What’s Wrong With Us?

Earlier today, the US senate approved the motion to raise the debt ceiling, allowing the US government to borrow $2.4 trillion more. I sit here in disbelief as I try to puzzle all the pieces together. Yesterday, Philip De Franco mentioned on his show that this “roof-raising” will help the US out until next year. This will probably add to the unwanted over $14 trillion dollar debt that the US currently faces. The one question that I would like to see answered is whether or not this could have been avoided. I don’t quite have the answer to that, though many peoples’ opinions lead me to think that there is an alternative of some sort.

I’ve recently been reading the George R.R. Martin series, “A Song of Ice and Fire,” and a friend of mine told me that it was hailed as the contemporary “Lord of the Rings” and it occurred to me that this might be the case. (Spoiler Alert for  those who have not read the first book in the series!)

The series takes place in Martin’s own fantasy world, and the first novel, A Game of Thrones, features events taking place in the center of power, King’s Landing, under the rule of King Robert Baratheon. Robert was a frivolous ruler, and his kingdom was in an unbelievable amount of debt, but this was explained away by the council of the king as “we find the money and the king finds a way to spend it.” Roughly, this is the attitude that we see in America now. As stated by Vladimir Putin, the US generally spends more money than it can make, and this frivolity is creating serious crises which, as fabricated as they are, seem to be looming over the heads of economists and financial researchers and planners as, to put it lightly, really bad for business.

Of course, what ends up happening in Martin’s series is a lot of regicide and pseudo-regicide, and literally, a game of thrones. The thing that really stands out is, while the goings-on are completely different, a lot of what happens in the works are relatively close to each other. The power-balance in the world economies is shifting, people are taking the title of “most prosperous” or “king” for themselves, and the little people are being thrown into serious chaos. Even those that want nothing to do with all the politics are being pushed into the drama.

Something to think about: what’s left when even those that didn’t care all that much about money and power are being drawn into political wars over little things that shouldn’t matter?

PS. I recently discovered that I have a tumblr if you wish to check it out.