The Summer of Our Discontent - Dealing w/. High Anxiety

Confidence is an essential ingredient to successful endeavors, both for an individual and the body politic. Obviously, the converse is equally true - fear and doubt are lethal contagions, a virus sapping the strength of the Nation, poisoning our collective will to overcome small and big challenges. Accordingly, my responsibility, as your Humble Blogger, is to damp down the fever of national insecurity in order to restore informed optimism and the unshakable conviction that tomorrow will be better than today.

To myself, after all, it is Morning in America, even though I do know that the Gipper is still dead. Let me explain why I still very much believe in American Exceptionalism - Look closely at the rest of the world: Europe is financially, morally and politically bankrupt (more than five months of futile war against one insane despot in Libya, and the french are talking armistice, if not surrender); Russia is an organized crime syndicate, not a country. As the world's economic woes multiply, the silver lining is that the life blood of the mobsters in Moscow - oil exports -do not garner the levels of hard currency needed to adequately feed the Russian Bear. China needs, at a minimum, 7.5% annual growth in its economy to ward off potentially devastating civil unrest - it is reliably estimated that the migration of rural unemployed workers from the farms to the cities totals millions of downtrodden annually, most looking for construction jobs in the coastal urban centers. Should China stop building buildings no one will occupy for decades, its society will crumble like the house of cards it is.

Now look at America - our nation is a stable Republic, our institutions of government are stronger than ever, elections do have real consequences and the voice of the people demanding a return to fiscal sanity has been heard in the halls of power in Washington. Sure, we face grave challenges, particularly in growing the private sector economy in the face of massive over regulation imposed by Obamacare and Frank/Dodd financial controls. Nonetheless, we have always risen to such challenges. A Nation that survived millions killed in the Civil War, many more killed in two world wars and the great depression of the 1930s, can roll back excessive intrusions into business decision making by unelected federal bureaucrats. Thus, I say, let's roll up our sleeves my fellow Americans, kick some Euro/Asian butt, knowing full well that we are without doubt the last best hope of all mankind. "We can do anything" - more later on this boast.