Welcome to the real world …

Which we helped grow and promoted … Good on us!

During this ever long run up to the 2008 elections, many things about our American values rise to the top of the “think about list”. Just what is important, and how much can we do about our future?

A first blush is depressing to too many.

Our incessant borrowing to finance our way of life and national policies will probably eventually collapse when the “loaners (domestic, foreign, and global)” find a better deal, which of course we helped to promote, for good or bad reason. The whole industry of international finance and borrowing is well established since WWII, and any advice is suspect as protecting the source and their way of life. Academics, exchange rates, debt as a percentage of GDP, and monetary exchange rates come to mind. So do the manipulators of same. How about our way of life? As one who has made money this way, and now come home, what happens when the lenders quit lending, not as a policy decision, but as a matter of global business. In a more local Tennessee term, why should taxpayers in Idaho help pay for the bicycle path between Monterey and Cookeville, and expect to finance it all with federal borrowing? And why should a very business like person with loyalties to a global company vice a nation even blink an eye if push comes to shove? Bottom line, in succeeding in enhancing the rest of the world, we have mortgaged our future, and nobody is going to say “thank you”, including future Americans.

The other depressing blush is how USA Americans can confuse rights with privileges. Those Americans who think flush toilets and forced air heat are a right are confused and spoiled by their upbringing. Those who confuse anarchist play games with trying to establish the American model in the New World (and hopefully later the whole world) are also similarly spoiled. The old line applies: if you think things are bad here, just move to XXXX, and then tell me what you think.

So on to the future: which blushes should be promoted, defended, and offered as one way to make humanity better? Given the “lag’ factor in human events, any pro USA, American, and New World policy is a winner if practiced by citizens, and global companies, both seeking the eternal success and survival for all time. In blue collar terms, we are still the light of the world! And our kids will still have to learn and train and fight like hell. And may others will influence us, maybe even dictate to us, what we are going to do. And like the blue collar Americans so many of us are, we can make things happen! Now that is a good blush, and the free play exercise it will be.