By Dexter MacBride, JD.
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One of my neighbors was just honored by a “Surprise Birthday Party”...friends and family gathered to celebrate her 50th Birthday. It was a warm, personal occasion for the mother of daughters who are high school students achieving top academic marks oriented toward hope-for future professional careers. The happy occasion was a challenging reminder for me: what, indeed, of the future? The question is relevant, and urgent, I am facing my 89th birthday this August. At 89,I see my world in the waning light of a flickering “EXIT” sign. What are the possible significant events, the formidable movements, which our children and grandchildren must soon face? What about War? What about Pandemics of deadly diseases? About global Environmental Changes? National Economic Catastrophe? These issues are among many that appear on the global stage; issues savagely advocated, politicaly mor-phed, militarily enjoined....all vast, blundering efforts to seize power, achieve leadership, assume control/dominance. WAR: From my perilous perspective, the U.S. invasion of Iraq to eradicate WMDs is somewhat comparable to the Vietnam debacle. Now “On Stage”: Europe and the Middle East present the Israel/Iraqi/Lebanon/ Iran/Syria/ Hezbollah Performers, assisted Backstage by putative stagehands, propmas-ters interlocutors,directors. Great Britain, United States, United Nations. As I perceive it: deep, deep down, this is the continuing, clashing confrontation between Christianity and Islam; a reemergence of The Crusades (Eight Major Crusades; 11th, 12th and 13th centuries) Note: “Crusade: any vigorous, aggressive movement for the defense or advancement of an idea, cause, etc.” DEADLY DISEASE PAN-DEMICS One example: Malaria, one of the world’s oldest, deadliest diseases, infects over 500 million people annually, kills 2.5 million each year; kills one million Africans every year (90% of global incidence of malaria occurs in Africa). The President of the U.S. announced he would bring the problem before the G-8 Meeting (St. Petersburg, Russia; July ’06). No word, of attention to the issue, released. Professional Vector Control leaders (Univ. of Calif.; Dept. of Entomology UC-Davis; and the Vector Control Assn. of Calif.) are currently sending a scientific team to Africa to try to stem the tide of one million deaths per year. GLOBAL ENVIRONMENT CHANGE The recent LA TIMES coverage (an outstanding presentation) about the global reach of human waste materials dumped into our rivers-oceans-seas and consequent destruction of life in the World of Water, is illustrative of human indifference, or inability, to cope with deleterious waste disposal. Equally challenging to world health: the relationship of human-produced contaminants which fill the air in our atmospheric environment. NATIONAL (US) ECONOMIC CATASTROPHE? The Y2005 Economic Policy Conference (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis) provided indicia and data regarding Long-Term-Solvency of the U.S. Government. |
Examples of issues discussed: • the reported outstanding debt of about $5 trillion must be raised to $8 trillion if all governmental borrowings are included; • government accounting is “seriously flawed” (presented cash or non-accrued basis). “If a comprehensive forward-looking accrual basis is applied the fiscal picture is dire.” • Is the United States bankrupt’ the answer to the question is clearly ‘Yes’. • Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid remain on unsustainable paths, with no reform legislation on the horizon.” • measures of a fiscal gap—and a generational imbalance ... create a partial equilibrium analysis “...strongly suggests that the U.S. Government is, indeed, bankrupt, insofar as it will be unable to pay its creditors who in this context are current and future generations to whom it has explicitly or implicitly promised future net payments of various kinds.” • Recommended: “three radical plans to eliminate the nation’s enormous fiscal gap and avert bankruptcy” (a) “replace the current tax system with a retail sales tax”; (b) “personalize Social Security”; (c) “move to a globally budgeted universal health care system implemented via individual specific health insurance vouchers.” CONCLUSION: Unless the United States moves quickly to fundamentally change and restrain its fiscal behavior, its bankruptcy will become a foregone conclusion.” Professor Lawrence J. Kotlikoff, Prof. of Economics, Boston University; research associate, National Bureau of Economic Research, concluded a presentation before the Y2005 Economic Policy Conference with the following statement: “Countries can and do go bankrupt. The United States with its $65.9 trillion fiscal gap, seems clearly headed down that path. The Country needs to stop shooting itself in the foot. It needs to adopt generational accounting as its standard method of budgeting and fiscal analysis, and it needs to adopt fundamental tax, Social Security and healthcare reforms that will redeem our children’s future”. At 89 years of age, I appreciate Prof. Kotlikoff’s concern for our children...to whom we are transmitting an intolerable fiscal burden...a burden similar to that of the fabled’ task of Sisyphus,” condemned forever in the Great Hall of Judgment, rolling a huge stone to a hilltop..only to have it roll down again...again ... again...and again. Despite the harsh future implicit in the predictive data we have reviewed, it is heartening to know there are substantial countervailing forces within our great Democracy: Movements and Leaders supporting Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness concepts in compassionate, creative, pacific activities and lifestyles. As an example, consider Katharine Jefferts Schori, an oceanographer who is presently the Presiding Bishop-elect of the Episcopal Church of USA. Consider her response to the question (in a Time Magazine Interview July 17, 06): “What will be your focus as head of the U.S. Church?” She replied: “Our focus needs to be on people who go to bed hungry, on providing primary education to girls and boys, on healing people with AIDS, on addressing tuberculosis and malaria, on sustainable development. That ought to be the primary focus.” |