I am going to stop thinking and reading for Lent. Ted’s Head is about to explode. Right,Left,Center,Gurus. What is a guy to think? Everyone has an opinion,comment, or diatribe for this one or that. Emotion leads to anger or frustration and sanity was about a month ago. What happened?

To start, this has all been a long time coming. In some cases, life and ethos have changed without anyone noticing. We have gotten comfortable with the status quo in all walks of life. Government, business, religions, military, and families have been roiling for some time and very few have noticed. Those that have are labeled radical on both sides of the spectrum.

Look around at all our lives. The populace has gone from the city to the burbs and back again. Not having a bunch of kids or even getting married has implications we have either avoided or never even dreamed of. We travel in the blink of an eye to far away places. We are going from four on the floor to self driving. Some crave for the good old days and some can’t wait to blow them up. The times they are a changing. 

Time and outcomes are measured by eras. Those delineations can be wars, economic decline or improvement, fashion, morality or administrations. We have had the Big Depression and the Financial Crisis of 2009. Rock and Roll, Heavy Metal, New Age and Rap all have their day. We have had Roosevelt, Reagan and now Trump to hitch our wagon to. There have been huge successes and incredible flops. Let’s not panic. 

Social media and the Fourth Estate whip us up in a frenzy. That’s how they make money but it is also what we want. People love to rubberneck at accidents as long it is not them. We want tragedies to be explained immediately as if it is really going to affect us personally. Plane crashes, shootings, overdoses, celebrity divorces, fires and war keep us rapt. We say a prayer of sorts and thank the Lord it is not us. 

So where are we now? Fairly chaotic, in my view. On the world stage, there are actors, both good and bad. China and Russia are becoming more irrelevant.They are evil empires, but there are cracks beginning to show. Russia could not defeat a rag-tag army in Ukraine. China has economic problems that are about to bring its lofty ambitions to a screeching halt. Europe can’t figure out how to respond, and the kingpin economy of Germany is going in reverse. This isn’t clever thinking on my part but rather a compilation of reading some savvy people and trying to glean a theme.

The thread that keeps popping up is how we feel about each other. On a global scale, the US has been the policeman since WW2.

Partially morally driven with several shots of opportunism thrown in. Eisenhower warned of the military industrial complex ahead but the road was paved in gold for contractors and military who wanted to demonstrate their bravado.  Our peace dividend has made a lot of people wealthy….and in many ways, us poor. 

We are talking about pulling back and downsizing. This is where it gets interesting. A good portion of the world has had a relatively free ride. We have made a case for arming against the unthinkable and showing empathy for the unfortunate. To not continue would be disastrous, they say. Who is going to fill the void? Is it time to find out? Dunno.

This is a philosophical as well as moral dilemma. Our course for the moment we are doing a one-eighty. Let’s call it survival of the fittest or, even better, let the cards fall where they may. Everything is transactional, and the big blue marble is a giant chessboard. We are not being taken for a sucker anymore. We hope you make it but no more lifelines. We are all business. 

I am torn. We have a giant mountain of debt. Part of it from largesse and part of it from profligacy. We spend more on defense than the next three or four combined. As a country, we have well-off states and some that are disasters. Is it weather and bad luck that need to be rehabbed for the Arkansas’ and West Virginia’s of our world, or do we say to our own, tough shit? Do we try to solve the inequities, or do we say that is just the way things go? 

I believe the seas are changing. More and more, we look out for ourselves. As a nation and, more often than not, as citizens. We are a capitalistic society. That has brought tremendous advances in technology, medicine, and the commonweal. It has also created a lot of wealth, and with that, my most hated trait of arrogance. Is this new generation going to stop giving or even worse caring? They will be tagged not so much by age as attitude. I am just not sure. 

If I care only about me, I can always move to higher ground when there is a flood. If there is plastic in the water, I can filter it out. Global warming? I don’t give a crap. I will be out of here before it really affects us. I want my car or truck, and I want my freedom to go where I want and say what I want. End of story. 

But when I get sick from all my wanton ways you better have someone there to fix me. If I am stranded by my stupidity,please send help. Then I really want you to care about me. Sounds fair, doesn’t it? There really is no rhyme or reason. 

As always 

Ted The Great 

Factoids:

Radio and print publications are hurting. Only about 25% of the populace uses them. On the heartening side, 87% of our fellow Americans do seek out the news on a daily basis. There are about 3,000 news outlets nationwide. Less than 50% of the US trusts the news. 

The Cost of War:

World War II 

• The cost of World War II was $4.1 trillion in FY2011 dollars, or 35.8% of GDP at its peak. When adjusted to 2024 dollars, the U.S. spent $5.74 trillion on World War II.

The Korean War 

• The U.S. spent $476.69 billion on the Korean War.

The Vietnam War 

• The U.S. spent $555 billion on the Vietnam War (1964–1972).

The Gulf War 

• The U.S. spent $372 billion on the First Gulf War (1991).

The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq

• The U.S. spent over $2.3 trillion on the war in Afghanistan from FY2001-FY2022. 
  
• The U.S. spent $2.9 trillion on the wars in Iraq and Syria from FY2003-FY2023. 
  
• The U.S. has spent $8 trillion on the post-9/11 wars. 
  

Other costs

The costs of war include direct war appropriations, veterans care and disability, homeland security, interest payments, foreign assistance, and environmental damage.