I am deeply dismayed by the lack of attention to the long-range items that will determine the future of our nation. In the last several decades, we have become a more polarized nation focused on divisive social issues. We have taken identities as Republicans, Democrats, or Tea Partiers and lost sight of being Americans. Because of this myopia, issues clearly on the horizon that have huge significance are getting minimal attention. The cost of this oversight may be our global preeminence.
Let’s start with the fiction that “America is the greatest country on earth.” It was, and in some areas it still is. But, this is no longer an across-the-board truth. We can no longer pat ourselves on our collective backs for our past achievements. Where are we great today and where are we losing our claim to greatness?
Our freedoms, rights as citizens, and personal protections enforced through our government are as good as or better than any nation’s. In that we can take pride. In large measure, our sense of doing right for other peoples in other nations has little parallel. When there is a global disaster, the world looks to America to lead the way. Our military strength is still far above that of any nation. We have been blessed by abundant natural resources, water, arable land, and a temperate climate (all of which we have taken for granted). Despite the great recession, we have one of the world's strongest economies. I’ve traveled the world and I am always happy to come home to the USA. It has its flaws, but on balance it is still a great place to live.
Unfortunately, that great place is eroding. Egypt, Persia, Greece, Rome, France, Spain, England, China, the Incas and the Aztecs, all peaked and declined. We could follow them into history unless we end the magical thinking that our looming problems will get solved by ignoring them. Here are some nation-sized issues that must be addressed if we are not going to slide into history as a once-great nation.
National fatness.
Mediocre educational performance.
Sustainable future energy sources.
Water resources and utilization.
Climate change and sea level rise.
Deteriorating infrastructure.
Governmental fiscal discipline.
Needs of an aging population.
Wednesday, June 18, 2014
What Matters Most for America - Part 2 of 5: Fatness and Education
Let’s begin with the old expression “fat, dumb, and happy.”
As a nation, we are fat. We lead the world in obesity - 30% of us are obese and 40% of us are overweight. Obese people get sick more often driving up the need for health care services. What’s worse, obesity is plaguing our young people. How will these people take care of the rising number of old people? Clearly, a large segment of the population follows a lifestyle that is unhealthy. We have overindustrialized our food processing. We have put too much “fast food” on every corner. We have “upsized” our serving sizes and our waistlines. We are telling ourselves that being overweight is normal. Are we nuts?
We have created a culture of “death by convenience.” How ironic is it that everyday life has become less physically demanding to the point that we must drive to a gym to burn calories by walking on a treadmill? Physical activity inherent in daily living has gone down while emotional stress has gone up. The 30% of us who have a normal weight are able to live a more “fat free” lifestyle so it can be done. While fatness is a national problem, it can only be solved by individual resolve and action. The war on fat must be fought on the home front: in the grocery store, in the kitchen, on the playground, and by exercising in the neighborhood or gym.
The dumbing down of America has been going on for some time. Part of this is illustrated in how we have managed to simplify tasks to make it easier for less-educated people to do jobs (e.g., cash registers now calculate change). The test scores of our students compared to other countries have been sliding downward. We fall in the mid range for industrialized nations. An educated populace is a cornerstone of both democracy and global competitiveness. A nation with creeping ignorance falls prey to demagogues and its internal politics veer off track. A nation with creeping ignorance is unable to do the high-tech, high-skilled jobs that provide high wages. The result is an impoverished underclass who live in an affluent society while they compete against workers earning third-world wages. Education is an enabler of success and upward economic mobility and we are struggling to make it work for us in the modern age.
Education in America has long been a local matter. Local school boards make decisions about school financing and administration. Judging school performance was often a matter of making comparisons within the county, or maybe the state. Now there are national standards. Why? Because educational performance is a key to national strength. It’s no longer good enough to be better than the state next door. We must be better than every country on earth.
Every child is unique and we need a system that identifies that uniqueness and is tailored to it. We need the fortitude and the mechanisms that advance a child when he or she has mastered material, not when he is another year older. We need two parent homes where the parents read to their kids instead of single parents working second jobs to make ends meet. We need every household to instill the educational work ethic that produces scholarship, not mere attendance. Schools cannot do what parents will not do. Education begins at home. We need a national effort to drive that point home and facilitate its happening.
