Recently, my kid in social studies is studying the Roman Empire ..And as I predicted, the assignment was compare and contrast the fall of the “Roman Empire to the United States.” Is the US doomed to the same fate as the Roman Empire. And then my kid asked are we going down the same way the Roman empire did?
I chuckled … This is the same assignment I was given when I was roughly her age and that was back in 1992, when folks were predicting the same decline of the US and the US would eventually blow up in 10-20 years.. Coincidentally, during the time during the Savings and Loans crisis that left many people foreclosed on and jobless and the economy was in tatters and the outlook extremely negative, especially in SoCal when the aerospace industry vaporized more or less….
I told my kid about all the positive things about the US, how we are still around, and how a percentage of the population are doing just great, our family being one of them, unemployment being at an all time low, innovation after innovation..
But I left the remark that if you want an easy A on the essay, it’s far easier to be negative and argue we are going down like the Roman empire did, even if you don’t believe it….But I am pretty sure 20 years from now, your kids will get the same assignment and we will still be here….
Extreme Pessimism, I explained, is a great seller for academic exercises and for getting easy A’s on research projects in academia…Because many of the leaders in academia are grumpy old farts that want to be correct with their predictions… That’s why they stay in academia instead of working in the real world….But that’s not how the shit works in the real world. In that’s been proven time after time again….after every recession. You have winners and you have some losers. try not to lose…lol.
I think the people that really got left behind were the ones that bought into all that negativity AND bet their financial future on the doomsday scenario….lol….
