(2006-09-20) Oreilly American Culture

Victor O Reilly on the fragility of American Culture due to the National Debt associated with mis-planned Dealing With Terrorism. But Americans are the richest people in the world on a per capita basis! Just about still true - we are losing ground - but the kicker is that American wealth is very unevenly distributed. That means that eighty percent of the U.S. population is, in fact, less well off than those perfidious Europeans; and those wretched Europeans get free medical (HealthCare), take six weeks of vacation a year, attend school and college (Educating Kids) courtesy of the state and receive both generous UnEmployment and Retirement stipends. Total that lot up, and add in the fact that European Infrastructure is generally kept in better shape, and that their state subsidized cultural life is thriving, and you may just experience an epiphany to the effect that the American Way of Life may not have all the answers. Well, we Americans have always been extraordinarily good at re-inventing ourselves. We'll just re-capitalize our economy and leap-frog over all these pesky foreigners. The U.S. has always been unsurpassed at raising capital and financing Innovation. Frankly, it will have to be foreign capital. You see the embarrassing fact is that the American public has practically stopped saving. Whereas those dreadful Europeans still save about ten percent of their incomes - more in places like Switzerland - the American Savings Rate has dropped like a stone over the last decade and now is close to zero.