Are we clueless in 2013 about an impending crisis? In 1913 almost all of Europe was comfortable and complacent - - and clueless.
Clueless about the impending world war in 1914 and the destruction of hierarchical monarchies and the fight for democracy and the rising working and middle classes.
Just wondering. What do you think?
In 1913 everyone, rich and not-so-rich danced the waltz. For the not-so-rich there were dance halls. The largest one in Vienna had a 24 hour full staffed maternity ward for the convience of their female patrons.
Whooee!! Hard to think what the leadership isn't clueless about, or if it does have a clue, at least isn't talking about it. Let's see, climate change seems to be a biggie, oil dependence is another that partially feeds climate change (and rail service would help with both of those, but is fought by a lot of the current establishment). There's the question of inadequate pay for most people, with profits soaring but pay stagnant at best for 30 years--if you don't pay employees adequately, you don't have customers (a farmer has to fertilize his fields and maintain his equipment if he expects to keep getting yields). Then there's that news network that actually lies (and went to court and won the legal right to lie), excessively large corporations, particularly banks, that if they fail would take the whole economy with it (another reason for things like anti-monopoly laws, or else well-regulated natural monopolies), and--at least as I see it--the prospect that this country, as a whole, has a consumer market that economists might classify as both "mature" and "saturated"--a problem even if you're idea of the future is based on "knowledge workers."
And this is just off the top of my head. . .
Posted by: D. P. Lubic | January 21, 2013 at 09:17 PM