RZehr wrote: ↑Wed Mar 31, 2021 8:39 pm
As I look at the general society in this country, I can't help but believe that this nation is writing its own obituary.
Economically, things are nuts. With this Covid economy, some businesses are thriving, and others dying. I see the welfare state is expanding to the extent that people can make more money on unemployment than working at jobs that they used to hold. Couple unemployment incentives with the crackdown on immigration, businesses simply cannot find people willing to work. $15 dollar per hour minimum wage isn't going to matter in the least, because anyone willing to show up on time, sober, and work is able to demand more that $15 anyway. Small businesses are shutting down profitable divisions simply because they cannot find help. Even fast food chain restaurants are cutting back on hours of business because they can't find workers. Some businesses can raise prices in order to cover the rise in employee wages, but not all of them can. It is to acute of a problem. Of course eventually, I suppose it will sort its self out, but in the meantime it pinches. Just in the last week, I've talked with many local small businesses from agriculture to manufacturing, to technology and communications, to hospitality to leisure to repair business, and the story is all the same. 1. Can't find help. 2. Can't get product. 3. Covid restrictions.
The thing is, the longer this goes on, the more our wages will rise (which in the long term has a good side), and our jobs will continue to move overseas (which isn't totally wonderful).
And we have the government pumping trillions of dollars into society, while simultaneously holding interest rates down. Inflation as traditionally gaged seems to be okay so far, but other things prices are raising rapidly. We've been pushing stimulus for what, 15-20 years now? And while is seems to have not cause out of control inflation immediately, it could be that it simply has taken this long to bring about the repercussions of stimulus activity.
Family units: Family is one thing that is of utmost importance. It is the the most basic building block. Few things in this country are really more important. When we look at the divorce rates, and the amount of people who now simply don't bother getting married in the first place, and the homosexual marriages, and the polygamy marriages - what we are losing in this country is priceless, and irreplaceable in the health and wellbeing of this country. Culturally speaking, we have lost the skill to be monogamous. We have lost, as a culture and society, the knowledge and the ability to have nuclear marriages that last for life. This cannot be stressed enough, when the postmortem examination of America is done. To many people are growing up without being equipped with the knowledge of how to make a marriage work. Lost in two generations. Who is going to teach them? Not their parents. Not their grandparents. No one is. They are growing up without learning how to give and take, and without knowing what commitment for life really looks like, and no one who can teach them. No knowledge of what marital conflict resolution might look like. Instead, the are being taught that individual "happiness" is what marriage is about, or "love", or various who knows what.
That extinction of the nuclear family and the collective loss of knowledge of how to do it, is a massive and fatal loss.
Demographics: When we consider how birth control and abortion have together created an incredible drop in birth/fertility rate from 5-6 in the mid 1800's to less than 2 today, we are creating for ourselves another problem. We as a nation are too selfish to have babies. And we are too selfish to permit immigration. We are literally extincting ourselves over time. But before that happens, demographically speaking, we will have a whole bunch of old people and few young people. And simultaneously, we are cultivating a socialist mentality that grooms young people to expect more from the government than they contribute. So when the piper is to be paid, we will have a generation that is old and needing to be taken care of, while the working generation is not about to give up their handouts, that they have become accustom to all their lives.
Religion: I saw a headline recently that said that less than half of American are affiliated with any religion, whether Christianity, Judaism, or Islam. So we now have a country that has not work ethic, no family, and no church. What is left? When things go bad, where do they turn? They have nothing. The only thing left is the government. That is their sole source of safety. And that will fail them badly, but not before demanding their sole allegiance. And when the government becomes accustom to complete authority, with the populaces blessing, really bad things will happen.
One saving grace for this country, is that its competitors are just a bad off in the demographic matter. China is a ticking demographic time bomb. Russia and Japan are already paying the piper. Europe is deciding to simply permit immigration.
Certainly, i would far prefer the DC scuffle were “a big deal” in the U.S.!!! Without question. 
