'Oops. I Told the Truth.'
- The leading edge of the American baby boom generation is now just two presidential terms away from claiming its Social Security and Medicare benefits. "With unfunded entitlement liabilities at $74 trillion in today's dollars - an amount far exceeding the net worth of our entire national economy - and with payroll taxes needing to double to cover the projected costs of Social Security and Medicare, how can any serious person not call entitlement reform the transcendent domestic policy issue of our era?" asks former Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, whose book on this subject, "Running on Empty," provides a blueprint for a bipartisan solution to this problem for any president daring to lead.
Social Security was a great system until Congress started spending the surpluses on war begining in WWII, then the Cold War under Reagan and now Bush's War. The Republican Party has single handedly squandered the future of the baby boomers, and now the futures of today's children. They will be so busy paying back the National Debt that they won't have much interest in much more than survival. And they'll have to do it in a competitive environment like America has never seen:
- The second group of boomers barreling down the highway are the young people in India, China and Eastern Europe, who in this increasingly flat world will be able to compete with your kids and mine more directly than ever for high-value-added jobs. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: The Chinese and the Indians are not racing us to the bottom. They are racing us to the top. Young Indian and Chinese entrepreneurs are not content just to build our designs. They aspire to design the next wave of innovations and dominate those markets. Good jobs are being outsourced to them not simply because they'll work for less, but because they are better educated in the math and science skills required for 21st-century work....
Without some major damage control, the US may well be bumped from its current economic role of information brokers with a generational brain drain towards the East. We need to be subsidizing science and math scholarships, and creating incentives for our children to become engineers. We will need their skills to just stay even in the future world economy.
- The third group of boomers our next president will have to deal with is from the Arab world. The Arab region has had the highest rate of population growth in the world in the last half century. It has among the highest unemployment rates in the world today. And one-third of the Arab population is under the age of 15 and will soon be entering both a barren job market and its child-bearing years. There are eight Saudis under age 15 for every one between ages 45 and 60.... The Arab world is not even close to educating its baby boomers with the skills needed to succeed in the 21st century. Left untended, this trend is a prescription for humiliation and suicide terrorism.
The theory goes that we can impose our style of government in Iraq as a beacon of hope to offset the hopelessness of the youth in the Arabic world. The plan seems to have been grandiose to say the least. Iraq appears to be headed down the road of Shiite Theocracy, there seems no way around it. One can only hope there will be some form of elected government, but that seems to be far from assured. We appear to be squandering our strength on this one hope. Failure guarentees things will get much worse for us. We will need independance from oil. And we will need engineers to do it.
Without major changes soon, America will soon be headed towards the decline Rome saw. But know one dares say anything because the sacrifices necessary to head off total disaster will be unacceptible. Someone must step forward and lead with honesty, that is our only hope. Otherwise, we may well decline into a huge unemployed underclass with a wealthy elite plutocracy. The rest of us privileged to have a job may be little more than migrant workers at the mercy of our employers.
Complete Article
Op-Ed Columnist: 'Oops. I Told the Truth.'
October 17, 2004
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
Sometimes it's useful to stand back and ask yourself: If I
could vote for anyone for president other than George W.
Bush or John Kerry, whom would I choose? I'd choose Bill
Cosby - on the condition that he would talk as bluntly to
white parents and kids about what they need to do if they
want to succeed as he did to black kids and parents a few
months ago.
The one thing that has gone totally missing, not only from
this election, but from American politics, is national
leaders who are actually ready to level with the public and
even criticize their own constituencies. The columnist
Michael Kinsley once observed that in American politics "a
gaffe is when a politician tells the truth." We could use a
few really big gaffes right now. Because we have not one,
but three baby booms bearing down at us, and without a
massive injection of truth-telling they could all explode
on the next president's watch.
The leading edge of the American baby boom generation is
now just two presidential terms away from claiming its
Social Security and Medicare benefits. "With unfunded
entitlement liabilities at $74 trillion in today's dollars
- an amount far exceeding the net worth of our entire
national economy - and with payroll taxes needing to double
to cover the projected costs of Social Security and
Medicare, how can any serious person not call entitlement
reform the transcendent domestic policy issue of our era?"
asks former Commerce Secretary Peter G. Peterson, whose
book on this subject, "Running on Empty," provides a
blueprint for a bipartisan solution to this problem for any
president daring to lead.
The second group of boomers barreling down the highway are
the young people in India, China and Eastern Europe, who in
this increasingly flat world will be able to compete with
your kids and mine more directly than ever for
high-value-added jobs. Attention Wal-Mart shoppers: The
Chinese and the Indians are not racing us to the bottom.
They are racing us to the top. Young Indian and Chinese
entrepreneurs are not content just to build our designs.
They aspire to design the next wave of innovations and
dominate those markets. Good jobs are being outsourced to
them not simply because they'll work for less, but because
they are better educated in the math and science skills
required for 21st-century work.
When was the last time you met a 12-year-old who told you
he or she wanted to grow up to be an engineer? When Bill
Gates goes to China, students hang from the rafters and
scalp tickets to hear him speak. In China, Bill Gates is
Britney Spears. In America, Britney Spears is Britney
Spears. We need a Bill Cosby-like president to tell all
parents the truth: throw out your kid's idiotic video game,
shut off the TV and get Johnny and Suzy to work, because
there is a storm coming their way.
The third group of boomers our next president will have to
deal with is from the Arab world. The Arab region has had
the highest rate of population growth in the world in the
last half century. It has among the highest unemployment
rates in the world today. And one-third of the Arab
population is under the age of 15 and will soon be entering
both a barren job market and its child-bearing years. There
are eight Saudis under age 15 for every one between ages 45
and 60.
This is why I believed so strongly in trying to partner
with the people of Iraq to establish some sort of decent
government there that might serve as a beachhead for more
progressive governance in the Arab world. I have not given
up hope for this, but it may turn out that we made too many
mistakes and that Iraqis are too divided for such a project
to succeed. If so, the next president is going to need plan
B - some combination of oil conservation that reduces our
exposure to this region, a new military strategy and a
renewed focus on promoting better government there through
diplomatic and economic means. The Arab world is not even
close to educating its baby boomers with the skills needed
to succeed in the 21st century. Left untended, this trend
is a prescription for humiliation and suicide terrorism.
I realize that elections are no time to expect honesty from
politicians. But we're in this hole because the political
season used to stop on Election Day. Now it's a permanent
campaign. That is simply not a luxury our next president
will have. The boomers are coming - from three directions -
and we will not be able to deal with them without a
president with a real penchant for gaffes of honesty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/17/opinion/17friedman.html?ex=1099151310&ei=1&en=4161b1097a7d6c74
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