EXTEND & PRETEND: A Matter of National Security

Politics / UK Economy
Jun 18, 2010 - 07:14 AM
By: Gordon_T_Long

There is something seriously wrong in America. We all sense it, but few in the mainstream media are willing to touch it or can effectively articulate it within the public’s sound-bite oriented attention span.

It isn’t just about the remnants of the financial crisis; it isn’t the protracted jobs recession and slow recovery; it isn’t the trillions of dollars in deficit spending; it isn’t the degree of rampant financial malfeasants. It is something deeper which reaches into the soul of who we are as a people and society. It will soon be the central theme to your investment strategy and financial security.

On the surface it might appear we have lost our optimism about the future and our confidence that America is still the ‘beacon on the hill’ that countries around the world admire and look to for leadership. Though our children mouth the platitudes taught by older generations, they ring hollow in the hallways with video surveillance, motion sensors and metal detectors when recited by them. The high minded ideals seem misplaced in unemployment lines where they stand with freshly minted advanced degrees in hand, huge education debts and little hope other than the faint possibility of a non-paying internship position.

It isn’t that the American people have changed. Our government has changed.

Before I specifically address what this means to your investment strategy and lay out a plan to protect your wealth, we need to delve into the unvarnished facts of what is happening to our quickly shifting cultural norms and our elected representative government.

The USA was a country that was based on a true moral compass and a belief system. Today, whether in Detroit, Cleveland or Los Angeles, we see decay and people who have lost their faith in America as the place where possibilities abound and everyone can have the American dream if he or she is willing to work for it. Today many in pursuit of that dream are working three jobs with no benefits and no longer getting by as they fall further into the grips of the lending shylocks. People, who perceive themselves as middle class, no longer have retirement plans like their parents, they are working longer hours to assist with their children’s horrendous college costs and are forced out of necessity to support their gown-up children long past ages which previous generations experienced.



Political slogans of “hopeâ€