Jeremiah Donaldson's Blog: This and That - Posts Tagged "entitlement"

This is another nonfiction word or two that goes along with 'The Taming of the Pansy' in some way. The other is '1950: The beginning of the death of men'. The story in 'Taming', like most of my essays, touches on sensitive social issues. Issues that need to be dragged out into the open and beat with a stick for all to see. These issues are the root of a vast number of problems. Consolidation of wealth in a few hands. Increased entitlement. Increasing homelessness. An increasing level of drug intake caused by legitimate and illegitimate use along with doctor errors. An increasing number of overdoses. An increasing suicide rate. An increasing infant mortality rate. Along with a corresponding decrease in life expectancy. They are many that any great power past its zenith must face and figure out as the limitless power of money starts to dry up.

Consolidation of wealth is through the roof. We are at the highest level of debt inequity in half a century and there are no easy solutions. Take money from the rich and give to the poor? Wouldn't do any good. Just look at all the money California has thrown at homelessness and still have to clean up Hepatitis infected feces off their streets. Give it to middle class people? Still no good. It'll just be used to pay bills and be funneled right back to the people it was just taken from. Give everyone a Universal Income? That's a zero sum game as proved by Finland's experiment. The only possible solution I can think of would be to give owner/operator incentives to increase the rate of self-employment and business startups. This would, over time, spread consumer money around slightly more evenly as the more competitive people picked up their pace in response. The less competitive people that think they are owed something would be presented with an improved system they could possibly learn something from before all government entitlement agencies go broke. Some people even still believe the money they're getting for their Social Security and what pays for their Medicare is money THEY paid in. Such a concept is naive at best or the system wouldn't be due to start collapsing by 2034 due to unbalanced fundage. Sooner if people keep sucking it dry at all levels.

Meanwhile, prescription drug use is rising. Suicide rate is rising. Obesity rate is rising. We have a bad infant mortality rate compared to other such countries, and that's without counting abortion (which kills 188 per 1000 live births compared to the US mortality rate of 5.8 per 1000, or put another way, 32 are aborted for each one that doesn't make it naturally). Life expectancy is falling. It doesn't take Einstein to see where this will go over the long term. You can't fix a drug problem with more drugs anymore than you can put out a fire with gasoline or revive a drowning person with a bucket of water or keep someone from being an alcoholic by handing them a bottle. The concept that people can be 'cured' of their addiction with the introduction of yet another drug into their system is the medical equivalent of letting Jim Jones pick your evening drink. Likewise, you can't fix an obesity problem without personal responsibility and perhaps clauses for such in health insurance contracts. People think they can shove five pounds of garbage down their throats a day and live to a ripe old age. That's like thinking you can dump sugar in your gas tank and drive across the country. You can't. Your car will die. YOU will die. We need a national fitness program. About 71% of people aren't even fit for the military to send off to be shot at. Maybe insurance contracts don't need a personal responsibility clause, maybe the country does.

I know many more people will die premature deaths caused by all matter of preventable issues before the rest really start getting the picture because people are already dying while obesity and drug use continues to increase. Many of them are people taking prescriptions given to them by a doctor, and they will argue until they overdose or go psychotic that it's okay because the doctor gave it to them. The more people that die and go batshit crazy, the more that will take notice. Long term prognosis says it will fix itself. In the long run, only the ones that keep their heads together will remain. The short term outlook is far messier. People will continue denying that what they get from doctors will hurt them. People will continue denying that they need to get more exercise. People will continue to deny that our economic system can't support masses of non-producers latched onto it like ticks bleeding a host dry. And the longer they deny, the more will die earlier than they should, the lower our life expectancy will go, the more serious the retirement problem will be in two decades, and the farther the country will sink before righting itself.

Additional reading:
The richest 1 percent now owns more of the country’s wealth than at any time in the past 50 years: https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/w...
San Diego Washing Streets With Bleach To Combat Hepatitis A Outbreak: https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-w...
Basic income: world’s first national experiment in Finland shows only modest benefits : http://theconversation.com/basic-inco...
Entitlement Mentality Still Destroying America: https://www.newsmax.com/finance/andre...
Social Security must reduce benefits in 2034 if reforms aren't made: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/politi...
2018 Prescription Drug Abuse Statistics You Need To Know: https://talbottcampus.com/prescriptio...
How does infant mortality in the U.S. compare to other countries?: https://www.healthsystemtracker.org/c...
CDCs Abortion Surveillance System FAQs: https://www.cdc.gov/reproductivehealt...
The decline in U.S. life expectancy is unlike anything we've seen in a century: https://www.popsci.com/life-expectanc...
THE U.S. SUICIDE RATE IS AT ITS HIGHEST IN A HALF-CENTURY: https://psmag.com/news/the-suicide-ra...
U.S. Obesity Rates Have Hit An All-Time High: https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmcc...
The Looming National Security Crisis: Young Americans Unable to Serve in the Military: https://www.scribd.com/document/37253...