I remember when Katrina hit the south back in 2005. I followed the hurricane tangentially. It didn’t hit me until the news media started calling American citizens “refugees” that I realized how bad it was.
I had a conversation with friends afterward, and they were surprised by the gross incompetence of the local, state and federal government. I looked at them, wanting to know: Where have they been the last 5-to-30 plus years? Haven’t they noticed that the US has been in a slow and steady decline since the inflationary, decrepit, corrupt and stagnate 1970′s?
Despite the celebratory big-talk of the Reagan years, I would say that when he helped usher in the we’re-going-for-broke-sorta-war against the country formerly known as the USSR, it would likewise take us down. When the government decided to have a mano-a-mano battle with the USSR, it drained a number of internal well-thought-out strategies for keeping our country whole, solid, and well functioning with it.
A rising stock market doesn’t contrast well against jobs that evaporate from the industrial US to overseas. A rising top 1% making more money than ever doesn’t contrast well against white collar jobs that evaporate from the service economy to overseas. A society cannot survive on consumption alone, it must make durable goods as well.
Every job lost is a tax payment lost. Every job lost is a Social Security payment lost. Every job lost is a Medicaid/Medicare payment lost. “Economists” love to say that the loss of a US job to someone overseas due to slave wage labor is something we benefit from, because we can purchase “cheap” goods. I wonder why they never mention that lower paying jobs here mean people could only afford cheap goods, buy less higher-end products, and contribute less to the taxes that are necessary to keep the US afloat. It is no accident that to finance its grand entitlement schemes the US is borrowing nearly every dime.
In the future, when good and excellent historians look at this country, they will draw a line from whatever took place in this country in its attempts to keep its supremacy, and what it lost in the balance. The founders had it right: let’s mind our business, and stop trying to micromanage the rest of the world.
A man fighting fires in other people’s houses will not notice that his own home is burning down to the ground.
9/11 didn’t happen due to any conspiracies within the government. It happened because of gross indifference, incompetence, and negligence. Bureaucracy exists only for the bureaucracy. It took over 40 years for that to happen. It will take another 30 plus years for the country to entirely collapse.
In nearly every facet of our lives, if it’s not Corporate America, then it’s an officer, agent, or bureaucrat of the government(s) watching, spying, monitoring, and cataloging everyone. Everyone is “guilty” of everything. Everything is illegal. Everything is restricted. Every time a “crime” occurs the sheeple request more interference, monitoring, and watching. I bet no one feels “safer” either.
Nothing improves, and nothing will improve.
9/11 put the icing on the cake for the totalitarianism this government has always wanted to embrace and deploy. A permanent war with no ending. The never ending battlefield encapsulates the entire country. The US Constitution can be ignored, suspended, and deemed irrelevant. Travel has the same atmospherics as being in a prison. Yet somehow, millions of illegal aliens can easily enter the country.
We are a prison(er) society. We will be in a state of martial law, until foreign governments stop purchasing USA debt, the country collapses under the weight of illegitimacy and stupidity, or deliberate ignorance of basic governance, fairness, due process, and economics. Take your pick.
We are told that things are getting better, but they’re not, and they wont. We’ve reached the turning point, and since the country is already flying over the cliff, there is no going back. We’re waiting for the impact once we hit bottom.
The difference for me is that I used to care. Starting today, I don’t.
Prediction
They will come and confiscate your savings and all other assets, and they wont need a reason. You can count on it. There’s nothing restraining the jackals in DC.