From my Facebook Profile:
Americans had a little knews today that Standard & Poor gave a negative outlook report on th nation’s credit rating– as it is expressed in the US government’s credit rating. The notice merely indicates that the credit rating may be reduced from a triple A rating (AAA) to something lower. It did not actually lower the rating.
However, it is a significant bit of financial news. I think that in the ability to service paper debts the United States is still very srong indeed. Whether it is necessary for people mostly concerned with this single asp[ect of wealth to lower the rating I do not know. I do know that as regarsd this aspect of wealth America is very resilient.
However, there are other measures of wealth about which I am more concerned. Here are twelve measures of wealth in which I feel the United States of America is on the wrong track or an insecure footing that Standard and Poor’s rating probably did not take into account in most cases, and only barely concerned themselves with in other cases.
1. I am concerned about coastal erosion in Louisiana and the Mississippi delta region and the loss of land hurricane barriers, habitat and the natural support of what are among America’s most viable fisheries industries.
2. I am concerned about the Atchafalya estuary and the failure to invest in routing fresh water through it in the countless ways that could and should have been done cost -effectively long ago.
3. I am concerned about ending our heavy lift rocketry and human crew space travel capacity and about what the cessation of the shuttle program means.
4. I am concerned about the absence of apprenticeships, “shop classes” in sound high school programs and the network of real liberal education programs and employers as all resources flow to a shallow conception of technocracy.
5. I am concerned about the toxic relationships I perceive between labor, industry and government which join to block off hundreds of good futures.
6. I am concerned about the many signs of the erosion of marrige in a society where the family was already too weak to allow for many good things to happen.
7. I am concerned about the declining resources of newspapers as a sector and the vaccuum created by their decline.
8. I am concerned about the weakness and shrinkage of the varied family farm sector in its better incarnations.
9. I am concerned about the wastage and weakness of human intelligence and diplomacy assets over decades.
10. I am concerned about the lack of a stronger reserve infrastructure of gardens, cottage industry and kinship networks.
11. I am concerned about the decline of many of our most secure tax bases.
12. I am concerned about the decline of constitutional education and thought among certain vitally influential groups.
So, these are my concerns. What kind of country will we have left when we pay off our staggering debt — if we do?
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