On top of all of this, there are some major factors going on in the world that sometimes make it seem that we are out of control of our own lives and unable to shape our futures, given the following global trends:
- The average age of many countries' populations is getting older, making it increasingly difficult for government and politicians to write the checks of entitlements that their brethren promised long ago. In the United States, more and more people will be collecting Social Security in the near future but there will be fewer and fewer people to fund the pot of money needed for payouts. The aging U.S. population will quickly collapse the Medicare program unless drastic changes are made soon. So it is in many other countries.
- While the average age of populations in many countries is getting older, throughout the world there are places with a growing class of young adults that cannot find enough quality work, or any kind of work, for themselves and their families, possibly leading to unforeseen societal problems arising from this chronic unemployment situation.
- What used to be slow moving, economically backwards countries are becoming fast moving, economic engines for growth. This growth, while good for those moving up the economic ladder, puts incredible strains on all kinds of resources including food, petroleum, energy sources, water, and ores and minerals. These pressures drive up the costs on all.
- As we see in the Middle East, the drive for freedom is upsetting long established international relationships, making international affairs and alliances much more difficult to predict and optimize. When previously the United States State Department could rely on certain despots for support ("he may be a bastard but he's our bastard" syndrome), those old rules are now gone, placing additional stress and uncertainty into the world around us.
- While some countries are struggling towards freedom, others are still under the thumb of tyrants, bent on their own self gratification at the expense and possibly the lives of anyone or any country that gets in their ways. North Korea and Iran being the two biggest culprits but there are others that would rather move ahead with negative action than positive.
- The world is moving faster via the Internet and wireless communications, making it crucial that decision making processes in government, business, and one's personal life be made quicker and with less confidence then previously, further injecting stress into our lives.
- As the world's population continues to grow, the ability to feed it and the ability to keep the environment in which we live clean becomes increasingly more difficult. More people means higher prices for just about everything as the immutable economic laws of supply and demand kick in.
- In the face of these trends, our political class has been especially inept and developing integrated, strategic and well thought out plans and programs to deal with these global changes and trends. For example, in a simplistic, linear approach to finding a way to address our energy needs, the U.S. government pays billions of dollars a year to American farmers in subsides for the development of ethanol, an alternative fuel source. Unfortunately, the spending of these billions of dollars has had a minimal effect on our energy situation while diverting enough corn volume (40% of U.S. corn productions goes into ethanol production every year) to feed 350 million people a year (Source: the Week magazine, march 4, 2011). Thus, our politicians waste money through subsidies, get no bang for their buck, and contribute heavily to the world food shortage problems.
- Although China's economy has been growing quickly and strongly over the past few years, it is still not close to the size of the U.S. economy. Its rapid economic expansion has had a devastating effect on all facets of the environment throughout the country. It's fast growth has its leaders grappling with the fact that inflation threatens to derail its economic growth, with recent inflation rates of over 5% a year as measured in late 2010. Many economists see dangerous valuation bubbles in China's real estate, stocks, and commodities sectors.
From a societal perspective, a New York Times article from several months ago reported that while China is graduating more and more students from its universities, the economic need for these graduates' skills is not present in the economy, forcing these graduates to do work far below their education levels. This could lead to long term unrest within these underpaid but highly educated citizens.
With their long term restrictions on the size of families, China is beginning to enter a period where there are not enough young, working people to care for the growing number of older, retired people. Finally, The Week magazine reported in its February 25, 2011 issue that China is faced with an epidemic of lung cancer cases, with one million Chinese dying from the disease every year, putting strains on its medical and health care institutions..
- Japan faces many of the same issues that we and other nations face. The world's third largest economic engine has been in an economic funk for over ten years. Their population is also aging rapidly, placing strains on their retirement programs. They have a crazy nuclear armed neighbor in North Korea that has previously shot missiles over Japanese territory. Tragically, they have seen part of their country devastated today by an earthquake and resulting tsunami, putting further pressure on their country to move forward in the wake of this tragedy.
- Europe has not escaped these global trends either. By being tied to each other via the Euro currency, it has yet to be determined whether this tethering will help weaker European economies to survive or will lead to the drowning of all European economies. Greece, Italy, Spain, Portugal, and Ireland are in the worst shape but they threaten to infect the healthier economies also.
All of the above is meant to show that while we have some very serious problems in this country, if we can fix what ails us as a nation, the opportunity to thrive again as a democracy and world economic power is possible, given the huge challenges facing many other nations. However, that is unlikely to happen as long as the same tired politicians with the same priorities, their own re-election vs. leading the nation, are sitting in Washington. I assume that if we had a leadership base that understood the global trends and could think strategically within those trends and the assets and attributes of the United States, we would not be in the position we are in today.
In order to change out the current leadership for new leadership that know how to put a strategic plan together, we need to change our political processes. We need some sort of term limit process so that politicians do not serve in office for thirty or forty years. Leadership needs to be refreshed periodically with new ideas.
We need to take the factor of money out of the political process so that politicians are free to lead based on a strategic plan and some sort of long term vision, not based on how much re-election campaign money a corporation, union, PAC, or other organization can throw their way to maintain the status quo. The staus quo of short term thinking got us into this jam in the first place. The world moved on, faster and faster, while our plans never kept up.
We need leaders that know how to leverage assets, trends, and opportunities. Consider Apple computer. Their iPods interact and leverage their iTunes library which is compatible with their iMacs which are compatible with their iPads which share apps with their iPhones which can play iTune selections. That is strategic planning and execution at its finest.
Conversely, our political class comes up with Cash For Clunkers, Cash For Appliances, First Time Home Buyers Rebate, the HAMP program to save mortgages, etc., all of which exist in a vacuum vs. other government programs, leveraging nothing. As a result of not being strategically tied together, they fail as individual efforts to attain their goals.
Edward R. Murrow once wrote: "Our major obligation is not to mistake slogans for solutions." We can get out of our current rut and funk as a nation and thrive again as a democracy and nation. However, we have to be more vigilent in identifying when the political class is pushing only slogans and demand that our election processes and the leaders that come out of it give us solutions. Apple can do it, they broke the code. We need to find a way for our political class it either break the analogous code for governing or step aside for those that can.
Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at http://www.loathemygovernment.com/. It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.
Please visit the following sites for freedom:
http://www.cato.org/
http://www.robertringer.com
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.flipcongress2010.com/
http://www.reason.com/
http://www.repealamendment
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