People who have lived through a terrible, catastrophic event in their lives sometimes embrace a philosophy of living “day by by”, figuring that they can just press on and things will work themselves out.
This can work, if it’s just you, and you have what you barely need to survive, and are willing to stay at that level for a long, long time.
It doesn’t work so well if you have others reliant on you, or if you ever want to lead a better life for yourself and your family. This takes prior planning, a lot of it, and a close examination of the “opportunity costs” in your life and finances.
Opportunity costs are a principal of economics at all levels. In short, it means that if you have a dollar in your pocket, you can spend it on one thing that costs a dollar, or something else that costs a dollar, not both. You can have one thing you want, or something else you want, and it’s your choice to make. But you *have* to choose, and you *can’t* have them both.
Now imagine the utter red-faced, screaming tantrum you would hear right now, if the federal government was told the same thing.
Instead of just having one dollar in their pocket, the federal government this year should have something over two trillion dollars of tax revenue, for them to spend as they see fit. But for decades now, they have spent more money than they bring in, and this has put the country very deeply in debt.
Because it is such a severe problem, Washington has become like some people who have lived through severe, catastrophic events. That is, the federal government is pretending to live “day by day”, ignoring the enormous problem it has created for us all.
And I mean this in a very literal sense. For example, eventually the government is supposed to pay out dozens of trillions of dollars to Social Security beneficiaries. A wise government would have never promised them nonsensical future rewards in the first place. But having done so, a wise government should have scrimped and saved to build up a huge reserve of money to cover that immense debt.
But our government did neither. In fact, it spent the money people paid in to Social Security as soon as they paid it, and on other things that the government wanted. For them, living “day to day” meant that as long as they paid the people who had to be paid right then, everything was okay. It was not.
As an analogy, the US federal government, after an orgy of drinking, is now lying in its own filth, disheveled in the gutter. It is still so drunk that it neither knows nor cares that it is incapacitated, and is shouting out to passerby to join it in a drink, from its empty bottle of rotgut whiskey. The US government has hit bottom, but it doesn’t know it yet.
Little does it know that its bartender has had enough and is no longer going to let it run up its tab—in fact is going to demand payment on its tab. Nobody else in the bar is going to loan it money, either. The binge is over.
And like an alcoholic, the federal government doesn’t want to quit doing what it wants, but the truth is that it will soon have no choice in the matter.
This can work, if it’s just you, and you have what you barely need to survive, and are willing to stay at that level for a long, long time.
For example, eventually the government is supposed to pay out dozens of trillions of dollars to Social Security beneficiaries. A wise government would have never promised them nonsensical future rewards in the first place. But having done so, a wise government should have scrimped and saved to build up a huge reserve of money to cover that immense debt.
But our government did neither. In fact, it spent the money people paid in to Social Security as soon as they paid it, and on other things that the government wanted. For them, living “day to day” meant that as long as they paid the people who had to be paid right then, everything was okay. It was not.
You totally "get it"...
Great comments. I just don't think we are going to pull out of it. The government and financial institutions are so entrenched in moral corruptness, I don't think we can once again be the financial super power we were.
I am a Christian and one day Jesus Christ will return, Isreal will have a temple by then, the anti christ will be identified and the believers will leave this earth. No where in the Bible does it talk about a country like America. You can read about what China does in the end times, Russia, Persia, etc. no one has been able to pin point with complete accuracy where America is talked about in the Bible.
I believe that is because we are insignificant, no influence in the world, no financial or military super power just another struggling country like we are beginning to look like now!! Isn't that how the Dems want it? Save the earth, destroy America as we know it and remove any trace of God from our lives?
Washington DC is a decadent imperial city same as Rome turned into. As such we are over taxed by them then our Representatives are forced to beg for scraps to be returned home via earmarks and pet projects. Life is fantastic there for everyone. There is no recession. Lots of parties and drugs and call girls. There is zero incentive for our representatives to get serious and solve problems because life is too nice for them. Dittos for their Congressional staffers and all the fatass do nothing Federal employees in the Washington DC area. 10% of Congressional staff is gay, so it has been reported. Affirmative action boobs and incompetents permeate our Federal bureaucracy in DC and throughout America
Washington DC is insulated from the chaos it produces whether it is Alan Greenspan’s easy money policy, Frank, Dodd and Maxine Waters shielding Fanny Mae from scrutiny or keeping our borders wide open