I enter this conversation with a feeling of dread, but then again. No pain, no gain.
Some years ago a book came out by John Nesbit fortelling of a big problem with our economy if we did not NOW ( at least 25-30 years ago ) so something about the huge mass of baby boomers as they begin to retire causing massive debt and stressing and straining all of our institutions. Thank of a snake trying to eat an elephant. The simple concept was that at each age plateau this BB generation would cause massive shortages in major instutions and services beginning with building schools and firing teachers etc, then flooding the job market, then the housing market etc. This march thru time created years of prosperity UN TIL they began to reture. The simple math of fewer people workiing supporting a huge amount of people not working. By supporting is meant paying into the SS system.
The current ills of SS have nothing to do with the benefits people are getting and everything to do with the lack of political will across every aspect of political and social government AND the people of the United States passing along this issue for generations to generation. Now there are less people working, less people being born, and less jobs for those lesser amount of workers now alive and available. All the above services and industries now have to shrink because of their smaller markets. The efficiencies of new technology do not seem to have translated into lower costs as many had predicted.
If no other problem facing Americans had been tackled intelligently and together as a country 25 years or so ago we would not be speaking of this today and this country would continue to be a beacon to the rest of the planet. But noooooooooo......what did we all think was going to happen? Well, here it is.
Now the talk is of seniors being entitled, poor people wanting help, disabled and mentally ill people with no programs effectively and efficiently taking care of them in a way that an enlightened country with today's advances should be doing.....Government has too many regulations. Yeah we all know that. That is not the problem. The problem too much regulation for one group is laissez faire for another group. There is a cultural war of values in this country that allows no compromise, no workabouts and no wiggle room. My vote is for starting over. Yeah. Redo the entire Constitution...
Elect/appoint a Constitutional Convention for the purpose of rewriting the Consstitution for the 21st century and as far as it can take us. Each state shall elect/appoiint 100 people to work for 10 years on a New American WAy. Have 25 alternates to all for death and disability. Give them a salary. They must hold open meetings ( total transparency ). They must report annually their progress. They must leave whatever political party they have adhered to and may not vote for these ten years. First goal: The Constitution and Bill of Rights. Second Goal: Rules of engagement for Congress. ( Suggestions they they eliminate the special benefits they enjoy. All members of Congress get the same social security, Medicare and Retirement benefits as the rest of Americans. This would eliminate the ivory tower mentality. They do not get retirement plans from the US. They get a matching plan etc. The oath of office is based on what's best for ALL AMERICANS. ) Re-election has 3 months of campaigning. A limited number of media ads. A fixed budget for all compains at X dollars. All compaigns will be audited. No corporate or union or organizational contsributions or ads.
Third Goal: Clarify rules for the Judiciail Branch. Legalize marijuana and tax it like liquor. Do not allow for profit prisons. Create laws that make sense to those others than lawyers....Make ethics mis deeds as punishable as out and out crimes...Clean up biz regs. Make employer abuse of work force by not paying over time, not providing retirement plans and not offering medical plans punishable by not allowing the company to profit. Create national arbitration boards to replace untions. Unions were needed before but now they just feather their nest like any other beaucracy. But workers need someone to look out for their rights. Right to work means abuse to workers runs rampent. Trust me on this one. OR not.
Presidents, Board of Directors, and top producers can still make a lot of money but the millions on Wall Street and within the Banks and Insurance Companies is out of proportion to the rest of the American WAy. I don't know that the solution to this is but maybe not allowing any company to become too big and somehow define it. Having worked in the financial services industry for 22 years I can safely say that most of the top people and producers are crooks by any meaningful standard. In this hierarchy someone is being screwed and it is usually a scapegoat rather than the real moverfs at the top. I suggest that if a company is proven to use illegal means for gain, that the entire board be fired and banished from the industry as well as all the top executives...or commit the Japanese ritual of sticking a sword in their guts....lol...just kidding...maybe.
Stop the deconstruction of the American K-12 education system by giving money to charter schools to educate as their biases allow. Common sense tells us that there is more to creating sound educational sytems than giving money to an untried school with a paraticiular bent. Schools are not mushrooms that just pop up overnight nor are they ventures that all one needs to do is declare a school, buy or lease a buiklding, hire lesser teachers foar even lesser money, enroll students, buy some bookis and let er rip. Most of these schools lose money and close. WHY schould we be funding for these bentures when we could be funding and improving a school system that educasted millions of Americans since the late 1800s??? Set a national curriiculuum, not by States. If people don't like the national curriculuum fine. Send their kids wherever they want to go but WITHOUT TAX PAYERS FUNDING. Let them go to Jesuit schools, Hillels, Muslim, Anarchy or Military Schools, but not with my money.
Create a national PEace Corps in which every AMerican serves for two-four years either before or after college. Have the American Youth clean up ghettos, mentor kids at risk of falling behind, work on roads, bridges, in public healthy, bringing rural areas into the computer age, work in labs etc each according to their skill level land intersts. This would bring untold benefits to this country and help unify the country culturally and hopefully bring more tolerence to the varying beliefs and values in this country. Mix em up.jj
Healthcare....Why does a hospital get 10x more money for aspirin than if someone ran to the drug store for us? Why can't doctorys have equipement in their offices to do test llike the old days? ( I know. They think they're doing too many tests for profit rather than for health. Big deal. They d o that already!!!e At least we don't have to run all over town and spend more time and money getting there etc. ITs a mess. And I can't go on with this rant.
In American, is it just me, or is there just so much wrong with so many things that I think its time to either fix it or or or tune out. Go to a remote area. Go back to the land. Get a little farm for your family to self provide. Use solar panels and a wind turbine for energy. Live simply with less stuff and just forget about the rest of the world. Oh yeah, I did that in the 60s and I was a hippie. Why did I leave it?
? Mmmmmm. Just remember in the novel by Aldous Huxley "1984" with all the improvements, technology etc and Big Brother....there was an American Indian who refused to live that way and he faded out of sight back into the land. Either we all commit to an honest reckoning or just drop out....lmaybe to Canada...
