This is the twenty first century and things are moving faster than ever, and accelerating. Rises and declines that used to take centuries will now come and go in a few decades and conclude ever faster. Those who think that there is still time, those who think its mostly their children’s problem are fooling themselves.

Anyone question the trajectory is irreversible?

When you are a voter of the most prosperous nation in the world, “not-so-bad” choices are not good enough. You need to make the best choices to stay on top.

The needy and under-priviledged may eventually get their redistribution ( and their numbers will greatly increase since insulating them from the consequences of mediocrity, even if temporarily so, will make lifetime choices of mediocrity more palatable in the first place and trigger a new cycle of redistribution and disincentivisation at both the high and low end of the productivity scale) but the ensuing lower growth rates will relentlessly compound until the socially supported under-privileged of the welfare state are worse off than the poor of countries that have chosen to leave incentives to produce more untouched. These countries will be few, but they WILL eventually come forward. Cultural natural selection will continue. Too bad the current lions of the world seem to have chosen an irreversible path to extinction. It won’t be the first time that a once sucessful culture steps on the banana peel of trying to force people to work for distant others – and declines.