Home, is Where the Heart Is (Or, Perhaps, Should Family Be Where It Is and Not "Wealth?...)
This article is disturbing. First, it dovetails with much of what I have been saying about the potential for the U.S. to be preparing to dramatically retrency itself.
Also, it hits very hard on the problems we face in the housing sector and the prospect that housing prices will remain in the doldrums for a long time.
I think this is very possible. This, along with the general systemic challenges to our economy, are why we need to begin not only confronting our deficit (as some in the GOP are suggesting), but we need to ask what it means to be happy.
If material wealth remains the sine qua non of happiness, America will likely be in for a persistent rude awakening. The halycon days of the 1990s are gone. However, that doesn't mean we need to mope about how all is lost.
If Americans were able to re-examine such basic notions as a house being a long-term home (not something to "flip" for a quick buck while bidding prices much higher than they should be under normal circumstances), we could adress some of our afflictions. Of course, if that phrase, so dreaded by the cultural elite, "family values" were to ever become more than a political slogan, but a real way of living, we might also be onto recapturing some of the glory that America is losing.
No, this is not a panacea. We will need to find a way to create decent paying jobs. We will need to incentivize entrepreneurs, but, there are no silver bullets, just multiple, small pieces of a a very large puzzle.
"Easy" solutions do not exist. Anyone that tells you otherwise is misinformed or lying. A cultural renewal at home, and strength abroad. This is how to recapture an America that will give the next generation the same kind of pride that we feel for the "Greatest Generation."
Also, it hits very hard on the problems we face in the housing sector and the prospect that housing prices will remain in the doldrums for a long time.
I think this is very possible. This, along with the general systemic challenges to our economy, are why we need to begin not only confronting our deficit (as some in the GOP are suggesting), but we need to ask what it means to be happy.
If material wealth remains the sine qua non of happiness, America will likely be in for a persistent rude awakening. The halycon days of the 1990s are gone. However, that doesn't mean we need to mope about how all is lost.
If Americans were able to re-examine such basic notions as a house being a long-term home (not something to "flip" for a quick buck while bidding prices much higher than they should be under normal circumstances), we could adress some of our afflictions. Of course, if that phrase, so dreaded by the cultural elite, "family values" were to ever become more than a political slogan, but a real way of living, we might also be onto recapturing some of the glory that America is losing.
No, this is not a panacea. We will need to find a way to create decent paying jobs. We will need to incentivize entrepreneurs, but, there are no silver bullets, just multiple, small pieces of a a very large puzzle.
"Easy" solutions do not exist. Anyone that tells you otherwise is misinformed or lying. A cultural renewal at home, and strength abroad. This is how to recapture an America that will give the next generation the same kind of pride that we feel for the "Greatest Generation."
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