There is a country whose debt is rising, its population
aging and job security fading. The country’s youth, especially, wonder when,
and if , their country can bounce back. Most of its citizens do not have the
security of lifetime employment enjoyed by their parents and grandparents. Low
birth rates combined with longer life expectancy are thinning out its
working-age population at the same time the ranks of retirees are swelling.
Ultimately, its taxpayers will shoulder the burden of surging costs for health
insurance, elder care and pensions. Its leader has tried to jump-start the
economy by injecting it with huge sums of money, leading to the devaluation of
its currency. He has promised sweeping and drastic overhauls.
Most in
this country feel less well off than before due to long-term declines in wages
and purchasing power. About four in 10 residents work in part-time or contract
jobs that afford little security or benefits. For the country’s youth,
permanent, career-track jobs are the exception, not the rule. Its manufacturers
struggle to compete with rivals like China. Some think the nation is in
serious, irreversible decline. This sure sounds familiar. The nation I’m
describing?
Japan.
(Ironic, as back in their 1980’s economic heyday, everyone thought that Japan
was going to own the world).
Obviously,
this sounds like a carbon-copy description of the U.S., but the same is true
with many countries in the European Union and elsewhere. The West needs the
emergence of a strong, principled leader or leaders who understand that
socialism has never been, cannot and never will be…the answer to these
problems, as it caused them in the
first place. (Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher, we need you now).
Even
this won’t be enough to save us, if the people
don’t understand or will not support what has to be done. If many don’t
stop demanding more of other’s money, and few are willing to sacrifice any of their pensions or entitlement benefits,
we will never come out of this economic malaise. And, if we don’t fully utilize
all our energy resources, and if we continue to let pathetic dictators dictate to us, we- and the world- will eventually slide
back into another Dark Age.
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