Decline of America

America's dream of prosperity is now unsalvageable. The country will continue down the rabbit hole of economic folly. Instead of learning from Europe's mistakes we are repeating them.  The situation is unsalvageable because so many voters and politicians see our present course as a good one. When moral inversion sets in, a culture is doomed to play out the result. By moral inversion I mean calling things good that are actually bad.

The government in Washington occupies itself with everything but solving the country's central financial problem, which is parasitism by the public sector upon the private sector. There are too many takers, not enough makers. The political will to tackle that is not to be found in Washington. Too many citizens like and support the idea of a giving government. They always vote for the giveaways to continue and increase.

What we have today is, obviously, a vote buying scheme. Political support is secured by promising government largess to this group or that. Unfortunately it is the one promise that politicians always keep. Some of the groups are poor, some are rich, but all are able somehow to benefit the politicians. The trend is impossible to reverse because our politicians are not statesmen. Clawing back the benefits would be disastrous to their chances of reelection.  So it is best from Washington's point of view if the government continues to grow.

Of course the scheme will collapse of its own absurdity. When you say "to each according to his needs" you find that everyone has needs. When you say "from each according to his abilities," people's abilities flag. The imbalance between makers making and takers taking can only increase over time until the situation turns either farcical or deadly.

When the government practices folly and the people heartily approve, there really isn't anything to do but tighten your seat belt and hang on for the ride. For things to get better before they get worse would require a moral renaissance, and I don't see anything like that happening. If anything, our civic morals are going from bad to worse.