Star Trek fans know what those words mean, for you non trekers it is known as the "no win scenario". In Star Trek lore young officers were put on a simulated bridge of a starship and placed in a life or death scenario where they had to make choices that with the computer programing there was no way to win. The purpose is to test the skills of young officers. ( bonus points to those who can name the only person to actually win Kobayahsi Maru.) Like that person who actually won the scenario I too "do not like to lose". But this is not about my desire to win, this posting is about the country's need to win and even more importantly what the younger generations must decide about the future and for your lifestyle and your assets it could be a no win scenario.
I have always believed adult behavior begins around 35 years of age. At that point you are old enough to discover you actually are not immortal and will someday die. Therefore you begin to make plans for the future that involves your certain death. You begin to look at the world from a viewpoint of macroeconomics that includes the other people in your life and their futures. Of course in today's extended adolescent delayed culture it might be necessary to move that a few years to say late 30's. I suppose you could say the Dixie Chicks had it right in their song that all young adults need room "to make the big mistakes" and only then discover the "high stakes". We are in the midst of something we seem to be naming The Great Recession. At this point in my mind it is not important who or what caused it, it is important how to get out of it and return to the prior growth based opportunity economy. It is even more important to solve long put off financial problems that left unchallenged will change our country in significant ways. These are "high stakes" if we to avoid a "new normal." A "new normal" which includes high unemployment rates, even higher taxes, a much lower standard of living, and loss of individual choice, equal opportunity, and freedom.
Politicians, with voters approval, have spent tax revenue and borrowed money in excess using the strong dollar, the current world's reserve currency, to a point that we can no longer put off the day of reckoning. If you have a pension, retirement money invested, and any assets such as homes you likely have felt the pain over the last two years. Soon there will be more job losses and loss of lifestyle freedoms as we borrow more to maintain current standards of living. The fact is that the past two years are the first salvo and if left unchanged will result in a USA that will be dramatically different in 2020 than it is today. That might sound like a long ways off in time, but is just over eight years away. The CBO has modeled current government spending and the piling up government debt and said if nothing changes the current economic model of the USA will collapse under the debt load sometime around 2019. You read that right the debt load will be such that we simply can not operate the society as we know it. We will owe $1 trillion in just interest annually by the year 2020. That means no matter how much you want to ignore politics and such you will have to deal with the problem. The unconnected younger generation must make a decision.
It is an adult decision. We either have to accept cutting federal and state government spending now, or face the fact that the credit card will run out and leave us a changed society. We have used our inheritance from the greatest generation, the global acceptance of the dollar as the reserve currency, to the final end. There is nothing left and your date with destiny has arrived. Either we decide to make the hard decisions now or leave yourselves, your children and grandchildren with a life not so pleasant. If that is what you want, then do nothing. Adulthood is making your appetite meet your resources. Delay of gratification.
There are two sides to this issue. Above I noted the frugal side where government spending must be reined in now. The other side is growth in the economy. If we are fully come out of this economic mess we also must address the growth side of the private economy. We must embrace free market ideas that made this country grow back in the 1960's and 1980's. Ideas here include genuine long-term reductions in Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security costs major deregulation, including Environmental Protection Agency rules, Dodd-Frank financial burdens and nanny-state consumer regulations; unlimited oil- and gas-drilling and shale-fracking authorization;extension of the repeal of the double tax on American corporations’ foreign profits; limits on unemployment insurance extensions; and withdrawal of his big union initiatives, such as the National Labor Relations Board’s opposition to the Boeing Co. building a factory in South Carolina. and repeal of Obamacare. All of these keep business expansion from happening and without the changes will make it virtually impossible to balance the federal budget. These are wealth creation ideas. The silly and sad attack on wealth creators such as Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, and other brilliant Americans who have created wealth for themselves and others is something that is suppressing the economy currently.
Using government as we are doing now to try and micro management the economy by artificial means has not worked to produce growth and never will. Continue down this path and you get life as it is in Europe now. No opportunity to improve your standard of living and few lifestyle choices. That is the path we are on now.
I was blessed to be young and live in a society at the time where opportunity, hard work, and achievement was rewarded. Where there was a safety net, but not one that is a lifetime safety net of no work as it is today. I have won Kobayashi Maru and now enjoy the fruits of many years of labor and taking advantage of opportunity. If we do not implement the changes noted above young people today will not experience such lifestyle freedoms. The election of 2012 is your generational moment. You must decide which way you go, like Europe currently which is in decline or like a America of my youth. You need to demand that politicians embrace pro-growth policies if you want a bright future. Barack Obama frankly does not embrace these policies. Right now no one of the other side does either. Only your DEMAND of pro-growth policies on the winner of the other side will get you your chance at an opportunity society. Make your choice as this is the most important decision you will make in your life. if you demand the right course, and choose correctly, you too can win Kobayashi Maru and experience a new birth of freedom in this country.
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