Veterans Of Future Wars

My sister commented that the next generation would have a lower standard of living than the previous generation. I'm curious about her statement. She has no children, but her siblings do...does that influence her opinion? And why now? Why the next generation specifically?

I think people with children are biased in believing that it can't get worse, because they don't really want to think about their children living with energy constraints, pollution (either local or global), oceans without edible fish, crushing national debts, forests without lowland gorillas, greater wealth disparity, escalating armed conflict, health care whose costs increase at 7% per year, homes whose values rise at 20% per year remaining perpetually unaffordable...

But they also don't want to act either -- because doing so might limit their access to their own wants. So long as their health care is covered by their employer, so long as their own house continues to rise in value 20% per year ad infinitum, so long as their pensions are viable, so long as their tank of gas costs less than $40...

The American way of life -- a life of profligate energy use, wanton consumption, on the receiving end of global wage arbitrage, and entitlements. This is the definition of a good standard of living -- access to your wants, and there is no better way than to use as much energy as you please, to drive where you please, to have access to 1080p televisions, two refrigerators and a 3,200 sq ft starter mansion, access to copious volumes of cheap products manufactured by others, to have access to perpetual unemployment checks. I believe our nation will remain willing and able to engage war to preserve this way of life.

I look at my thirteen year old son and wonder if he will someday engage in war, and if so, what kind of war would it be? Seems Americans are quite the warring people, engaging in a major war every 20 years or so since inception. Doesn't it seem plausible, even remotely plausible, that if Venezuela or Nigeria withheld available crude (horrors! another embargo!) we'd construe that as economic terrorism? Shit. We invaded Iraq for less. What's next? An economic war? A war on terror? A revolutionary war? A war of attrition? A war of conquest? A civil war? A guerrilla war? Based on American history, my son will live through and will perhaps himself engage in another war sometime between now and 2023. He very well might become a veteran of some future war.

Today --a military engaging in two foreign wars to fight terror and expensive gasoline while the rest of the population consumes, leisures, ignores, and defers payment for all of it...damn, the ultimate definition of a high standard of living.

To make this standard even higher, I offer the following:

That it is inevitable that this nation will engage in another war within the next twenty years, and that it is expected that future consumers should also reap the benefits of wars conducted by others without cost or loss of access to property, I demand the government offer a $15,000 check to all consumers to consume consumables upon conclusion of the next war, payable in 2029. However, it is but common right that this check be payable immediately, plus 20% compounding interest annually and retroactively between 2029 and 2009, as history demonstrates (through cash for clunkers, TARP, and other stimulati) that economic stimulus be brought forward, for the consumer, the most deserving, should be able to enjoy his/her consumption now rather than later as they have become so accustomed.