Bankrupt Nation

One way of seeing this economic crisis is that America has become a nation swimming in debt. Years ago, I began reading analyses by contrarian economic thinkers that our national debt--personal, corporate, governmental, national, trade, etc.--has grown to the point where it is imperiling our economic prosperity and future.

I spoke to someone yesterday at church who said that he was $40,000 in credit card debt. And this is a person who probably makes $20,000 a year or less. And all he could talk about was the next thing he wanted to buy. All I could do was shake my head, knowing what coming to him down the road. He wasn't going to listen to any advice from me. And I hope he doesn't come back when reality hits and he's hurting, because there is going to be little I can do to help him. And frankly, I really won't feel very sympathetic at that point.

That is the situation we are in as a nation. We are effectively bankrupt, though the hammer is yet to fall (or has been falling for about a year now, in slow motion). There is so much debt, present and future, that it is hard to see how we get out of this. And facile politicians saying things like McCain did this morning are simply moronic.

There are no simple, easy solutions for this nation. I tend to think that we're in for a wrenching, bitter national experience, with our faux prosperity slipping away from more and more of us. The only solution ultimately is to begin to live within our means, as Andrew Bacevich put it recently. Among other things, that means producing more, working harder, spending much less, borrowing less, traveling less. There is going to be a much lower standard of living for most everybody, though some at the lower end will feel this much more painfully. The prosperity we have experienced for the last half century is basically over. It is back to basics at every level of life.

I'm sorry to sound so dreary and pessimistic. But reality sometimes is a bitch. And it doesn't do anyone any good to turn away (which is something Americans are very good at, via TV, movies, video games, drugs, alcohol, sex, and other so-called 'harmless' diversions). You've just got to suck it up and face it head-on.