We need to afford education the priority and funding that we do our defense budget, because in the 21st century, a skilled and intelligent population will be our ultimate defense. If that sounds far fetched, it’s not. The military has already had to compromise its physical and educational selection standards because of the decline in both among young people. Without skilled labor to support skilled jobs and higher pay, our economy will falter. A failing economy means weaker tax revenues which means pressure on all forms of government spending, including the military. A country whose citizenry is physically and educationally weak is militarily weak as well.
Are we happy about this? I hope not, but we seem to be almost stupified into accepting it as the status quo. At some point, the healthy and educated people are going to get tired of paying for the social benefits of the uneducated, underemployed, overweight, sickly people. We may ultimately see a societal split between the responsible have’s and the irresponsible have not’s. The have’s will want the have not’s to shape up and act responsibly. The have not’s will want the nicer homes and better incomes of the have’s and will seek to redistribute that wealth to themselves through government social programs. A nation does not lift itself up by pulling down those at the top.
As a nation, we are fat. We lead the world in obesity - 30% of us are obese and 40% of us are overweight. Obese people get sick more often driving up the need for health care services. What’s worse, obesity is plaguing our young people. How will these people take care of the rising number of old people? Clearly, a large segment of the population follows a lifestyle that is unhealthy. We have overindustrialized our food processing. We have put too much “fast food” on every corner. We have “upsized” our serving sizes and our waistlines. We are telling ourselves that being overweight is normal. Are we nuts?
We have created a culture of “death by convenience.” How ironic is it that everyday life has become less physically demanding to the point that we must drive to a gym to burn calories by walking on a treadmill? Physical activity inherent in daily living has gone down while emotional stress has gone up. The 30% of us who have a normal weight are able to live a more “fat free” lifestyle so it can be done. While fatness is a national problem, it can only be solved by individual resolve and action. The war on fat must be fought on the home front: in the grocery store, in the kitchen, on the playground, and by exercising in the neighborhood or gym.
The dumbing down of America has been going on for some time. Part of this is illustrated in how we have managed to simplify tasks to make it easier for less-educated people to do jobs (e.g., cash registers now calculate change). The test scores of our students compared to other countries have been sliding downward. We fall in the mid range for industrialized nations. An educated populace is a cornerstone of both democracy and global competitiveness. A nation with creeping ignorance falls prey to demagogues and its internal politics veer off track. A nation with creeping ignorance is unable to do the high-tech, high-skilled jobs that provide high wages. The result is an impoverished underclass who live in an affluent society while they compete against workers earning third-world wages. Education is an enabler of success and upward economic mobility and we are struggling to make it work for us in the modern age.
Education in America has long been a local matter. Local school boards make decisions about school financing and administration. Judging school performance was often a matter of making comparisons within the county, or maybe the state. Now there are national standards. Why? Because educational performance is a key to national strength. It’s no longer good enough to be better than the state next door. We must be better than every country on earth.
Every child is unique and we need a system that identifies that uniqueness and is tailored to it. We need the fortitude and the mechanisms that advance a child when he or she has mastered material, not when he is another year older. We need two parent homes where the parents read to their kids instead of single parents working second jobs to make ends meet. We need every household to instill the educational work ethic that produces scholarship, not mere attendance. Schools cannot do what parents will not do. Education begins at home. We need a national effort to drive that point home and facilitate its happening.
We need to afford education the priority and funding that we do our defense budget, because in the 21st century, a skilled and intelligent population will be our ultimate defense. If that sounds far fetched, it’s not. The military has already had to compromise its physical and educational selection standards because of the decline in both among young people. Without skilled labor to support skilled jobs and higher pay, our economy will falter. A failing economy means weaker tax revenues which means pressure on all forms of government spending, including the military. A country whose citizenry is physically and educationally weak is militarily weak as well.
