Many grew up hearing the story of Chicken Little proclaiming "the sky is falling". A column by noted historian Victor Davis Hansen asks "Is the sky falling on America?" All of my life the mantra of the media has been "if it bleeds, it leads", so it is no surprise that the media is promoting the end of mankind due to global warming, disaster in Iraq, China's economy dooming ours, cultural deprivation ruining our youth, we will all die of bird flu, etc., etc. As they said in a classic Seinfeld episode...yada, yada, yada. I often wonder why the American public just doesn't commit mass suicide...life is bad and going to get worse (:
I shut down the nightly news broadcasts 20 years ago and rarely look at a newspaper except for the sports section. I lived through the eighties when Japan was going to dominate the world and buy the country up. China is a much weaker country than Japan in my opinion and I don't foresee them surpassing us (except as the worlds leading polluter). I still believe that our economy is going to continue to lead the world for many decades to come due to our underlying entrepreneurial culture. The students in China may study harder but they can't seem to think outside the box like Americans and after graduating from school Americans work harder and longer (my wife is shocked by how hard I work compared to her experiences in China and I think I am a slacker). We are living in the Greatest Economy Ever and though we may have ups and downs, I expect this will continue.
As far as I can see, our environment is cleaner now than it ever has been in my lifetime and getting better, our cars are safer, houses bigger and filled with nicer products. We can watch 100's of TV channels, blog on computers more powerful than the one that went to the moon, we live longer and healthier lives (my parents were never in shape to go mountain biking at my age). We travel freely and even though the price of gas is high, we drive Hummers and won't be scaling back our travel this Memorial Day weekend.
No - the sky is not falling, just getting bluer
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