On the anniversary of the birth of America 1.0, Michael Barone reviews a timely new book.
2 thoughts on “America 3.0”
Always wait for 3.1 (the education bug fix?)
America’s main task is to police “the world’s maritime and aviation commons” — which Britain or America have been doing off and on for three centuries.
We can also safely assume that includes policing the “space commons” as well, since James Bennett has previously called for the establishment of a Space Guard akin to the Coast Guard.
It is clear that the industrial model is collapsing, whether it is in manufacturing or K-12 education or post-secondary education or journalism and the list goes on. The factory floor is being replaced with an open-source CNC and a single-person factory, Khan Academy flips the classroom upside-down, MOOCs are getting a hundred thousand students in one course, blogs are killing the mainstream media. We simply don’t need to gather a lot of people together in one building to accomplish most things anymore.
The area of life we do need to gather large groups together is in the proper role of federal government: protection from foreign enemies and domestic law enforcement.
It is also clear that the entire “social safety net” is about to collapse. The Baby Boom was approximately 1945 to 1963 with the median of 1954, so in six short years half the Baby Boomers will be 65 or older. Every new law or regulation adds a cost, and new initiatives like Obamacare keep getting piled on. You can only inflate the currency so much before the bubble bursts. Each new initiative and law and regulation and agency and increase in tax complexity piles on more and more cost, existing agencies never decrease their costs, and so the cost inevitably goes up faster than inflation can keep up, hastening the day the bubble bursts.
OR
Or Americans wake the hell up and
– repeal the 16th Amendment
– repeal every goddamn line of the tax code
– institute a flat sales tax
– eliminate every single government department with the exception of State, Defense, Justice, and about half of HHS. Everything else, gone. No welfare, no medicaid, no social security, all gone.
– instead issue every citizen a monthly stipend (identical *small* amounts for every man, woman, and child, but they must be citizens)
The odds of getting half the voters to pick the second option right now is effectively zero. Might have to wait for the bubble to burst before they figure it out.
Always wait for 3.1 (the education bug fix?)
America’s main task is to police “the world’s maritime and aviation commons” — which Britain or America have been doing off and on for three centuries.
We can also safely assume that includes policing the “space commons” as well, since James Bennett has previously called for the establishment of a Space Guard akin to the Coast Guard.
It is clear that the industrial model is collapsing, whether it is in manufacturing or K-12 education or post-secondary education or journalism and the list goes on. The factory floor is being replaced with an open-source CNC and a single-person factory, Khan Academy flips the classroom upside-down, MOOCs are getting a hundred thousand students in one course, blogs are killing the mainstream media. We simply don’t need to gather a lot of people together in one building to accomplish most things anymore.
The area of life we do need to gather large groups together is in the proper role of federal government: protection from foreign enemies and domestic law enforcement.
It is also clear that the entire “social safety net” is about to collapse. The Baby Boom was approximately 1945 to 1963 with the median of 1954, so in six short years half the Baby Boomers will be 65 or older. Every new law or regulation adds a cost, and new initiatives like Obamacare keep getting piled on. You can only inflate the currency so much before the bubble bursts. Each new initiative and law and regulation and agency and increase in tax complexity piles on more and more cost, existing agencies never decrease their costs, and so the cost inevitably goes up faster than inflation can keep up, hastening the day the bubble bursts.
OR
Or Americans wake the hell up and
– repeal the 16th Amendment
– repeal every goddamn line of the tax code
– institute a flat sales tax
– eliminate every single government department with the exception of State, Defense, Justice, and about half of HHS. Everything else, gone. No welfare, no medicaid, no social security, all gone.
– instead issue every citizen a monthly stipend (identical *small* amounts for every man, woman, and child, but they must be citizens)
The odds of getting half the voters to pick the second option right now is effectively zero. Might have to wait for the bubble to burst before they figure it out.