US Pop. 478 Million by 2100
Politicians Haven't a Clue
What to do? Maintain Snow Job
by Dan Ehrlich



So now the economic battle lines are drawn for the next election. The Democrats want to keep on spending and the Republicans, who created the blueprint for our decline, want deep cutbacks that will affect average to low income citizens, while passing by their favored people, those with loads of money.

Still, no party or official will level with the population that we only seem to be growing in three areas: National debt, unemployment and population.  They keep up the snow job with charges and counter charges, yet at the end of the day the nation remains in a gradual decline of low economic growth and cutbacks in lifestyle and public services.

The fact they won’t own-up to is: There is no magic fix or cure for what’s happening. There’s no way in the world that we can compete with slave wage economies, anchored by China, and maintain our affluent lifestyle. Little by little we are becoming poorer as a people, while our once stable population is mushrooming.

The United States is growing faster than many rich countries, largely because of high immigration and higher fertility among Hispanic immigrants. A new UN population report projects that the United States population will rise from today’s 311 million to 478 million by 2100.

So, figuring there is anywhere from the official 9.1 percent to the unofficial 17 percent unemployment now, what will it be like in 90 years with 167 million more people here?

Gradually, and it has already begun, we are regressing as a nation, going backwards from a high water mark in the early 60s when there was no talk of economic slowdown or cutbacks.
Politicians Have No Appreciation of Future
But, this doesn’t concern politicians, who like many liberal activists and voters, have little or no appreciation of the future. They see things in terms of terms…in office that is. What happens way down the line is for some other president to fix.

They just want us to buy the rubbish they’re selling and carry on as normal. What do unemployment figures and gas prices have in common? Stumped? They’re designed to help you forget how things used to be and accept how they are now.

This is part of the brave new world that America inhabits, one where no matter how bad things may become, our leaders will maintain a better day is just around the next corner, or the next one after that. And that partly because politicians don't get elected by telling you the hard truth.

Gas prices rose again as  they have done for years. A couple of weeks ago in Los Angeles they were jumping around $4.20 per gallon. Now its about $3.95. Last year gas here was at $2.89. Prices will go down a bit, but the long-term trend will always be upwards.

Unemployment has dropped from a high of 10 percent, but is still above 9 percent, unofficially closer to 17 percent. Some experts predict high unemployment will be a way of life here for a long time to come.

Yet, I’m old enough to remember when gas was 25 cents a gallon and anything over 5 percent unemployment was considered a recession. But, those are memories consigned to historical records the likes of which may never be experienced again. Today younger people will speak of $2 gas prices as being part of the good old days.
Leaders Use Supermarket Promotional Technique
Strangely, supermarkets have long used this technique. When they want to raise the price of products, they often will lower them on sale for a short time, so when they eventually raise the prices, you won’t recall what the original cost was.

Now politicians talk as if this latest recession is also history simply because a few more seasonal workers have been hired and consumer spending is rising. Yet, the overall bleak jobs picture is hard for them to explain.

As for gas, once we develop alternative energy sources, things will be rosy again, they claim. In past decades, a recession was measured by the unemployment rate. Today gross domestic product is the key indicator. The main problem with this, as we are now seeing, is that many firms will become more efficient producing more products with fewer full-time workers.

The key to the PC world we are now in is acceptance with minimal complaints in a society of growing unaccountability. And eventually those who complain too loudly and are noticed would themselves be confined to the dustbin of history.

And government will become larger and more socialistic in nature because as our economy continues to decline overall, more and more people will depend on government assistance.

At the same time middle class Americans along with our working class will wind up competing for jobs at fast food restaurants, jobs that may be occupied by former illegal aliens. I say former, because whatever president is in office will have made them legal, thereby removing the charge that illegals are taking jobs from Americans, something that is almost a certainty if sky-high unemployment rates remain.
Mass Media Key to Brain Dead Population
Another key element in America’s transition from an inventive society of individualistic self reliant people to one of a compliant mass is itself another type of mass, the mass media. What better to distract people and keep their minds off their problems and politics than showbusiness, which now takes in about anything public in the USA?

It’s really quite insidious; one of the aspects of the Communist Manifesto has been hijacked by our lofty capitalist system…keep the people occupied with sports and entertainment. And, like it or not, we live in a country where virtually everything has been reduced to entertainment. And that’s in part due to the fact that much of our news media are now part of entertainment conglomerates.

We won’t see dirt-cheap gasoline but we will own fewer yet more fuel-efficient cars. The days are numbered for mom and dad buying cars for all their children. As for 5 percent unemployment, this will only happen if we lower our wage standards and standard of living while raising our home based industry.

The core problem for America is two-fold, our obscene addiction to consumer goods and our method of satisfying this addiction: Dependence on cheap goods from China and other low wage nations. All presidents since Ronald Reagan have been supply-side monetarists tied to the open world market. There's no way we can compete with dollar-a-day wage countries.

Of course there’s the remote chance that China and India will nuke each other out of the picture and we will have no choice other than rebuilding our industrial base. But don’t count on it. China is now the second largest economy. It's only a matter of time when it surpasses America. The great irony here is that China's success is based largely on the industrialized nations buying all the junk they can make. My Japanese Sony laptop has parts made in China. ( See "The Regression" on this site).

What you can count on is the government telling you that happy days are here again or just around multiple corners. That’s also an old Communist tactic: If you tell people something long enough they will believe it. And that's mainly because we have short memories and too much trivial information filling our minds.