America, as wonderful as she is, and I mean that sincerely, is not perfect. Far from it, actually. However, in our short span of 244 years, we have risen to become the most powerful, kindest, and fairest nation in the history of the world. Thanks to the USA’s economic structure of free trade and incentives to succeed, combined with our rule of law, we looked to be on a sustained path of continued greatness. That seems to have changed drastically in the last 20 years in particularly. Trends such more govenment bureacacy, increased government spending, multiplying government entitlement programs are slowly eating away our country’s ability to remain the lead-dog in both the free world and those repressed by evil and dangerous regimes.
The threat to capitalism, which like the term “middle class” doesn’t have a universally agreed upon definition, mainly comes from the very elected officials we put into office. The redistribution of wealth seems to come from those that are one of the following:
- Positioning themselves to reap huge financial rewards if their income redistribution policies are pushed through. This is obvious in some situations like making movies, selling books, extorting money from businesses in trade for not smearing the name and reputation of that company, etc.
- Political or governmental appointments/jobs that are promised and fulfilled if certain legislation is put into law.
- Those that are basically self-dealing – that allows the politician to benefit in some shape or form by creating, often times, dangerous political policy that can cause immediate and/or future damage to our families, economy, financial markets and society in general.
It seems that most Americans are figuring out (slowly but surely) that having government “take care” of you comes with a higher price than most are willing to pay. I think the dirty feeling Americans’ get knowing that the politicians want to do everything short of wiping their mouths after they take a bite comes with a huge amount of lost control and lost pride. I also believe that the defiant feeling is instinctive to us as citizens both from and for a free nation. What I mean by that is – what would our grandparents, great grandparents, or great, great grandparents think of us for relying on others for so much? Is that what they instilled in us? What they taught our family members before us? I say that is not what they taught unless they were lazy, weak or criminal.
Capitalism is far from perfect…but it’s the best economic system in the world. The sooner we realize that and support it to the fullest, the sooner we can return to greatness.
