear from the right. In short, for the right – there are going to be some changes. For the left – there has to be a perception of fiscal responsibility, or you’ll find that you are no longer the majority. You may not get the ‘bicycle and the pony in the same year – get over it already…..
We have people in need for all kinds of reasons… a fifty year old, ex-breadwinner is not likely to become a freshman at an Ivy League school. But he/she can be ‘retooled’ into a worker we will need. Our lifestyle and expectation to ‘go it alone’ is a paradigm we can no longer hold up as an ideal. Wishing for better times will not solve the problems we currently face. But if the middle class wants to dig itself out there are some things that are just plain evident.
1). We, in the middle-class are not going to get any meaningful help from the mega-corporations nor the politicians.
2). We are going to have to tap into the same bravery that sent our service people overseas to promote and preserve our way of life. That includes moral courage. (for inspiration go to Youtube’s site: Eulogy for Robert Kennedy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg
3) Believe enough in ourselves to pull together and stop the worship of manufactured and packaged celebrities created for your convenience. Put more faith in your ability to bring ‘something to the game’ than the dream of ‘getting lucky’ with the unlikelihood of a stroke of luck – like winning the lottery.
I am not immune to the current situation; I do admit to having problems associated with this economic downturn - more than I would like to talk about, or even think is fair. I have been affected just like the folks on the political left and the right. But that doesn’t matter, we’re still here. But then I had a fortuitous thing happen, during my lunch hour a couple days ago; I saw a PBS special: http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/europe/jan-june09/eu_background_01-01.html . There were several things that became very clear to me:
1). Hegemony and preservation of the wide variety of races and cultures have been and are being observed and preserved by the union since its inception around 1993.
2). The process, makeup and lessons learned from the EU can be used by us in the US as object lessons to leave our current life robbing recession behind.
3). The formation of the Union has virtually guaranteed that another WWII type war in Europe is about impossible. In other words – war is obsolete; whether it is amongst themselves, Russia or Islam.
The partisan bickering had become a much smaller priority than the desire to move towards peace, prosperity and evolution of economic life. Just to quote a few numbers; the EU posted a GDP of around 12 trillion dollars compared to the just over the 11.8 trillion in the United States. The EU is comprised of 8 countries with a population of about 500 million people compared to our population of around 310 million.
I wrote a blog just before my anti-pessimism blog, in which I wondered if we’re becoming ‘2nd best’. In retrospect, the question was an apple versus orange situation. I was comparing the solitary nation of the US to all eight nations of the European Union. In truth, there is no one country that yields more economic might than the US, no one country that provides as much opportunity for small business, nor access to an advanced education that can be immediately applied to the building of a nation than the US.
Though, I might have failed to adequately verbalize this in my lasting writing, my optimism lies in the sheer opportunity and obvious need for the rebuilding of our infrastructure and the potential spin-off of new and existing small business to meet the coming demands. If we can stop our propensity to engage in wars of philosophy around the globe, we can put that money to use employing the 10’s of millions of workers out there trying to find the jobs. We have the opportunity to create and maintain the jobs that will feed families and provide the sort of post WWII stability that we’ve become accustom to and now miss in the wake of this downturn.
The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq will consume about 600 billion dollars this year alone, and we are still on a record pace for home foreclosures. We officially have about 10-12 percent unemployment depending where in this country your reality has bit you in the butt. Worse, if we include all the various categories of people who have fallen on their versions of tough luck.
Rather than get into partisan battles over healthcare (because it’s coming anyway), get anxious over our involvements of other countries, you would better serve yourself and your nation over issues of rebuilding it – in every sense. How? Learn the lessons of ‘too big to fail’, unhealthy corporatism and special interest lobbying. Don’t vote for those politicians with a solid record of backing from the corporate machine.
Decide where you are politically and understand that there is no Utopia. Go to a ‘mom and pop’ store sometime rather than a conglomerate like Wal-Mart or Target. Pay attention to your community and shop in it. The people there understand you and your needs better than some faceless and huge corporation headquartered nowhere near you.
The EU has a bullet train – we haven’t even initiated the research to find out the details of how we will develop our own. Our banks hurt us with our own money and it needs to stop. In Europe this has been dealt with new regulatory legislation without the usual charges of socialism that we hear so much about hear from the right. In short, for the right – there are going to be some changes. For the left – there has to be a perception of fiscal responsibility, or you’ll find that you are no longer the majority. You may not get the ‘bicycle and the pony in the same year – get over it already…..
We have people in need for all kinds of reasons… a fifty year old, ex-breadwinner is not likely to become a freshman at an Ivy League school. But he/she can be ‘retooled’ into a worker we will need. Our lifestyle and expectation to ‘go it alone’ is a paradigm we can no longer hold up as an ideal. Wishing for better times will not solve the problems we currently face. But if the middle class wants to dig itself out there are some things that are just plain evident.
1). We, in the middle-class are not going to get any meaningful help from the mega-corporations nor the politicians.
2). We are going to have to tap into the same bravery that sent our service people overseas to promote and preserve our way of life. That includes moral courage. (for inspiration go to Youtube’s site: Eulogy for Robert Kennedy - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p9JTYnMpRyg
3) Believe enough in ourselves to pull together and stop the worship of manufactured and packaged celebrities created for your convenience. Put more faith in your ability to bring ‘something to the game’ than the dream of ‘getting lucky’ with the unlikelihood of a stroke of luck – like winning the lottery.
