Miles's blog

If you want to worry about the future of America, today’s New York Times carried three pieces which will provide sufficient reasons to do so.

The first was a cover story about how and why manufacturing jobs, particularly in the explosive and lucrative electronics sector have moved away, primarily to China. The second was an opinion piece about restructuring the tax code.  Great ideas, politically impossible.  The third was an op-ed piece by a doctor asking for an evaluation of health care costs and explaining why excessive costs are killing the economy.

Reading all of these together created a pretty deep sense of pessimism for the future of this country.  The description of what Chinese workers will do for their jobs stands as a direct rebuttal to all those protestors who demand corporate America provide full employment.  Chinese are willing to work for lower wages, live in dorms, work 12 hour shifts, and start at midnight on short notice.  How many Americans are willing to do that?  Americans, according to the article, are not securing enough engineering degrees so there are not enough skilled workers to fill the jobs these large manufacturing companies need.  We all know that children around the rest of the world attend school more often, for longer days, study more hard science, and don’t have parents who demand they succeed regardless of their lack of effort.  (Our schools go out of their way to teach “self-esteem” but don’t seem to demand the student learn anything for which they should hold themselves in such high regard.)  Steve Jobs told Obama that Apple manufacturing is never coming back to America.   

America has lost its place as a great nation in many respects, I believe, and yet we still try to delude ourselves that we are the world’s dominant power.  I think we are the victims of our own success, built on the backs of strong-willed pioneers, inventive and industrious entrepreneurs, enterprising immigrants, and a sense of shared sacrifice that is now seen as anachronistic.  

I know of no one who thinks our current tax code is a good idea.  Forty-five percent of Americans pay nothing at all, and those at the top pay too little.  There are so many deductions, credits, adjustments, etc. etc. that not only do we have to spend billions paying others to complete our tax return for us, but whatever goals it is trying to accomplish seem secondary to its unworkability as a system to fund the government.  The suggestions contained in the Times piece are straightforward, based on common sense, and almost certainly have no possibility of being enacted.  I am a big fan of the Simpson-Bowles plan to reduce the deficit, but their proposals can never pass because we live in an era of scorched-Earth politics where “compromise” is a dirty word, Rush Limbaugh sets the political agenda for millions, and statesmanship is a lost art.  

The third Times piece exemplifies why we have those kinds of problems.  Health care is America’s number one concern.  Everyone worries about getting reliable, affordable, and immediate health care.  We build our lives around that—most of us (me included) engage in eating and exercise habits that do not maximize our chances to be healthy, but which allow us to indulge our desires while popping pills to ameliorate the consequences.  We expect that if we get cancer, surgery will make us well; if we have a heart attack because our cholesterol from eating too much cheesecake clogs our arteries, that the ambulance will rush us to the hospital in time to get a stent put in; and that if our headaches don’t go away a multimillion dollar machine will be used by a doctor like House, M.D. to determine what is wrong with us.  All of these assumptions are correct, of course, and all drive up the costs of health care.  So we demand more and more care and want to pay less and less, and we want our employers to take care of the insurance, but god damn it, I want to shop cheaply at Wal-Mart, pay no taxes, and retire on the government’s dole so Uncle Sam can pay for my extended hospital stays where I seek to prolong my life through extraordinary means no matter how frail or addled I have become.  A baby boomer turns 65 every second, how expensive is Medicare going to be when they all demand the best care available?  Can the answer be found in a political system without compromise?  Doubtful.

Yeah, I know this picture is extraordinarily pessimistic.  That is part of my nature, but it does not mean I am wrong.  It probably means I don’t enjoy life as much as the guys at Hooters chowing down on greasy wings, drinking their eighth beer and contemplating activities with the waitress which will result in an STD being transmitted (probably from him to her).  

Through all of this we continue to hear our politicians tell us how we still have a great nation which leads the world and which needs only more tax cuts to return to the prosperity of the past century.  Looking backwards through rose colored glasses is good politics, looking forward into a murky and scary future is suicidal politics.  Politicians are not Tibetan monks, even when it comes to their careers.

Between the Tea Party on one side, who thinks the answer is no government, and the Occupy movement on the other, who want the end of big business, those of us who want an intelligent and engaged debate about how we address becoming a nation on the decline have no voice.  Nero fiddled while Rome burned.  At least they had music.

p.s. Apparently the local authorities agree that the actions of the adults resulting in that tragic Christmas fire killing the three children and their grandparents deserves scrutiny.  And if you have not read the reason the embers were taken out of the fireplace, read this article.