Are we happy about this? I hope not, but we seem to be almost stupified into accepting it as the status quo. At some point, the healthy and educated people are going to get tired of paying for the social benefits of the uneducated, underemployed, overweight, sickly people. We may ultimately see a societal split between the responsible have’s and the irresponsible have not’s. The have’s will want the have not’s to shape up and act responsibly. The have not’s will want the nicer homes and better incomes of the have’s and will seek to redistribute that wealth to themselves through government social programs. A nation does not lift itself up by pulling down those at the top.
What Matters Most for America - Part 3 of 5: Energy, Water, and Climate Change
We are complacent about our energy supplies. We rely on fossil fuels for much of our energy. Every time there is a shortage of supply, we worry about energy. As soon as that particular situation resolves, we become complacent again. The advent of fracking to release natural gas, and the discovery of more oil beneath North Dakota, make it easy to feel comfortable today. The inescapable truth is that hydrocarbons are ultimately finite. Eventually they will be used up. It may take 100 years, but the day will come when the last oil well runs dry and the last gas well sputters out. The nation that prepares for that day will be the one that survives into the post hydrocarbon future. Long-term energy sufficiency is a strategic national issue. Only nuclear and renewable sources of energy will be available in the long run. We must increase these sources of energy and develop more efficient ways of using energy to match both supply and demand. It takes a national research and development effort to do so.
Just as energy is finite, so is water. We get that water from three sources: rainfall, groundwater, desalinization. Rainfall is irregular from year-to-year. Droughts can appear and last a decade or longer. The entire climate can swing through long cycles. While we have studied nature to see how the climate has changed over thousands of years, we only have records for a few hundred years. Climate and weather are complex systems that we are just beginning to understand. We tend to think that climate is a fixed feature of life, like the shoreline of an ocean. It is not. In a country that has been “settled” for less than 200 years, we have only a limited exposure to the climate swings possible in North America. How climate change will affect our rainfall and water supply is very much up in the air. We need to prepare for adversity, not prosperity. How climate is affecting Australia is worth noting because their present may be our future.
Lurking below the surface is a major water problem. We have been pumping groundwater out of our Midwestern aquifers faster than it is being replenished. We have been drawing down mother nature’s water savings account faster than she can make deposits. One of these days, those water wells will run dry. When that happens, a large section of America’s breadbasket will no longer be able to produce food as it does today. Less food and a larger population are not a good combination. A similar situation is occurring in California where winter snow accumulations are insufficient to supply water demands for agriculture and a growing population. How much of this problem is random or cyclical versus permanent is hard to know, but that is no reason to delay action. We need a long-term plan and investment in our infrastructure to ensure our water supplies and control their usage.
Climate change is an issue where opinions are divided, but not rationally so. To borrow from a famous historical document, “We hold these truths to be self-evident...” Hundreds of millions of years ago, nature sequestered carbon from the atmosphere into the bodies of plants and animals that were covered by sediments and compressed into coal or converted to oil and natural gas. This process took tens of millions of years. In a matter of a few hundred years, we will have released back into the atmosphere a significant portion of this stored carbon through the burning of fossil fuels. We are messing with mother nature. We have raised the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere to what is considered to be a tipping point. That tipping point is where the earth enters a global warming cycle that will melt glaciers and the polar ice cap releasing more water into the oceans and exposing more ocean to the sun’s heat creating a self-sustaining rise in temperature. Once the snowball starts melting, we can’t stop it.
There is no debate that the greenhouse effect of CO2 gas is real. While the earth has gone through numerous cycles of warming and cooling (e.g., the ice age about 15,000 years ago) without man being the cause, it is foolish to ignore the impact of man’s activity on the planet. Regardless of what a person believes is the cause, the effect is the same - rising temperatures, rising ocean levels, agricultural disruption, and population migration. We face a crisis in coastal communities where millions of people may be forced to relocate as water levels rise. It will change housing, transportation, insurance costs, and personal fortunes as real estate literally goes underwater. The time to plan and prepare is now.
