[Vision2020] American arrogance and arms accounting (was: NPR)

[Kenneth Marcy]

On Wednesday 30 March 2011 16:09:44 Donovan Arnold wrote:
> I just think a lot of the fraud and financial crisis is the result of the
> Babyboomers. You cannot really tag it on any one particular political
> group, or one person. Babyboomers have spend more money than any other
> generation before it, including those that fought WWII. They have indebted
> the nation beyond the capability of future generations to pay back and
> live any type of quality of life. They have burned more fuel then all the
> previous generation before or after combined. I won't even get into the
> environmental disasters they have plagued the world over with. They have
> behaved as greedy pigs at the trough. With the trough being the fruits of
> labor of previous and future generations. 
> Donovan Arnold

Oh, dear. Another case of "Ready! Fire! Aim!"

Blaming the most numerous or visible group for the ailment of the hour does 
not represent the calm and considered reflection toward truth and justice we 
should like to expect of ourselves. If a bad-news message is received, it is 
not the messenger that brought it who is to blame. The beneficiary of the 
message delivery is the sender, not the messenger.

Just because Joe the dad pays the mortgage and the utilities, and Jane the mom 
pays for groceries and clothes, does not mean that they are the only cause 
for the spending levels from the family budget. The kids, Jack, Jill, James, 
and Jane are also beneficiaries of expenditures not only because they are more 
numerous, but also because they don't contribute income to the budget.

Perhaps some consideration should be given by adults who benefit from freedoms 
to profit from military and defense industry stock investments, from armaments 
ownership and use, from religious properties use, and from living in an 
economic system with income and wealth growth opportunities, that those 
specific freedoms may be worth additional tax payments to help pay for 
expenditures made to retain those benefits to those adults.

Rather than randomly firing verbal volleys into the air without concern for 
consequence or aim, perhaps greater focus on designing workable solutions and 
their implementation would be more appropriate.


Ken