Financial Armageddon: “Americans Just Don’t Want to Know”

What caught my attention in this excellent post from Financial Armageddon was the phrase “Americans just don’t want to know.” So true.

Americans live in a bubble. Not just a real estate bubble, but a sphere that acts as a reality distortion field, that tints the colors we see, makes some things look larger than they really are, and some things smaller. I’m not sure the citizens of any country live distortion-free, but to push the metaphor farther than I should, I believe some cultures wear some eyeglasses that distort their world view, while others see unreality in every direction. In the U.S., I think the latter is our lot. Whether it’s the MSM spinning, or the fact that we’re in a huge and extremely rare period of growth and prosperity thanks to what Kunstler calls our “one shot” blessing of fossil fuels, Americans have to look (and think) long and hard to get something even close to reality, let alone truth.

There was a growing sense of entitlement, especially among the 78 million baby boomers—Americans born between 1946 and 1965—as well as a widespread desire for wealth without work. For many, engaging in excessive borrowing, self-deception, and a rejiggering of priorities to support a lifestyle they felt they needed and deserved was just the way life was. A quick read of history suggests this delusion is common among the citizenry of fading and failed empires.

I talk with people every day about the economy, and am usually shocked at how little intelligent, rational people really think about the health of the economy, past the sound bites they hear on the MSM news reports. The recent death of Anna Nicole Smith is being investigated in greater detail than our economy right now, something George at UrbanSurvival.com would call the “bread and circuses,” of the collapsing Roman American Empire.

Posted in Economy