Culture of Ignorance

I've been quiet lately. I feel like I'm in a trance some days, watching the world spin but not really comprehending how or why things are evolving as they are, seemingly oblivious to facts and reality. On occasion, it has struck me that willful ignorance within the world's population, somewhat akin to the lemming paradigm may have something to do with it. But then I drift off.
Today I was jarred out of my periodic apathy again by Jim Quinn's fine post entitled "Culture of Ignorance". He has eloquently put down in words what I've often begun to assemble in disjointed thoughts over the last 10 years or so (maybe longer) but never managed to output in a cohesive way. Well sprinkled by quotes from thinkers, I strongly endorse Quinn's "Part 1 - Culture of Ignorance".

U.S. Debt Farce

It's sad to watch the U.S. debt talks. The wrangling is bad enough but the really sad part, in my view,  is that virtually nobody in the halls of power is ready to propose actually balancing the budget right now! Not tomorrow, the next year, in the next 10 years - but right now. America and most other nation seem incapable of doing what every parent or credit counselor would tell his 21-year old who was spending way beyond his means - cut up the credit cards, cut back on the spending and work harder to pay off the debts you should not have acquired in the first place. Americans have been living beyond their means for decades now. After all, that's what running a deficit is. Every deficit adds to the existing debt or national mortgage. What a concept! A growing mortgage! It's entirely nonsensical but nations the world over have bought into this as a new normal, a kind of global financial insanity whereby even known economists with many degrees and awards spout such gibberish as "manageable deficits". State/provincial governments as well as municipalities have also fallen victim to the disease. No, the talks on raising the debt limit in the U.S. are really pretty well a side-show. It's just arguing about how far to kick the can down the road before doing it all over again. In any event, in the case of the U.S., it should be renamed the "Printing Limit" because no one is willing or able to lend the U.S. that kind of money any more. As has increasingly been the case in the last few years, the Federal Reserve simply prints up what the Treasury needs and couldn't borrow through new bond issues. Sad, very, very sad to see how a once proud and independent country is becoming a deadbeat.

The looming tragedy of America

As 2010 begins, the tragedy of the decline of America and betrayal of its founders looms larger. An excellent article by Darryl Robert Schoon describes it all so eloquently and painfully here.