Even if we assume that God created planet earth and everything on it including human beings less than 20,000 years ago, that’s still a long time in dog or cat years, and even in human years. Assuming each generation is spaced from 15 to 25 years apart, or 20 years on average, that constitutes 1,000 generations. For most of the past 10,000 years, we practiced all sorts of discarded religious beliefs and only during the last 500 years did we figure out where the earth was located and how it operated relative to the sun, the planets, the galaxy and the entire universe. (This process has been evolving consistently since the “Big Bang” about 13.5 billion years ago, including the rise of modern Homo sapiens about 100,000 years ago.)
EVERYTHING TAKES TIME
Even 2,000 years is 100 generations and even the best genealogists can’t trace the roots of any egotistical, shallow and wealthy person that far back. Most famous people of the 1st Century would be unknown but for the statutes, buildings, coins and the surviving writings of their contemporaries that were preserved by the many unknown learned Irish Monks, Vatican and Papal collectors, and the assistants to Moslem Caliphates during Europe’s dark ages until the Gutenberg Printing Press was invented.
The Western Hemisphere was only fully re-linked with the rest of the world just over 517 years ago. Thereafter potatoes, corn and tomatoes, among other foods, were finally distributed worldwide that ended up feeding hundreds of millions of people, including many of our forgotten ancestors. (We thanked the native peoples of the Americas by killing them off directly because we lusted for gold and new real estate, or indirectly with various diseases for which they had no natural immunities.)
Both World Wars of the 20th Century took less than 4 years for the U.S. to wage and end. The U.S. has been in Afghanistan for 8 years, 2 years shy of the Russian occupation from 1979 to 1989. I am amazed that critics decry as being too short and constricting the President’s intent to scale up the conflict in order to hand it over to the Afghans in 18 months, and argue that we should stay there indefinitely until some unknown “job” is done. It took less than 18 months to go from D-Day to the complete surrender of Germany and Japan, so the extreme right-wing should get a better grip on reasonable timetables. We might not wish to repeat Russia’s overstay in Afghanistan, nor can we realistically expect to move a country stuck in the 16th Century ahead 500 years to the 21st Century in 18 months or even 18 years.
LOOK AT THE BIG PICTURE
This really bad recession that started at the end of 2007 is not over yet, but in the big scheme of things, 2 years is just a blip on the march of modern time. But Americans, spoiled from years of immediate gratification, 24/7 info-news entertainment, instant communications through various new technologies, and totally ignorant of history and reality, expect a complete economic recovery at this early juncture. We conveniently forget that our country, its business, civic and political leaders, pushed by our wealthy, middle class and even poor citizens, collectively made this massive mess possible. The majority of us are in denial of the facts and reality, and that many jobs lost to technology, robots and lower-paid foreign workers will never come back.
The Great Depression lasted almost 12 years from 1930 to 1942. It ended only as a result of massive Federal deficit spending on World War II when we actually had a large manufacturing sector that could be re-tooled for war. President Hoover and the Republicans back then loathed deficit spending or bank bailouts so it took 4 years (‘29-‘33) to really plunge us into a deep Depression with 25% official unemployment. Many critics of President Roosevelt thought he was too timid on his government stimulus spending plans out of a fear of deficits. We ended up with a double-dip Depression in 1937-38 when he cut government spending without any evidence that private sector investments or bank lending would be increasing.
IT TOOK YEARS TO DIG OUR HOLE, IT WILL TAKE YEARS TO GET OUT
Due to many short-sighted bipartisan policies set in place during the 1980’s and 1990’s, we climaxed at the complete financial, housing and economic meltdown of 2008. Do we think that 30 years of bipartisan stupidity can be cured by 2 years of conflicting policies proposed by only one side and the other side’s solutions are to do nothing? We are so partisan, extreme, polarized and divided today, that there is no powerful non-partisan middle that could possible lead or govern.
We are now left with some good, bad, inadequate and unknown policies from Democrats. The alternative from Republicans is doing nothing or returning to the discredited policies of the past. I am more willing to try a bunch of new ideas (both good and bad) and see what happens in 4 years rather than endlessly debate our fears and continue to do nothing.
Since the American electorate put many substandard thinkers and leaders in public office for the past 30 years, they at least have reflected all our anxieties, prejudices, angers, ignorance, delusions, fantasies and complete social polarization. We want lots of governmental benefits but we don’t want to pay for them. We want to solve various national and global problems but we shirk from making any shared sacrifices. We need to plan for the future but we don’t want to make any difficult choices. Too many of us still believe in magic pixie dust even though we outsourced the manufacture of that crap to China years ago.
PERVASIVE POLITICAL PARALYSIS
Our federal and state elections have devolved into ritualistic temper tantrums for those who are the most energized in their delusions to go out and vote. The majority is often just lazy and stupid as to frequently sit out their only meaningful option in a democratic republic, and then they are surprised at the results. We end up moving from one extreme to the other and sensible non-partisan moderates and independents get trampled every time by the extremists.
Most of this country’s discourse over the past 2 decades has consisted of moronic yelling matches between our 2 extremes fighting over gerrymandered political divisions that preserve that ossified system with tons of campaign contributions by special interest and wealth donors. As a result we have created systemic gridlock, paralysis, and a complete inability to judge or adopt any good new ideas on how to conduct our national affairs.
