The Fall of a World Power...

In response to Tommy mentioning my brief post on global economies and wanting to see more of that...I am going to elaborate on the U.S. economy in relation to the global view we uphold.

One of the great things about America is it's "the land of opportunity." Abundance can be found in every aspect. People get used to abundance. A society gets used to that standard. As a nation, we are not frugal, and even in an economic crisis everyone is still trying to maintain abundance. No we don't want to put the nation in shock...we certainly don't want a depression...which would result from extreme frugality. But choosing to spend within our means for a change? Thats just common sense.

It's like learning bad habits from your parents. You don't think you have them, you hope you will never do the things they do, and in the end those habits you've been accustomed to make appearances in your behavior. America's parents, the government, have set a horrible example for their citizens. As a country we are over $10 trillion in debt. Yet we continue to fund other nations through imports and trade. Robert Hershey Jr., a NY Times journalist, stated in today's article "Trade Deficits Rise Again as Imports Continue to Climb" that October's trade deficit reached $25.9 billion. "Exports were essentially unchanged, while imports continued to grow." This cannot be happening if we are to "cut-back" and help our own nation.

The trade deficit is not solely the governments fault though. Yes, they are the ones in control, but the American people are highly demanding consumers. We want the imports from other countries. But we also want our economy to be good and to keep our homes, which we purchased with money we never had-and we're only paying the interest on. We cannot have our cake and eat it too. We may not have learned all of our bad spending habits from the government, but they have certainly allowed it to happen. And as a result: we are a nation in debt. Consumer debt in the United States is $1.7 trillion, more than any other country. And our national debt of over $10 trillion is also the highest amount compared with the rest of the world. The national debt clock in NY will be replaced at the beginning of the new year because our new number does not fit anymore; to have $10 trillion +, the dollar sign had to be deleted from the screen. This seems to be a sign of the times.

Aren't we a world power though? Don't we have abundant control? Well, we are going to lose this if the American people, along with the American government cannot excercise leadership over spending habits and our "want" of things. A good leader always puts other first. Maybe we should all start thinking in this manner, instead of focusing on ourselves and personal desires. Bad leadership has created defective government policies, the sub-prime mortgage crisis, and consumer debt. And all of those problems are rooted in spending more than we have or thinking about ourselves first.