{"id":332643,"date":"2010-02-17T15:46:00","date_gmt":"2010-02-17T20:46:00","guid":{"rendered":"tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5587346.post-6792769688515023127"},"modified":"2010-02-17T15:47:45","modified_gmt":"2010-02-17T20:47:45","slug":"american-crisis-%e2%80%93-imagining-a-way-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/332643","title":{"rendered":"American crisis \u2013 imagining a way out"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>Scott (Dilbert) Adams <a href=\"http:\/\/dilbert.com\/blog\/entry\/shiny_objects\/\">can\u2019t imagine any way American will survive its 21st century budget crisis<\/a>.<\/div>\n<div>&#160;<\/div>\n<div>This betrays a certain lack of historical perspective. We\u2019ve been through worse, other nations have been through much worse. Compared to the American Civil War, the Black Death, or even the many versions of \u201cgreat\u201d Depressions we\u2019re in pretty good shape. <\/div>\n<div>&#160;<\/div>\n<div>Not that success is guaranteed, but it\u2019s quite easy to imagine.<\/div>\n<div>&#160;<\/div>\n<div>As a starting point, I\u2019d suggest some subset of this list would suffice:<\/div>\n<ol>\n<li>Political reform. I\u2019ve got another post brewing on this. Fourteen years ago <a href=\"http:\/\/www.faughnan.com\/reform.html\">I satirized \u201cpublic incorporation\u201d of representatives<\/a>, but now <a href=\"http:\/\/opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com\/2010\/02\/08\/how-the-first-amendment-works\/?partner=rss&amp;emc=rss\">we have corporate persons with political rights<\/a>. We\u2019re in trouble. Many current Senators appear to have early dementia, and our political candidates are often lousy. We need to rethink who we elect, how we elect them, and how old they can be. We should draw on ideas from professional training and licensing and from jury selection.<\/li>\n<li>Taxes. We\u2019re going to raise taxes \u2013 a lot. We <em>should<\/em> do a Carbon Tax. We <em>will<\/em> do a VAT equivalent. We\u2019ll do \u201cdeath\u201d taxes \u2013 again.<\/li>\n<li>Immigration &#8211; Oh Canada: Canada figured this one out years ago. We have too many decrepit boomers. We&#160; need to balance my generation with vigorous, energetic highly talented youth. So let them in based on professional and academic qualifications and business guarantees.<\/li>\n<li>Inflation: 3% should help whittle down those foreign debts. Don\u2019t say you weren\u2019t warned China.<\/li>\n<li>Give up on the Empire. The Soviets couldn\u2019t afford their empire. Guess what? We can\u2019t either.<\/li>\n<li>Delay Dementia: We\u2019re all going to have to work longer, but we can\u2019t all bag groceries. For one thing, that job\u2019s going to a robot someday. Unfortunately, normal brain aging means most of us won\u2019t be good for much more by the time we\u2019re 72. We need a ton of research into slowing the inevitable onset of dementia. (Ok, so if you die it\u2019s not inevitable.)<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<p>Note that my list doesn\u2019t include \u201ccontrolling health care costs\u201d. That one\u2019s simply inevitable, so I don\u2019t bother with it.<\/p>\n<div class=\"blogger-post-footer\"><img width='1' height='1' src='https:\/\/blogger.googleusercontent.com\/tracker\/5587346-6792769688515023127?l=notes.kateva.org' alt='' \/><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Scott (Dilbert) Adams can\u2019t imagine any way American will survive its 21st century budget crisis. &#160; This betrays a certain lack of historical perspective. We\u2019ve been through worse, other nations have been through much worse. Compared to the American Civil War, the Black Death, or even the many versions of \u201cgreat\u201d Depressions we\u2019re in pretty [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":711,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332643","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332643","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/711"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332643"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332643\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332643"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332643"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332643"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}