THE BIG PICTURE

Part 1... Are we failing to see the big picture on the US economy? After the WWII, most of Europe, Russia and Japan laid in ruins. Their factories were leveled, their industrial capacity decimated. The United States, on the other hand, came out of the war with their full industrial base intact, ready to supply all other nations with manufactured goods. As a result, the US economy prospered, especially in 50s and 60s. Today, however, the situation is different. Europe, Russia and Japan once again are power houses of industrial capacity and manufactured goods. Add to that a powerful China with a high capacity industrial complex and an ever expanding massive global trade reach. As a result, today, we import more than we export which means huge trade deficits and continuously shrinking industrial base and manufacturing jobs. To make matters worse, our consecutive Administrations are more interested in pleasing special interests, satisfying greed and running astronomical budget deficits while our two party system systematically engages in ever worsening political back biting and gridlock.

It is easy to see that our economic challenges are structural and they seem to be feeding on themselves to get worse by the minute. So what, if any, can be done to come out of this historic quagmire? Solutions can be found but implementing those solutions seem to be out of the question considering today’s poisonous political atmosphere. Nevertheless, failure is not an option unless we choose to drift into oblivion and take our inevitable place on history’s dusty pages to become a “has been” empire like once majestic Rome.

History is full of examples of great empires, long disappeared taking with them their once exceptional cultures. Only thing that is common among them is not how they had become great empires but rather how they all have disappeared from the scene with the passing of time proving once again that nothing is permanent except change, leaving us with the inescapable conclusion that greed, corruption, grid lock and never ending military adventurism do inevitably lead to destruction from within.

Despite prevailing pessimism that we as a nation have reached a point of no return, we must stand up and fight back with vigor and determination to change the course of history we are currently on and once again try to be the nation everyone admires.  

Be on the look out in the near future for Part 2...