Keeping an Eye on Technology Futures, No Hidden Agendas, New Attitudes, No Platitudes!
"Money doesn't make you happy (though it can help). It is a spiritual connection with the universe that does. People ask, 'How could you drop everything and go sailing for a year?' My response is, 'You can always make money, but you cannot make time. So enjoy it while you can because you can't take 'things' with you when you are gone'.
"I still like the idea of privatizing education and giving vouchers to legal citizens with children and letting them decide which school to send their kids to. The competition would clean up the crap that has morphed in our socialized school system. Schools and teachers would be under pressure to be at the top of their games and top schools would have standards for admittance. Wow, sounds like our College-system that seems to work very well.
"Socializing medicine would not be good. We need to put a stop to out of control lawsuits and overhaul the insurance industry. Socializing medicine will further reduce the quality of doctors and the system. I know this from first hand MDs in the family."
Gary Costello [garycost@rcn.com] agrees that the declining middle-class is a symptom of larger issues:
"The struggle is awful for the middle-classers whose quality of life is constantly eroding and for the lower-classers who have little hope of elevating. And, in reflection of the article on healthcare, Massachusetts passed a law mandating that everyone MUST have health insurance. So now, those that could not afford it in the first place, are required to buy it or be penalized at tax time. Furthermore, and as expected, the health insurers raised their premiums and reduced the benefits to maximize profits...an easy thing to do when you have a captive audience.
"My 32-year old daughter (a graduate of Boston University and very capable), and most of her college-graduate friends, can't earn enough to be independent; rather, they either live at home or depend on their parents for assistance. This is the New United States."
James Fox [fox.james@att.net] sees his business declining because of competitive cost & quality:
"Maybe quick global warming or some catastrophic environmental change is necessary to remove 2/3 of the humans. Our Earth is way overpopulated and we cannot design our way out of this. Simply too many people.
"Even if we change dramatically, the developing world won't. Sorry, but I'm starting to go the Republican way: 'Don't worry, be happy, ignore the bad, worry only about myself and let the kids worry about the mess we left them. GDP growth will make it all better. (I don't have kids). What to do...