Just as energy is finite, so is water. We get that water from three sources: rainfall, groundwater, desalinization. Rainfall is irregular from year-to-year. Droughts can appear and last a decade or longer. The entire climate can swing through long cycles. While we have studied nature to see how the climate has changed over thousands of years, we only have records for a few hundred years. Climate and weather are complex systems that we are just beginning to understand. We tend to think that climate is a fixed feature of life, like the shoreline of an ocean. It is not. In a country that has been “settled” for less than 200 years, we have only a limited exposure to the climate swings possible in North America. How climate change will affect our rainfall and water supply is very much up in the air. We need to prepare for adversity, not prosperity. How climate is affecting Australia is worth noting because their present may be our future.
Lurking below the surface is a major water problem. We have been pumping groundwater out of our Midwestern aquifers faster than it is being replenished. We have been drawing down mother nature’s water savings account faster than she can make deposits. One of these days, those water wells will run dry. When that happens, a large section of America’s breadbasket will no longer be able to produce food as it does today. Less food and a larger population are not a good combination. A similar situation is occurring in California where winter snow accumulations are insufficient to supply water demands for agriculture and a growing population. How much of this problem is random or cyclical versus permanent is hard to know, but that is no reason to delay action. We need a long-term plan and investment in our infrastructure to ensure our water supplies and control their usage.
Climate change is an issue where opinions are divided, but not rationally so. To borrow from a famous historical document, “We hold these truths to be self-evident...” Hundreds of millions of years ago, nature sequestered carbon from the atmosphere into the bodies of plants and animals that were covered by sediments and compressed into coal or converted to oil and natural gas. This process took tens of millions of years. In a matter of a few hundred years, we will have released back into the atmosphere a significant portion of this stored carbon through the burning of fossil fuels. We are messing with mother nature. We have raised the carbon dioxide level in the atmosphere to what is considered to be a tipping point. That tipping point is where the earth enters a global warming cycle that will melt glaciers and the polar ice cap releasing more water into the oceans and exposing more ocean to the sun’s heat creating a self-sustaining rise in temperature. Once the snowball starts melting, we can’t stop it.
There is no debate that the greenhouse effect of CO2 gas is real. While the earth has gone through numerous cycles of warming and cooling (e.g., the ice age about 15,000 years ago) without man being the cause, it is foolish to ignore the impact of man’s activity on the planet. Regardless of what a person believes is the cause, the effect is the same - rising temperatures, rising ocean levels, agricultural disruption, and population migration. We face a crisis in coastal communities where millions of people may be forced to relocate as water levels rise. It will change housing, transportation, insurance costs, and personal fortunes as real estate literally goes underwater. The time to plan and prepare is now.
What Matters Most for America - Part 4 of 5: Infrastructure, Fiscal Discipline, and the Aging Population
The infrastructure of the country is deteriorating. We have enjoyed the benefits of an interstate highway and air transportation system that are barely more than 50 years old. Our sewer and water systems are older. These things are the underpinnings of modern commerce and living. They are decaying. Just as we can enjoy a new house without making repairs for years, we have enjoyed the benefits of these new modes of transportation. Unless we reinvest in updating and upgrading them, we will be living with a century-old infrastructure that will break down leaving us gridlocked and uncompetitive. Maintenance isn’t glamorous, just necessary. We need to reinvest in the shared assets that make America run. Most of these are managed by government.
The imbalance of spending versus tax revenue and the resulting growth in deficits and total debt for the United States is a festering long-term problem. Fiscal collapse is an intangible issue. Unlike easily seen potholes in a deteriorating highway, fiscal rot only is visible on an accounting ledger. Governments can get away with spending beyond their means longer than individuals, but not forever. As spending for social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Affordable Care Act) increases with an increasing older population and the additional of new beneficiaries, the pressure to continue deficit spending will continue.
We are funding the present by borrowing from the future. The big problem with that future is the number of people available to pay the bill relative to those getting benefits is going in the wrong direction. It is a very tough decision to make, but to provide at least a minimal safety net for the most vulnerable, government spending must be curtailed. There are hard fiscal priorities that we must determine and live by. Financial responsibility has to become our government’s top priority, otherwise all its other programs cannot be sustained. The government may not go out of business, but it may inflate its way out of trouble by paying old debts with cheaper, inflated dollars. It saves itself at the expense of its citizens by using inflation as a hidden form of taxation. It’s time to “Just Say No” to about 30% of today’s spending and to say “Yes” to about a 10% increase in taxation in order to balance our budget and reduce our debt. We have been fiscally lazy and paying the price only gets more costly with each passing day.
