Bakersfield.com

      On October 12th I was with friends in Ludhiana, India when a story in the Ludhiana Tribune caught my eye. Doris Lessing an 87 year old British writer returned from shopping to be told that she had won the Nobel Peace Prize in Literature by photographers.

     In 1925 Lessing ended her formal education at 14 when her family moved to Southern Rhodesia (currently Zimbabwe). Her statement of fallen empires is what drew my attention. She stated, when you look back at my life, you can go back to the late 1930's. What I saw first of all, Hitler, he was going to live forever. Mussolini was in for 10,000 year. You had the Soviet Union, which was by definition, going to last forever. There was the British Empire - nobody imagined it could come to an end. So why should anyone believe in any kind of permanence?

     Our Nation is the greatest on the planet. However, we act as though we will remain number 1 by maintaining the "status quo" of spend and borrow. My contention is that we will not. China has 1.4 trillion of our dollars. They have alerted us that they may convert their US dollars into Euros, which are stronger in the world market.. More bang for the buck.

     We currently print money as a band aid to disguise our economic woes. Our dollar is worth less every time I travel to India, as it is around the world. We act as if there is no tomorrow as we blindly spend our devalued dollars. We have become a nation that imports most things we need, as well as things we don't need. Our exports are almost limited to the free wheat  we ship to those that despise us. Our affluent lifestyles and the trappings thereof have put us where we are currently, as we softly sing the "I'm ok, you're ok" lullaby to ourselves.

     The Wall Street Journal 10/16/07 stated "IMF Chief says dollar has room to fall." October 22, in an interview George Soros was asked, is there any reason to believe that the dollar is going to get stronger any time soon? His answer was a resounding no. The housing bubble that partially sustained our economy for years has now burst. As our interest rates are lowered, our money is worth less on the world market. Our dollars are hollow, the gold is gone. The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times later in October stated that the dollar has further to fall and issued a warning of an abrupt dollar fall.

     It doesn't end there, oil prices and the Stock Market have only begun to climb and fall respectively. We need to reconsider our National economic situation. We have become dependent on others for many needs. We are no longer self-sufficient. We need to ask ourselves if we have longtime permanence. You don't have to win a Nobel Peace Prize to remember great empires that fell, or to recognize you owe much to many individually and as a nation. We do however at times have to be reminded to be sober as we consider our place in the world.

     We have become a slave to the lender and notices of the debt will soon follow.