Tuesday, April 13, 2010

Tuesday ...Back to the Future

A great feel good movie from 25 years ago starring Michael J. Fox before he started shaking so bad.

I must confess that I enjoyed it back when I was 35. Not so much now, but I'm older, crankier, fatter and more jaded. I've seen it and really have no desire to see it again.

It does seem that we are going back as we plunge headlong into the future.

As a for instance......I've experienced bankruptcy, foreclosure and having to leave where I wanted to be for somewhere I had to be. Not complaining......I'm glad I had somewhere to be..
...many don't have that option.

One thing I didn't do was take it as a signal that everything was over.

I realized that it was one of the most liberating things that had ever happened to me. Suddenly I could think about the future again and not have to worry about the mistakes of the past. One of the beauties of the American system is that we can't be put into debtors prison where we can never work our way out. With determination and optimism we can build a brighter future.

Get to the point Kdzu....

The point is that sometimes I catch glimpses of the future.

Nothing so grand as visions or prophecy. I don't talk to dead people, although my daughter Diana is sensitive to that sort of thing. No, it just comes along as flashes, perhaps of insight, perhaps of having a bit of weirdness in me, that a possible course is more likely than another.

I was talking with a friend this morning, both of us bemoaning the general gone to hell in a handbasket shape the country is in right now, and he said, "We're Screwed".

I agreed with him and then started ticking of the four possibilities I saw for the future vis-a-vis this countries economic choices.

And it struck me.....

Economists speak with terror in their voices about default, which is not being able to pay the bills. If you consider the rate at which the national debt is growing and the amount of interest the nation pays on that each year there is only a short period of time in which we can make choices that will prevent us from spending more than we take in just on interest.

We already spend twice what is taken in in revenue each year and the projections is for that to grow. You can see the light at the end of the tunnel and its the 12:05 to disaster heading straight for us.

But perhaps we need to consider something on the lines of a bankruptcy, after all isn't that effectively what Russia did when it ceased being the USSR. All the debt was in the USSR's name and it had effectively died. There was no one to collect from and the heirs of the estate told the rest of the world to suck eggs.

Anyway here is my forecast for the future.......

states, cities, and entire countries will declare bankruptcy...

If we can keep from losing our heads when it happens......we just might emerge the better for it.

AFTERTHOUGHT: Of course it would all go for naught if we don't get rid of the assholes serving in elective offices and reduce the current number of bureaucratic teat suckers by at least 50%, preferably more, who will be, by far, the hardest to eliminate......perhaps firing squads....

Anyway, I thought you might like a blast from the past.....

2 comments:

Paladin said...

Geez... whas that 25 years ago already? They sure went fast.

I sure hope things don't get that bleak in the future (national bankruptcy, etc.), though I concede it just might anyway. I think it would be harder on our people than it was on the Soviets. They were pretty well hardened to adversity due to years of life under communism. Our folks are pretty spoiled in comparison, I think.

Anonymous said...

.... not sure on your choice of blondes there, sir........ but the song is choice.......

... and you're spot on with the rest of your post......

Eric