The aging population is a problem that we have seen coming for a long time. It was once a long-range problem that is now becoming a current problem. As the baby boomers enter their golden years, the costs for Social Security and Medicare will rise. Demands on the health care system will increase when the number of medical professionals may actually shrink. Alzheimer’s patients requiring constant care will increase. And, because many seniors have not managed their finances sufficiently to prepare for retirement, demands for increases to Social Security are likely to arise. There may come a time when America wishes its old people would just die because they cost too much to keep alive.
We need to develop today more economical ways for seniors to live and to get inexpensive health care. We need to prepare for a society where, instead of the kids moving back in with the parents, the parents are moving back in with the kids. We need to determine how health care dollars will be allocated so that we spend less on end-of-life treatments in order to fund care for active lives. A healthy workforce is more essential to the nation than healthy retirees. In the future, we will come face-to-face with an inter generational conflict for health care services and benefits. It will force us to look at euthanasia as an option for those beyond medical help. Such a debate will rival that of abortion and take many years to resolve. The time to begin that discussion is now.
The imbalance of spending versus tax revenue and the resulting growth in deficits and total debt for the United States is a festering long-term problem. Fiscal collapse is an intangible issue. Unlike easily seen potholes in a deteriorating highway, fiscal rot only is visible on an accounting ledger. Governments can get away with spending beyond their means longer than individuals, but not forever. As spending for social programs (Social Security, Medicare, Affordable Care Act) increases with an increasing older population and the additional of new beneficiaries, the pressure to continue deficit spending will continue.
We are funding the present by borrowing from the future. The big problem with that future is the number of people available to pay the bill relative to those getting benefits is going in the wrong direction. It is a very tough decision to make, but to provide at least a minimal safety net for the most vulnerable, government spending must be curtailed. There are hard fiscal priorities that we must determine and live by. Financial responsibility has to become our government’s top priority, otherwise all its other programs cannot be sustained. The government may not go out of business, but it may inflate its way out of trouble by paying old debts with cheaper, inflated dollars. It saves itself at the expense of its citizens by using inflation as a hidden form of taxation. It’s time to “Just Say No” to about 30% of today’s spending and to say “Yes” to about a 10% increase in taxation in order to balance our budget and reduce our debt. We have been fiscally lazy and paying the price only gets more costly with each passing day.
The aging population is a problem that we have seen coming for a long time. It was once a long-range problem that is now becoming a current problem. As the baby boomers enter their golden years, the costs for Social Security and Medicare will rise. Demands on the health care system will increase when the number of medical professionals may actually shrink. Alzheimer’s patients requiring constant care will increase. And, because many seniors have not managed their finances sufficiently to prepare for retirement, demands for increases to Social Security are likely to arise. There may come a time when America wishes its old people would just die because they cost too much to keep alive.
We need to develop today more economical ways for seniors to live and to get inexpensive health care. We need to prepare for a society where, instead of the kids moving back in with the parents, the parents are moving back in with the kids. We need to determine how health care dollars will be allocated so that we spend less on end-of-life treatments in order to fund care for active lives. A healthy workforce is more essential to the nation than healthy retirees. In the future, we will come face-to-face with an inter generational conflict for health care services and benefits. It will force us to look at euthanasia as an option for those beyond medical help. Such a debate will rival that of abortion and take many years to resolve. The time to begin that discussion is now.
What Matters Most for America - Part 5 of 5: Who Will Act?
Who will address these issues?
National fatness.
Mediocre educational performance.
Sustainable future energy sources.
Water resources and utilization.
Climate change and sea level rise.
Deteriorating infrastructure.
Governmental fiscal discipline.
Needs of an aging population.
