The corruptions and moral failures of high
government officials (such as Illinois Governor Blagojevich, New York Governor Spitzer, Presidential candidate Senator Edwards of North Carolina,
Alaska Senator Stevens, and many other political leaders, including many,
many officials in New Jersey) make us ask what happened to their oaths of
office to uphold and defend the Constitution of the United States, and what
happened to their moral and ethical standards when almost all American
political leaders are supposed to be Christians? Is it surprising then that
so many of our young people
also do not meet the moral and ethical standards that a good society
is supposed to have?
As stated earlier, these problems are not necessarily
new. There were already signs of similar problems in
earlier years, even 20, 30, or more years ago. For example:
- The Savings & Loan Crisis of the late 1980s and
early 1990s was to a large extent due to introduction of highly speculative
and risky investment schemes and the lack of adequate government regulatory
oversights. We didn't learn from this disaster from 20
years earlier. The record profit of Exxon Mobil in 3Q08 is
nothing new. In each of the previous three years
(2005-2007)
when ordinary citizens were suffering from repeated gasoline price increases,
Exxon Mobil had recorded the highest profit ever by a public
U.S. company.
-
Gasoline shortage first appeared in 1973 and the
emergence of the Middle East oil cartel occurred around the same time. Japanese cars started to gain market share from
American cars in the 1970s and together with German cars had been
consistently rated among the top automobiles from the 1980s. Yet the big three Detroit companies continue to
make big, fuel inefficient cars, such as SUVs and Hummer, and continue to
make cars that on the average have poorer performance and maintenance
records. The decline of the American auto industry has been
occurring for more than 30 years, and yet no drastic actions were taken. We have also witnessed when airlines were going
or almost going bankrupt, yet their unions had refused to grant more
union concessions. Besides being selfish, is that to their benefit
in the long run?
-
We had the Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s. For
over half a century, we had been staunch
supporters of Israel at the expense of ignoring the rights and needs
of the Arab countries.
Is it so surprising that other countries do not
necessarily always respect us at the political table?
-
Public lies were made by President Nixon resulting
in impeachment and subsequent resignation by President Nixon in 1974. Public lies were made by President Clinton with
respect to the Monica Lewinsky sex scandal in the 1990s. Here
are two examples of moral/ethical failures by the highest office holder in
the U.S. Is it surprising then that other government
leaders do not always tell the truths about their personal behavior?
There are at least three other phenomena that have
significant relevance with respect to the decline of American power. The
first is that most of the electronic manufacturing industry
(with the possible exception of PC manufacturing) has been dominated by
companies from Germany, Japan, and more recently Korea. This is most obvious for products such as
cameras, camcorders, televisions, VCR players, CD players, and DVD players. Although the U.S.
may be the most innovative country in the world, it seems that American
companies cannot compete successfully in large scale manufacturing of
consumer and business electronic equipment, as well as many other products. This is not just due to the cost of labor,
because the actual manufacturing plants can be located in other countries,
such as China. It is more due to design, quality control, and
management of the manufacturing process.
The second phenomenon is that the quality of
education in the U.S. is not ranked near the top relative to other developed countries.
The most comprehensive comparative study is
probably the Trends in International Mathematics and Science Study (TIMSS)
that is conducted every four years and started in 1995. Mathematics and science are two subjects that
are more or less universal across countries, whereas other subjects, such as
history, geography, and languages, usually do not have the same centents
across countries. That is why the comparative study is done for
mathematics and science. TIMSS is developed by the International
Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA). Comprised of national research institutions and
government research agencies from around the world, IEA designs TIMSS
assessments for fourth and eight graders. In the U.S., the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), in the
Institute of Education Sciences
at the Department of Education oversees TIMSS assessments.
The most recent TIMSS study was done in 2007 and results have just been
released (see, e.g.,
http://www.aip.org/fyi/2008/121.html and
http://nces.ed.gov/timss/results07.asp). The results showed that in mathematics, the U.S.
is ranked 11 out of 36 for fourth graders and 9 out of 48 for eighth
graders. In science, the U.S. is ranked 8
out of 36 for fourth graders and 11 out of 48 for eighth graders.
