European Union

       I will not be using any of my space to complain about the spectacularly self-serving removal of troops ordered by our President.  There are many others doing that, and this is a space for deeper lines of thought.  Instead I will be offering this little aside, roughly based on a conversation I had with my brother-in-law.  It is intended as humor, despite any facts presented.

G:  "You know why the European Union was created, right?"
Me:  "No, why?"
G:  "To keep an eye on Germany."
Me:  "Yeah, speaking of, they are one of the only countries in Europe right now with any financial success."
G:  "True, and they don't seem to care for that."
Me:  "Yeah, they might feel like there is an unfair subsidy of Europe, with German-earned money.
G:  "Also they don't much care for the influx of immigrants that began when the Euro was adopted.
Me:  "What?"
G:  "Yeah, apparently the floodgates opened and now there are a lot eastern Europeans in Germany."
Me:  "So Germany has a lot of non-Germans working in the country, and a lot of people they might consider  'undesirables'."
G:  "Yeah, that's about right."
Me:  I wonder if we, in the rest of the world should be concerned."
G:  "What about?"
Me:  "I wonder if there is some 'historical precedent' of anything similar that happened with Germany.  Some point in history where they were sending a lot of money to the rest of Europe, and had a country full of non-Germans."
G (laughing):  "None that I can think of."
Me (also laughing):  "Me neither."

Stop blaming the hippies

       The temptation is always there.  Blame the generation of our parents.  The truth is a bit more complicated, and a bit uglier, but then it always is.  The Japanese employ a negotiating technique that involves asking why five times.  Lets do that here.  Why are we in the financial mess we have today?  Because our income is less than what we spend.  Why is it that way?  We first came into our own as a world power after WWII.  The politicians of the day had a period of unbridled growth ahead of them, and the memories of the Depression still fresh in many of their minds.  Because of this they set in motion a system of social programs to aid those in need.  This was funded by the aforementioned growth.  Why is that bad?  As long as rapid growth continues, it isn't.  There was no plan "B" however, and now we have a problem.  Not an issue, don't sugar coat it, it is a giant "Capital P" Problem.  Why hasn't this been adjusted?  How long would the career be of any politician who said to kill social programs?  Exactly.  Why would they have done this?  They didn't do it on purpose, it just sort of happened. 
       The "They" in this case is the "greatest generation", not the hippies.  Our grandparents did this to us.  The hippies grew up feeling entitled, not because of a lack of personal discipline, but because they had no real worries.  Their parents had created a society of safety nets.  They went on to expand this system because it was what they had been taught, and helping people is always good, right?
       We are now left in the last days of the Roman empire.  We have stopped growing financially because we have priced ourselves out of the global labor market with our high standard of living.  We are simultaneously trying to mold ourselves after one of the "Nordic Socialist Democracies", while continuously expanding our lower class.  This is not sustainable.  We borrow more than we can pay back, and spend more than we have, this is not sustainable.  We allow jobs to be moved overseas without creating more here, and without the protectionist policies that every country we do trade with has in place.  This is not sustainable.  It worked for Rome because Rome enslaved the world as they knew it.  You cannot be the good guy and enslave the world, you cannot have continuous growth without enslaving the world. 
       It's time for plan B.  The transition to a sad shadow of what we were, because we are too shortsighted.  Although I am entertaining ideas...