It isn’t likely to be the politicians to whom we entrust the leadership of our nation. The political parties might rise to the occasion and champion some of these issues if they weren’t so busy worrying about fund raising and the next election cycle and how to stymie the efforts of the other party. With this level of leadership for government, the bureaucracy below may send up warning signals, but isn’t likely to act on its own. Government is fiddling while the country heads toward multiple crises. The nature and scale of those crises are such that the government’s typical crisis management problem solving will be inadequate to handle them. We will be overwhelmed.
It is not likely to be the capitalists. Capitalism has no national allegiance. It’s driving force is the creation of wealth for the owners of the capital. To the extent that individual capitalists have a sense of national pride and concern, they will guide their industries to help America. Unfortunately, most large corporations are global enterprises with institutional stockholders. Because of this, there is no driving force to make a firm an “American company” looking out for our national interests. Small businesses may have patriotic positions, but they lack the leverage needed to command the stage and move the country. We can compare this situation in America with that of China. In China, business, industry, and government are coordinated as a single national force. It may not produce the quality of personal life and liberty that the American system does, but it is making China a more effective international competitor for trade and resources. As the Chinese economy gets larger and is fueled by its own domestic demand, it will become less dependent on exports to America, more self-confident as a nation, and militarily stronger. It will challenge America for world dominance. It will be helped down that road by capitalism that sold it the technology it needed to overtake America.
Only we, the citizens, can get these issues addressed. For some issues, this will be done by individual action in our personal lives. For other issues, we must copy the special interest groups who lobby the legislatures and finance political campaigns to get what they want. They seem to have the influence that makes the system work. The problem is getting everyday people to band together to work on these long-range issues when we are confronted by so many near-term problems in our personal lives. Only when groups dedicated to solving long-range problems get involved in the political process, by preparing and financially supporting worthwhile candidates, can action begin. It happens now for near-term and emotional issues like gun control and abortion. While those are meaningful, they won’t mean much in a country that fails to address its larger problems. In the meantime, the clock ticks on toward our days of reckoning.
National fatness.
Mediocre educational performance.
Sustainable future energy sources.
Water resources and utilization.
Climate change and sea level rise.
Deteriorating infrastructure.
Governmental fiscal discipline.
Needs of an aging population.
It isn’t likely to be the politicians to whom we entrust the leadership of our nation. The political parties might rise to the occasion and champion some of these issues if they weren’t so busy worrying about fund raising and the next election cycle and how to stymie the efforts of the other party. With this level of leadership for government, the bureaucracy below may send up warning signals, but isn’t likely to act on its own. Government is fiddling while the country heads toward multiple crises. The nature and scale of those crises are such that the government’s typical crisis management problem solving will be inadequate to handle them. We will be overwhelmed.
It is not likely to be the capitalists. Capitalism has no national allegiance. It’s driving force is the creation of wealth for the owners of the capital. To the extent that individual capitalists have a sense of national pride and concern, they will guide their industries to help America. Unfortunately, most large corporations are global enterprises with institutional stockholders. Because of this, there is no driving force to make a firm an “American company” looking out for our national interests. Small businesses may have patriotic positions, but they lack the leverage needed to command the stage and move the country. We can compare this situation in America with that of China. In China, business, industry, and government are coordinated as a single national force. It may not produce the quality of personal life and liberty that the American system does, but it is making China a more effective international competitor for trade and resources. As the Chinese economy gets larger and is fueled by its own domestic demand, it will become less dependent on exports to America, more self-confident as a nation, and militarily stronger. It will challenge America for world dominance. It will be helped down that road by capitalism that sold it the technology it needed to overtake America.
Only we, the citizens, can get these issues addressed. For some issues, this will be done by individual action in our personal lives. For other issues, we must copy the special interest groups who lobby the legislatures and finance political campaigns to get what they want. They seem to have the influence that makes the system work. The problem is getting everyday people to band together to work on these long-range issues when we are confronted by so many near-term problems in our personal lives. Only when groups dedicated to solving long-range problems get involved in the political process, by preparing and financially supporting worthwhile candidates, can action begin. It happens now for near-term and emotional issues like gun control and abortion. While those are meaningful, they won’t mean much in a country that fails to address its larger problems. In the meantime, the clock ticks on toward our days of reckoning.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
