Posts Tagged “national debt”
By Larry Oscar
A friend of mine and I were discussing the decline that our country in these troubled times when the subject of how recent our country has gone down hill came up for discussion.
Actually, it just seems that way when in fact the decline of our nation started well over 50 years ago. It started when the leaders of our country began to think the problems of bad human behavior could be solved with money and big government programs. No problems caused by bad human behavior can ever be solved by more government and throwing money at the problem.
And no human bad behavior can be covered up by excuses and political platitudes. Oh, there are brief moments when we see some signs that America may be improving for the best, but one fact remains…we are past the “Tipping Point’. A tipping point is the point when the center of gravity is above the center of buoyancy. At that point a boat becomes unstable and capsizes.
We reached several tipping points in our country a few years ago. We now have more people who vote for a living than those who work for a living. This lets the politicians sell handouts for votes at an ever increasing pace. “Vote for me and I will give you a government handout” is now the mantra of today’s politicians. Downward declines are nothing new. It happened to Rome, Egypt, the former Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, and the history books are loaded with many other nations who have fallen from grace. What is interesting to note is that you would think by the 21 st century the American people would have learned just a bit, and at least try to avoid the pitfalls that drag a society to the bottom.
I never thought I would see the day when a political party would run on a campaign of jealousy and envy, but that is just what happened in the last election of 2012. Yes indeed, we are past several tipping points in our country when politicians are running on one of the seven deadly sins, and winning. Over the past half century we have seen our freedoms eroded away gradually. However, over the past five years the pace of that erosion has dramatically increased.
If you would have told someone in the 1950s’ that in just 60 years about one half of the country would be on food stamps they would have thought you were nuts. A key failure is a General Motors vehicle that locks the steering wheel and causes 13-20 deaths from auto accidents. The result is a firing of 15 GM workers and millions in restitution to those injured. However, the government VA hospital system has resulted in the deaths of over 1100 veterans and not a single government employee has lost their job. Furthermore, the President and Congress sit back and are “mad” and “outraged” at the VA, but not one cent has been authorized for restitution to those injured by VA negligence. Maybe that’s because we expect government workers to be incompetent in the first place. We hold them to what is known as the “Stupid Standard”.
Well, I have some more good news for you. In 2012 we had 86 million full time private sector workers supporting 148 million government “benefit” takers. So we have to print and borrow money to make the handout payroll. Is it any wonder why our national debt is over $17 trillion and climbing? The national debt is another tipping point we reached a few years ago. It is now larger than our gross domestic product, which, by the way, shrank by 2.9% in the first quarter of this year.
There are some bright sides to all of this mess. For one thing you can expect interest rates to remain low. The government can’t afford a higher interest rate with that high of national debt. You can also expect to see our involvement in the affairs of other nations decline. We can’t afford to send military aid to other nations anymore. Fall TV should be good as we watch all the politicians make fools of themselves during the election. And let’s not forget the laughs we will get from the walking gaff machine Joe Biden.
I also expect more beer and wine production in the US. With a feeling of ever increasing hopelessness people tend to consume more alcoholic beverages. And, if you’re smart , you will get in line like everyone else and grab your government handout before the entire thing collapses and you’re left out in the cold. I can’t wait until the government starts handing out free beer stamps.
Larry Oscar is a graduate from the University of Tulsa and holds a degree in electrical engineering. He is retired and lives with his wife on a lake in Oklahoma where he brews his own beer, sails, and is a member of numerous clubs and organizations.