It ain't as bad as The Grapes of Wrath.....yet, but there are some who firmly believe our country is enduring the wrath of God. John Steinbeck has GOT to be doing underground somersaults. The differences in our fair land from 1929 to 2009 have been dramatic and profound. Unfortunately, there are areas of education beyond the most basic that have been neglected as badly as any of the basics of readin', writin' etc., etc. It has been said that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it, and if that doesn't describe the USA today, I can't imagine anything else coming any closer. History and finance are not areas of expertise for very many of us, but we do have a few very good historians and economists who have spent their careers describing our habits and needs. Not many choose to believe the realistic economic forecasts, and most of us either forget our history, or more likely, ignore it. For many of us baby boomers, these indeed are the times that our parents told us about, the times that try men's souls as Thomas Paine would put it, The American Crisis. Even someone as low on the totem as myself can remember telling ex-wife number one as early (or late) as 2005 that when the housing finance bubble burst and this economy took a dive, it would make 1929 look like a tea party. Now there really IS a tea party???
As I spend my days feeling a great deal of kinship with Tom Joad (a later column), I wonder when things really will turn around. I know about President Obama's plans for job growth, I'm not sure how that is actually going to play out. Though I have ultimate faith in our country to deal with this, we are all on a world stage like never before, so the situation may be a little more complicated. On the other hand, if it took an overtly aggressive nation like Germany and later, Japan to put our population back to work on a national scale, then the picture becomes clearer. Whether we like it or not, the actions of Iran, the radical Islamic world, religious fanaticism everywhere, and our own national self interests will keep us in a fighting posture for many more years to come. If we started calling in the debts other nations owe US, and we as Americans begin saving more and avoiding so much debt ourselves, we could begin to regain our national solvency.
"History does not repeat itself, but it rhymes."
Mark Twain