In all four cases, the score of the U.S.
is significantly below the top 4-5 rankings.
In absolute terms, such ranking may not be bad, but if we want to
continue to be the richest and most powerful country in the world, we have
to improve significantly and move up closer to the top.
Although the U.S.'s
scores in mathematics rose
between 1995 and 2007, its scores in science have been stagnant between 1995
and 2007.
In another educational
comparison study by
UNICEF published in 2002 (see, e.g.,
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2002/11/26/world/printable530872.shtml),
which was based on five different tests of 14 and 15 year olds to determine
their abilities in reading, math and science.
The results showed that
South Korea
has the most effective education system in the world's richest countries,
with Japan
in second place, and the U.S.
and Germany
near the bottom, at 18 and 19 out of 24 countries.
Commenting on the results, Dewayne Matthews,
vice president of the Denver-based Education Commission of the States, said
that the U.S.
showing in the UNICEF ratings was expected by people who follow
international rankings in education and emphasized the need for reform.
He said “A lot of that has been driven by this
perception that our schools are simply not good enough and they don't
compare well with systems in other countries.”
The study showed that there may be a number of
factors affecting the effectiveness of a country's educational system, but
the rankings do not necessarily depend on the amount of funding provided or
the student-to-teacher ratios.
The third phenomenon is the huge and rapidly
growing national debt (see e.g.,
http://www.brillig.com/debt_clock/), which is now over $10.5 trillions.
Eight months ago in April 2008 when I wrote the
article “Government Spending and
America's
Future” (http://www.dontow.com/AOT10-Government
Spending.html), the national debt was $9.3
trillions.
This means that our national debt has increased
by almost 13% in eight months!
In terms of each
U.S.
person's share, it has increased from $30.6K to almost $34.6K!
If we don't take drastic steps to reduce
significantly this huge national debt, essentially we will be bankrupting
our grandchildren.
Because of the current financial crisis we are
facing, we may have to swallow the bitter pill and increase our national
debt even more in the near term before we can turn it around.
We point out these shortcomings not because we want
to trounce on the U.S.
We understand that there are a lot of positives
about the
U.S.,
and we understand that every country has its shortcomings.
We focus on our shortcomings because we are
concerned that if we let these shortcomings continue in the years to come,
the quality of life for our children and especially for our grandchildren
will suffer greatly.
It is time that we be courageous and scrutinize
carefully what we have been doing and then take drastic corrective actions,
including actions that we weren't willing to take in the past.
The solution is of course extremely complex and
involves many things.
I believe that the solution at a high level must include at
least the following three components.
Mental Fortitude:
-
We must admit that our country is facing serious
problems. The first step in solving a problem is to admit that
there is a problem.
-
To solve these problems, we cannot conduct business as usual. We must be willing to do things which in the
past we were not willing to do.
- Each of us must be willing to contribute and may
have to sacrifice something in order to make the country better and
therefore in the long run also make it better for ourselves. We must emphasize more on “we-ism,” instead of
“me-ism.”
.
- We must set higher moral and ethical standards for
everyone, including ourselves, our children, and our political and corporate
leaders.
High Level Comprehensive
Strategic Plan:
- Our government must formulate a comprehensive, strategic
plan that focuses on the long-term returns, and not always on the short-term
returns.
- We must recognize that the current situation is
drastically different from the situation during the first 200+ years of our
nation. In the first 100+ years, we had vast territories
across the North American continent for our country to expand and vast
natural resources for our people to utilize. In the second 100+ years, our
country's natural
geographical isolation helped to provide barriers to keep other countries
from attacking us and our stronger economy helped us to dominate the weaker
countries in the world.
In the 21st century of global connectedness and global economy and the rise of more
economic powers, we must find a way to compete successfully with many
more worthy
competitors. Furthermore, when the world is so connected,
terrorists can now easily create havoc across national boundaries.
We must stress the importance of a balanced budget
and the need to reduce our national debt. If we keep living beyond our
means, our children and grandchildren will pay for it.