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I'm worried about this. Here is a list of reasons off the top of my head.
Our infrastructure is underfunded and falling apart (rails, roads, bridges, grid, etc)
The middle class is shrinking and our Gini coefficient keeps rising
Entitlement spending is going to cost 100+ trillion over the next 100 years (not that I support cutting these programs, but we should increase taxes and efficiency in healthcare)
Health care, education and (probably) real estate will grow at 6-10% a year while wages grow at 3%, leaving people further in debt.
As the country becomes more of a plutocracy, the wealthy can buy more and more politicians who can enforce their agenda as well as think tanks and media outlets to convince working class people to vote for the agenda of the wealthy.
The national debt is growing more and more. Most consumers are in debt too.
We've lost something like 10 million jobs we aren't getting back (7 million, plus 3 million in cut hours). It'll take years to get those back.
Peak oil is going to hit soon.
Problems with infrastructure and healthcare put us at a competitive disadvantage with foreign nations.
China has cornered the market on rare earth metals, so they might control global manufacture of consumer electronics and alternative energy soon.
Our political debates are full of misinformation, simplistic slogans and catch phrases (on both sides) rather than rational attempts to determine what is best for the nation.
Despite all these problems, a huge, huge number of Americans think someone like Sarah Palin (who is a grossly incompetent, superstitious dimwit) is 'just what we need' to fix things. Its like if someone told you you are addicted to alcohol and you responded 'well, a little meth will fix that problem'. I'm not ragging people for disagreeing with me on policy, I'm ragging them for being so intellectually lazy that they would rather have an openly incompetent person in charge just because they like his/her personality. The fact that despite all our problems (war, terrorism, economic collapse) tens of millions of people want someone who is openly incompetent in charge is scary. Say what you want about Cheney (evil, conspiratorial, autocratic), he wasn't an idiot. He knew how to get stuff done (wars, torture, possibly other things). Combine Cheney's autocratic evil with the right wing's simpleton foot soldiers and you get Palin.
There are reasons to be optimistic. The US still has the best tertiary education on earth, and as a result we can play a big role in advances in energy, nanotech, biotech, robotics, communications, etc over the next few decades. Advances in manufacturing will make consumer goods higher quality and lower cost. Alternative energy investments will keep growing rapidly (wind alone is supposed to make up 20%+ of our energy by the 2020s). We may get universal health care soon. People might emerge from this recession with a better sense of thrift. Medical advances will keep coming. Advances in communications (cell phone cameras, blogs, etc) will counteract authoritarian government oppression by shining light on it.
However, I don't think we should ignore the bad things out there, and I think a lot will start hitting over the next 10 years or so. I'm not saying we shouldn't work on them (health reform could save trillions in entitlement spending, the Obama admin is working on jobs creation and stimulus bills to improve infrastructure, the Gini coefficient might stabilize under progressive leadership).
Give me a reason to feel I am overreacting to these threats, or that they are more manageable than I assume.
I wonder if I've posted this before. It feels like I have.
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