Talk about money: Book details political woes and effect on nation’s problems

Talk about money
By Mark Rosenberg
“Your proposition may be good,
But let’s have one thing understood,
Whatever it is, I’m against it.
And even when you’ve changed it or condensed it,
I’m against it.”
That song was sung by Groucho Marx in the 1932 movie “Horse Feathers” and is quoted in a new book to make a point about how dysfunctional the U.S. government has become.
In the book “That Used to Be Us: How America Fell Behind in the World it Invented and How We Can Come Back,” authors Thomas Friedman and Michael Mandelbaum write that the first decade of the 21st century was the worst in the country’s history.
They say our two major political parties have become so polarized, and so willing to pander to voters and tell them only what they want to hear, that they are incapable of solving the nation’s problems.
The parties’ two polar-opposite positions seem to break down like this: Democrats on the far left think government is the cure for all the world’s ills. Republicans on the far right think government never does anything right.
The far right’s anti-government position will be hardened by the bankruptcy of Fremont solar panel maker Solyndra, which had received loan guarantees from the Obama administration. Solyndra’s failure will cost taxpayers $535 million and hurt Scotts Valley component maker Lintelle Engineering, which is owed $1.9 million by Solyndra, with little hope of recourse.
Solyndra’s failure is a setback in the nation’s efforts to develop a coherent energy policy. The book cites energy as one of the four major challenges of a nation in crisis, along with globalization, the information technology revolution and chronic deficits.
The authors rip Democrats over their resistance to reforming entitlement programs like Social Security and Medicare. They write, “A generation ago, Democrats stood for progressive change. Now they defend every federal program as if each were sacred. They have become the most conservative force in American politics.”
The book urges a move to “the radical center” led by a third-party presidential candidate. The authors say the center is radical because it requires “far more substantial changes in the current ways of doing things” than either party has the courage to propose.
Mandelbaum said in an interview with news website The Daily Beast that when he goes to a ballgame, everyone claps when active military personnel stand up, and he detects a sense of guilt that military personnel are the only ones being asked to make any sacrifices for the country, “which means that we have outsourced patriotism.”
In World War II, it wasn’t only soldiers who made sacrifices. Higher taxes and rationing were part of how everyone pulled together for the good of the country. In the future, the book says, all Americans again will have to make sacrifices.
“Americans will have to save more, consume less, study longer, and work harder than they have become accustomed to doing in recent decades,” they write.
Friedman and Mandelbaum, both baby boomers like me, call on their generation to step up to the challenge. They write: “The future of the country is in our hands, as it was for the GIs on the beaches of Normandy.”
Mark Rosenberg is an investment consultant for Financial West Group in Scotts Valley, a member of FINRA and SIPC. He can be reached at 439-9910 or [email protected].