UNDERSTANDING OUR FELLOW CITIZENS
I can relate with many who are unemployed or underemployed. Every day, week or month that goes by seems to be an eternity of fear and uncertainty. I am a regular blogger on TMV because I am working only part-time on my business consulting and private arbitration. Former, current and potential new small enterprise clients just postpone all types of discretionary expenditures in an economy that shows no major signs of recovery. Helping with some of my remaining clients’ projects involving the termination of some employees and arbitrating unpaid bills with suppliers and customers are not very satisfying but they bring in some money during the month.
I am fortunate that my spouse works full-time and that we only have one 10-year-old child. We also have no mortgages or credit cards to pay off. I have certainly used my various skills in cooking, cleaning and laundry care over the past 12 months. I work out of our home and only see one or two clients at their offices each week. Advertising for new business online, at networking gatherings, and at local watering holes, has been pretty frustrating and fruitless.
I have advised for free or for nominal flat rates, many people concerning their mortgages, foreclosures and housing problems. My honesty and bluntness has disappointed many who ran off to various purveyors of worthless hope and promises that relieved them of thousands of dollars. After nothing was accomplished, a few returned to me to ask how they could implement their worst case scenarios that I predicted many months ago. Others never came back but public records and reports from mutual acquaintances have sadly indicated that I was right in the first place. Again, little of this work has been professionally satisfying even as a former attorney. Unfortunately too many of us are still in denial of how much things have changed since 2006 and how long it will take for the private sector to realistically recover over the next decade.
WE NEED REALISTIC EXPECTATIONS
For those who expect the Democrats and President Obama to deliver tons of new jobs next month or next year, please don’t expect the impossible. For those who think the Republicans could do better on the job or economic front, that view is also completely misplaced as many of them have essentially stopped thinking and are wasting their time adulating the clueless Sarah Palin. I would advocate seeking out sensible non-partisan independents that speak the harsh truth to voters and are open to many new ideas, rather than endlessly swinging from one mediocre party choice to the other that too often merely wants to preserve personal or group power, without regard to the public and the best long-term interests of the country.
Our various Governments (Federal, state and local) set the stage for private enterprise research, development, growth, and hiring. This is not to say that government jobs are not real jobs, but they are created through taxes collected from a private sector that must be producing taxable income. Most government spending occurs by transferring public tax revenues to specific private companies to complete various infrastructure projects or to provide services that our society believes are important public goods and services. Such transfers of public funds to private entities inevitably create jobs. However a healthy private sector should be creating the majority of all jobs in any economic system for it to be sustainable and competitive globally.
A GLOBAL PERSPECTIVE
Our private sector is having difficulty competing in a global economy, not only because of high taxes as some argue, but because there is no level playing field between countries and regions. We are competing against the likes of China, Inc., which is a wholly-owned government entity that will steal, cheat, and ignore all patents, copyrights, and many trade agreements in order to shift the playing field inequitably in its favor. We also must compete with smaller advanced countries (i.e. Deutschland GMBH) that have sensible national business, labor, manufacturing, environmental, infrastructure and financial policies clearly better than our own in many ways.
An unfettered, unregulated and directionless free-enterprise capitalistic system will not succeed in any country when it must compete globally where most of the world operates under noticeably different economic rules. We are not going to change the world. Rather we must sensibly alter our domestic and international policies to fit in with the new global economy. Thus most of our discredited economic and political philosophies, ideologies and paradigms should be abandoned.
Our country is in for a long slog and trek with little hope for immediate success. However, if we continuously change the allocation of power every 2 years but remain systemically paralyzed, and only listen to the moronic proposals from both the extreme right and ditzy left, we are in for even more disappointment and failure. We need greater honesty and open-mindedness between ourselves. We cannot make long-term national policies based upon transitory emotional temper-tantrums.
MORE PATIENCE AND HARD WORK AHEAD
What bothers many people from all parts of the political spectrum is President Obama’s seemingly calm and patience in the face of so many different problems and such vitriolic criticism from all sides. For a hopelessly shallow, impatient, ignorant population and electorate, it might be frustrating to think that he does not share our senses of urgency, anxiety, anger, angst, and despair. We forget that he and most of those who make our economic and job hiring decisions are the ones with fairly secure positions who can take the “big picture” and patient approach. This might not be immediately satisfying to those hurting financially and economically, but ultimately it is the better approach for our country’s long-term best interests.
We really need to learn to prioritize our many challenges; compromise on some non-essential matters; and try some radical new proposals. We have to stop arguing vehemently and endlessly over every god-damn little thing and inventing disputes just for short-term political gain. We also have to stop blaming every elected official for all of our current collective problems and not expect immediate results. That attitude might be acceptable with infants, toddlers, children and teenagers, but I would hope that the American electorate shows more maturity and sensibility.
We must act promptly but understand that we have to be patient with seeing results since correcting our many problems will take far more time than 2 to 4 years, more likely closer to 10. We should always be open to experimentation and never, ever just stand still and hope others or outside events will make things better for us. We really have to grow up and act like responsible adults or we’ll soon be left to the dustbin of history for failed global empires.
Are Americans up to the daunting challenges of the 21st Century?
Marc Pascal, happily ranting in Phoenix, AZ