lawgator1
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This may surprise some of you, but I really don't blame Bush or the Republicans for the current economic mess. I don't think that what we are seeing is any one administration or party's fault. Not the Dems' fault, not the Republicans' fault.
I think our nation has come to the economic point we are for several reasons that have to do with our national character. And they are things we need to change.
1) We are too service-based an economy. I always lament to people that no one I know makes anything. No one I know makes furniture, or lamp posts, or widgets. All my friends have service jobs, whether it be as lawyers or restaurant workers, or teachers, or bankers or what have you. Don't get me wrong -- we need all those things -- but it worries me long-term that we are a national economy built on two things: consumers and transaction costs.
2) Our government does not save. In fact, not only does it not save, it spends like a drunken sailor, who thinks he has 24 hours to live, in a Taiwanese prostitute house that doubles as a casino. We need someone to step up to the plate and get us back to a surplus situation.
3) The citizenry does not save. I do think a lot of us do better when it comes to 401ks and IRAs than, say, 20 years ago. But we still live way too much in debt in the here and now. And when things turn south as they are now, and people lose jobs and otherwise have less discretionary income for things costing more and more, we reap what we sow. I, too, am guilty of this.
I hope that we weather this storm, but long-term I think the nation needs to become much more fiscally conservative, both in terms of our own households and the national treasury.
I think our nation has come to the economic point we are for several reasons that have to do with our national character. And they are things we need to change.
1) We are too service-based an economy. I always lament to people that no one I know makes anything. No one I know makes furniture, or lamp posts, or widgets. All my friends have service jobs, whether it be as lawyers or restaurant workers, or teachers, or bankers or what have you. Don't get me wrong -- we need all those things -- but it worries me long-term that we are a national economy built on two things: consumers and transaction costs.
2) Our government does not save. In fact, not only does it not save, it spends like a drunken sailor, who thinks he has 24 hours to live, in a Taiwanese prostitute house that doubles as a casino. We need someone to step up to the plate and get us back to a surplus situation.
3) The citizenry does not save. I do think a lot of us do better when it comes to 401ks and IRAs than, say, 20 years ago. But we still live way too much in debt in the here and now. And when things turn south as they are now, and people lose jobs and otherwise have less discretionary income for things costing more and more, we reap what we sow. I, too, am guilty of this.
I hope that we weather this storm, but long-term I think the nation needs to become much more fiscally conservative, both in terms of our own households and the national treasury.
