AN ALIEN’S MESSAGE TO AMERICA
By Old Grumpy Guy on October 20, 2008 at 7:00 PM in Democracy, Economy
Video and Essay by OldGrumpyGuy || YouTube Channel
I’m sure you are wondering who this grumpy old guy with the strange accent thinks he is for daring to attempt a state of the nation address in a country in which he is classified as a resident alien.
Well, sometimes an outsider can see things more objectively than those inside. I have stayed in many countries around the world and seen things at close hand in each of them, so I think I have a good basis for comparison.
I have also written macreconomic lectures for government officials and captains of industry, and I have seen how even very educated people can lose track of basic economic realities. One of the most fundamental economic realties about America is that it has many strengths, the five most important of which are its people, its infrastructure, its natural resources, its real estate, and its free enterprise system.
Let’s just have a brief look at these in more detail:
America has the hardest working people of any country anywhere in the world. They are also the most resilient. Americans might not have the undisputed lead they used to in industry, education, science and technology, but they are still close to the top and have a workforce capable of anything.
When it comes to infrastructure, I learned a profound lesson when I was in the Middle East, driving along a desert road in the United Arab Emirates in the late seventies. I came across an abandoned Rolls Royce and I thought “gosh, the owner must be filthy rich to just throw away an enormously expensive car like that”.
Then I realised something of much deeper significance. The country probably had a shortage of skilled mechanics who could fix it. It probably also had a very limited number of recovery services to collect it out there in the desert. In short, it didn’t have the social and industrial infrastructure for servicing and maintaining cars.
Buildings were going up all over the place, but I noticed that even some of the newest buildings were showing cracks and other faults that were being left unrepaired, because again there was no infrastructure to service and maintain them and fix this kind of problem.
The United Arab Emirates and the Middle East in general have grown enormously since then, with Dubai pouring its oil wealth into creating an eighth wonder of the world with its huge palm shaped offshore resort.
But given the fact that the social and industrial infrastructure for servicing and maintaining this resort has had to be imported in the shape of foreign specialists and labor, you have to wonder how long it will be before this resort is reclaimed by the desert sands on which it was built.
America’s social infrastructure, by contrast, is the greatest in the world in terms of its workforce, its mobility and its transportation systems. Just as importantly, Americans network socially and professionally more than any other nation, as can be judged from internet traffic alone. This is particularly important, because it is networking and communications that form the hub of economic activity.
Added to this, you have a country with a vast wealth of natural resources, and the finest real estate of any country, from the cornfields of Kansas to the vineyards of California and all kinds of agriculture in between.
Along with social freedom and democracy, it adds up to vast basic collateral and the richest country in the world, no matter how much the country may be in debt. It has a far greater ability to mobilise people and resources than any other nation. All of which, in my view, makes any economic woes a short term thing. American wealth is real wealth, not something built on sand.
I believe America can and will bounce back, whatever happens. But it won’t help if people panic and lose sight of the underlying economic realities, or vote in a socialist government that will stifle enterprise and turn this country into a second or even third class nation, as the socialists came close to doing in Britain.
I think it’s perfectly obvious to those who can look at the facts objectively that the crisis on Wall Street was largely due to the kind of backdoor socialism supported by Congress left wingers like Barney Frank and, yes, Barack Obama through Acorn, who put pressure on banks to lend money for mortgages to unreliable borrowers and pushed up house prices until the bubble burst. Unfortunately, both Bill Clinton and George Bush did nothing to remedy the situation.
However, and I cannot stress this enough, housing in America is grossly undervalued if you compare it to house prices in Britain and most of Europe and the quality of the properties you have here.
Now I don’t think everything in America is wonderful. I think your health care system sucks and is crippling the economy with the way it soaks up so much of the average earner’s income. It doesn’t surprise me that more people go bankrupt through medical bills than anything else. I am sure that some people have a heart attack when they are confronted by colossal medical bills. It’s one area where the laws of competition seem to have broken down.
I share most American’s disgust at the obscenity of CEOs lining their pockets with huge amounts of money while running their companies into bankruptcy, and I’m equally disgusted by a system that allows it to happen, just as I’m disgusted by a legal system that literally allows people to get away with murder (as with the O.J. Simpson trial).
Another thing I don’t like is the way that rap music seems to dominate popular music in this country. Even worse is the aggression and the ridiculous posturing that goes with it.
I mean, what is all this bilge about hoes and and pimps and gangstas? It’s not only destroying music and American culture but the English language as well. Which is why I wrote my anti-rap rap (see ttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ArsgUD6j5dc).
But whatever its faults, I still think America is the greatest country in the world. It is by far the freest, the most democratic – in the best sense of the word – and in many ways the most compassionate, tolerant and civilized country in the world. Any American who doesn’t believe this should try living in other countries, as I have, and see how they like it.
Of course there are big problems ahead, like global warming and energy. It’s obvious that America has to become more efficient in its energy use and less dependent on foreign oil. But these can be looked on as opportunities for new kinds of economic activity. And let me tell you, even at $4 a gallon, gas in this country is still half the price it is in Britain and most European countries.
So I think there is great cause to be optimistic about America’s prospects, provided you don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater and elect the wrong person. I have to say that when I look at Barack Obama and the support he’s been getting, it worries me. It worries me a lot.
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