These two are mainstream. I'm writing a review of Edward Dutton's "The Past is a Future Country." He is the only writer I know who is unafraid to write about every dimension of the problem: race, gender, declining intelligence, woke philosophy....
Much to worry about, certainly. As another senior watching us vote ourselves the treasury has been interesting. The debt burden is a concern in that service on that debt rises so the proportion means something must give. While Ike built the Interstates and we did get to the moon, at the time we were not spending ~ 60% on transfer payments to individuals. And we saw this coming long ago as Mr Obama faced a horrid recession just as the boomer retirement bomb burst. Politicians are loath to throw grannie off that cliff although some gannies could very well jet away on their private jet to most anyplace they wish.
We have decimated the supply side both by greed and the pandemic; the greed allows us to despise the makers of things we "need". The only answer to the resultant inflation is to raise interest rates to force us to limit demand. But that only makes debt service worse. So I see the Fed arriving at ~ 5% inflation allowing the dollar to devalue even more over time and holding there until the supply side resolves, if it ever can. Our history shows revenue at ~20% of GDP and outlays at ~ 22%, so the lovely 2% allowed servicing the deficit without too much pain. The 2008 calamity erased that stale flow.
Not sure if we can recover the supply side readily. Our demographics are bad for the skilled workers we need going forward. Businesses will need to establish internal training programs that they are quite reluctant to do. But Germany does it quite well, so we must.
Perhaps as we wallow in this uncertainty, our leaders might set aside personal graft and petty bickering to lay out a path. Likely will need that to wait until '24. Perhaps many of those retired in place will decide to leave government and some vital 50 year old people ascend.
My fear is the calamity is baked into our psyche. As Roubhini points out, there is short term cost to doing the right thing and avoiding catastrophe. Those vital 50 year-olds asking us to pay that cost will not be in power for long in a democracy. Their opponents will win by saying "You shouldn't have to pay the cost — 'they' should!" Autocracies follow the same path, it just takes longer.
Hopefully we as a nation are diverse enough in political thought to avoid that outcome. One party rule is very bad thing. Not sure what to make of perpetual Blue/Red states. Would rather see robust debate and compromises. I fear voters are much too lazy.
These two are mainstream. I'm writing a review of Edward Dutton's "The Past is a Future Country." He is the only writer I know who is unafraid to write about every dimension of the problem: race, gender, declining intelligence, woke philosophy....
Much to worry about, certainly. As another senior watching us vote ourselves the treasury has been interesting. The debt burden is a concern in that service on that debt rises so the proportion means something must give. While Ike built the Interstates and we did get to the moon, at the time we were not spending ~ 60% on transfer payments to individuals. And we saw this coming long ago as Mr Obama faced a horrid recession just as the boomer retirement bomb burst. Politicians are loath to throw grannie off that cliff although some gannies could very well jet away on their private jet to most anyplace they wish.
We have decimated the supply side both by greed and the pandemic; the greed allows us to despise the makers of things we "need". The only answer to the resultant inflation is to raise interest rates to force us to limit demand. But that only makes debt service worse. So I see the Fed arriving at ~ 5% inflation allowing the dollar to devalue even more over time and holding there until the supply side resolves, if it ever can. Our history shows revenue at ~20% of GDP and outlays at ~ 22%, so the lovely 2% allowed servicing the deficit without too much pain. The 2008 calamity erased that stale flow.
Not sure if we can recover the supply side readily. Our demographics are bad for the skilled workers we need going forward. Businesses will need to establish internal training programs that they are quite reluctant to do. But Germany does it quite well, so we must.
Perhaps as we wallow in this uncertainty, our leaders might set aside personal graft and petty bickering to lay out a path. Likely will need that to wait until '24. Perhaps many of those retired in place will decide to leave government and some vital 50 year old people ascend.
My fear is the calamity is baked into our psyche. As Roubhini points out, there is short term cost to doing the right thing and avoiding catastrophe. Those vital 50 year-olds asking us to pay that cost will not be in power for long in a democracy. Their opponents will win by saying "You shouldn't have to pay the cost — 'they' should!" Autocracies follow the same path, it just takes longer.
Hopefully we as a nation are diverse enough in political thought to avoid that outcome. One party rule is very bad thing. Not sure what to make of perpetual Blue/Red states. Would rather see robust debate and compromises. I fear voters are much too lazy.