Introduction

HERE'S HOW WE ARE DOING SO FAR.

The housing market has crashed but most observers don't know it yet since owners have taken their property off the market instead of selling it at drastically reduced prices. The stock market has been stagnant for years and with highly leveraged hedge funds leading the way it is vulnerable to the next big negative unforeseeable event. The bond market must deal with rising interest rates and the possibility of an international sell off of staggering amounts of foreign held US government debt. The US dollar could crash at any time as current account deficits continue to flood the world with more dollars than are needed to buy our exports. Inflation is worse than the government is telling us. We are borrowing from China to fight undeclared wars in Iraq and Afganistan. Public education gets a failing grade. The government response to Katrina was as disasterous as the hurricane itself. The ponzi schemes called Social Security and Medicare are insolvent by trillions of dollars. The national debt is huge and still growing. Pension funds are worse than shaky. Our infrastructure needs major expensive repairs. The drug war is enriching drug lords and filling prisons beyond their capacities with so-called criminals who have harmed no one except usually themselves. The "war" on terror is an unsustainable drain on our financial and human resources. The world reputation of the United States has never been worse. Most people are struggling to keep their financial heads above water with no savings to fall back on as adjustable rate mortgages and large credit card balances weigh them down. Inner cities are a dangerous jungle where violent gangs flourish. The "war" on poverty has been about as successful as the "war" on drugs as the rich continue to get richer and the poor are robbed of opportunities and conditioned to tolerate dependency. Our relative economic success attracts the impoverished of the world and our only solution is to try and build a multi-billion dollar fence around the country. To add insult to injury the average taxpayer works well into May each year to pay politicians and their army of bureaucrats and police to solve the problems that previous politicians have created while they themselves create new problems that future politicians will tell us only they can correct.

The simple fact is that top down vertical control of complex social problems can never succeed. Without effective and timely negative feedback, problems get bigger and bigger creating more demand for government solutions which only creates more serious problems and a demand for even more government solutions. This is a vicious cycle which will have to stop sooner or later, one way or another. Unfortunately the rehab period will not be pleasant. But the longer we wait to start it the worse it will be.