Thursday, November 15, 2012

Welcome to After America

"City wages were a runaway train..."

If you haven't already read it, After America by Mark Steyn (now available in paperback) is an apocalyptic look at a world no longer led by America on any level: economic, liberty, democracy or philosophical.

You will hate yourself for laughing while you read it, but read it you must. Unfortunately, many of Steyn's predictions are coming true, and probably at a pace that many Americans never allowed themselves to imagine.

Here is an After America story that I read today that made me terribly upset-from Reuters.

It's an in-depth look at how union and political greed bankrupted an entire city in California. 

It's heartbreaking actually.

The money simply ran out. As it will for the entire country.

That's where things are heading! And it's not "just" San Bernardino and Stockton. 

"A handful of other small California cities, including Atwater, Hercules and Compton, are teetering near bankruptcy."

AfterPBsmallrev

City wages were a runaway train.

That's one way of looking at it. 

The problems are fiscal and spiritual of course. But the spiritual crisis of America preceded the financial one. The erosion of personal liberty, the growing government dependence addiction, the nanny-state incursion into individual lives, the turn away from Western values-those all preceded the financial ruin. They set the groundwork for the fall.

So, take a few minutes to read about this example from California (the "vicious cycle").

City wages were a runaway train.

The problem of course with runaway trains is that they can't slow down on their own. 

They stop with wreckage unless someone puts on the brakes-and you're kidding yourself if you think the Obama administration will pull that lever.