I have been reading a lot about the financial crisis and how we can solve the problems. There is more than one obvious problem in the United States at the moment, so I will start with our law makers. The system in the United States was set up to ensure that the best outcome possible could be reached through a system of checks and balances. The theory is a great one, one that I am even proud of. However, the people who created the system couldn't have taken into consideration all of the distortions that the future would bring to it. One of the major ones being campaign contributions. Every major company in the United States donates hundreds of thousands of dollars to the party which they think will make doing business easier, whether it be through lower taxes, or more favorable emissions restrictions or easier employment laws and regulations. This, over the past 50 to 60 years has caused a huge problem. If companies, and in this case banks as well, can influence politicians to do as they say then the resulting laws passed are only favorable to industry. What then happens is, of course, that the companies can choose how our country is run and the politicians who are getting rich from their campaign contributions are all too happy to allow it.
The second problem is culture. We in America think we are the best. Our parents tell us that we are, our television programs tell us this, and the news media constantly tells us how bad all of the other countries in the world have it. The problem is that we're not the best anymore. Once we were, but not now. Our schools are suffering, our prisons are expanding and people are in so much debt that they can't pay it back. Ever. I believe there is more than one cause. The biggest being that we don't like waiting for anything. We want a new house, we go buy it without saving first. We want a new car, we borrow the money and go buy it, too, whether we can actually afford it or not. What's worse is that the banks are all too willing to give us the money to do these things at a interest rate that we think we can handle. We aren't thinking about the future when we do these things. Instant gratification is not always a good thing.
So, now the major question on all of our minds is, how can we fix it? How can we look at the situation and think critically about a solution that works, not just in the short term, but also in the long term? I truly believe that the problem can be solved, but we as a nation have to look inwards and find the problems at home and work to improve them. We don't do this well, but if we want to survive and thrive in the future we have to do it.
Investments in our education system need to be made so that our children have a chance to compete in a world economy in the future. We have to invest in our infrastructure, building bridges and roads that connect people and goods. We have to stop pointing fingers at all of the other nations in the world and telling them what they are doing wrong and point them at ourselves and ask the difficult question of "What can I do to make America a safer and more competitive nation?" The question is not an easy one, but if we stop throwing stones at other nations and think critically, I am confident that we can solve the problems that face our country today and in the future.
