Lesbians and Money – Are You Living Beyond Your Means?
I just came inside from cutting some palm trees (they are growing like crazy due to all of the rain), and after a shower happened to switch the channel away from the Olympics and found Bill Moyers interviewing Andrew Bacevich. Fascinating interview. Be sure you go by the PBS website and learn more about this guy. A must see, whether or not you are looking for something to watch.
What’s the big deal? What’s Bacevich got to do with lesbians and their money? Bacevich is to the larger picture of our country and where it’s headed economically as Suze Orman is to our personal finances. Interestingly enough, he’s a former military man (a West Point grad and retired army colonel no less). He’s also an academic (he’s now a professor of international relations at Boston University). I wonder if he’s an ‘independent’. He sure seems like it!
While it may not be obvious, the tie between you and Bacevich is strong and long. Bacevich turns on it’s side the wisdom, as many like to say – that democrats spend and republicans save. According to Bacevich, the last president to understand our looming economic and energy crises was Jimmy Carter, who, if you hadn’t noticed, has been endlessly criticized for being one of the ‘weakest’ presidents of this century. In fact, in 1979 when Carter spoke out against our looming energy crisis, he was laughed out of office. Bacevich also says, it’s not only Ronald Reagan and the two Bushes who have perpetuated our problems. Bill Clinton did alot to continue the trend as well.
So what’s our problem as a country as Bacevich sees it? How could we be going to hell in a handbasket? After all we are the greatest country on the earth, are we not? According to Bacevich, unless we change our consumptive habits, as a country, as families and, as individuals, we’ve probably seen our best years as a country. That’s the tie between you and Bacevich. Bacevich believes how you and I define freedom is actually going to lead us to lose it someday as we become more indebted to other nations. And, in that way, Bacevich and Suze Orman share the same message.
I’ll be reading Bacevich’s latest book The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism soon. And, in the spirit of what he’s talking about, I think it’s time for me to check this book out of my local library instead of running online to buy it! Of course, to conserve gas, it’ll be when I’m going past the public library anyway!
By the way, Bacevich dedicated his book to his son, Andrew, Jr., who was killed in 2007 in the Iraq war… ;-(
Let me know what YOU think! Does Bacevich have a point or is he a doomsayer to be ignored?
Barb Elgin