Indian girls become rarer
Indian families greatly prefer sons to daughters, and now that they can determine the sex of the foetus at a very early age, females are frequently aborted simply because they are female rather than male. This strikes me as reprehensible and inappropriate, and also likely to lead to serious problems down the line. As anyone who has read William H. McNeill’s fascinating book The Pursuitof Power: Technology, Armed Force, and Society Since A.D. 1000 knows, a society is in for a bad patch when the number of underemployed young males rises. And when the burgeoning population of males cannot find females, things can get very ugly indeed. Britain solved the problem by shipping young men off to the various colonies. France under Napoleon solved it by shipping the young men (as armies) off to foreign countries to find their support there: seizing it through warfare. What will India do?
Add to this that most unemployed Americans are not under-educated or untrained for jobs. It’s just that there are no jobs, period! The longer they stay unemployed, the less employable they are once jobs return (if ever). Nine percent or more unemployment (isn’t the real figure more like 17%?) cannot be the “new normal.”
zaine_ridling
12 June 2011 at 2:47 am
Yes, I agree: our political leaders mostly do not seem to grasp how unsettled a country can become with millions out of work. Certainly the GOP is fighting all attempts to address unemployment—in part because they don’t seem to care for the poor, and in part because history teaches that a president who runs for re-election when the economy is poor will be defeated, and the GOP seems perfectly willing to do great damage to the country if it will also mean Obama’s defeat.
LeisureGuy
12 June 2011 at 6:37 am
I believe the repubs are purposefully tanking the economy, but you have to figure 50% of voters knew this four year stretch would be bad. No one in the media has yet to ask Boehner: “Where are the jobs!” despite saying this Congress would be focused on jobs from the start. The fact that a minority in Congress — especially the Senate (often one senator!) — can completely frustrate every policy proposal, every staffing decision from judges to cabinet members, and even budget and finance items (e.g., debt ceiling), perhaps it’s time we Americans recognize the political system is our enemy and it needs restructuring and revision. If what we’ve seen in the last decade is the new normal, this ain’t working. Until Wall Street, the banking industry, and corporations are not allowed to throw money to gain votes, we’ll be having this same conversation ten years from now, maybe twenty.
zaine_ridling
12 June 2011 at 10:50 pm