July 23, 2010: Is The U.S. In Terminal Condition?

"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." - Thomas Jefferson

Roger Nusbaum, a widely quoted and successful financial planner and blogger (Random Roger's Big Picture) issued a great post today on problems confronting productive workers in our economy, who expect some benefit from their efforts later in life. I responded to Roger's post as follows:

"You bring to the fore issues that politicians are loathe to deal with. Our bad - we vote for (them).

Those with a knowledge of history understand that the greatest empires were not conquered - they rotted from within. We are following that same path. Less-advanced cultures now dominate our remarkably successful Judea-Christian heritage, endless sport spectacles are a narcotic for increasingly undereducated and mis-focused masses, a crumbling military and infrastructure (and) the colossal failure of our ruling class to command and navigate the ship of state in an appropriate manner seals the deal.

The world is changing, and an unsustainable number of Americans sit on our overweight, government-subsidized asses confident that higher taxes, endless lawsuits, windmills and playing nice to adversaries is our final solution.

Rome, 2020? Or, do we wake up?"

"My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government." - Thomas Jefferson

"To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical." - Thomas Jefferson

Note: The three quotes are attributed to Thomas Jefferson from multiple sources, but I have not verified them through Mr. Jefferson, himself.