Tony
DeLorger ©
2016
What
two things, apart from a healthy economy, does a country need to
maintain to ensure the future prosperity of its people? Education is
the first, ensuring future generations can embrace technology and
change as the world changes. Second is healthcare, ensuring the next
generation is fit and able to cope with an uncertain world, and the
elderly, who have already worked their entire lives, are taken care
of in their twilight years. Yet in many countries, countries with the
supposed highest living standards in the world, these two areas of
responsibility are sadly neglected, as the struggle with economics
and keeping balance sheets in the black force decisions to cut basic
needs.
As
the great divide increases between upper and lower classes, poverty
is becoming a disease within many first world countries, who spend
more on weaponry than education, and whose health systems are failing
catastrophically. The failure of economic policies force leadership
to strip these areas of necessity to bolster their own perceived
successes and the people suffer as a consequence. Surely education
and healthcare are together the most important means by which any
government ensures a positive future for a country. But sadly
politicians are more interested in their own careers rather than the
future of the constituents they represent.
The
so called middle classes are diminishing, either forging ahead in
ascension or becoming poorer than they could have ever imagined. Yes
they may have a nice car in the drive, and a huge mortgage on their
house and pool, but how safe is their superficial lifestyle, if the
economy goes belly up? In this day and age, the possibilities are
far more a threat than they used to be. In a world where war is
commonplace, and refugees by the millions strewn across the globe,
the stresses of economic instability are taking a toll. War costs
money, supporting refugees costs money, and when third world
countries become the hub of manufacturing, traditional industries in
first world countries are lost. Change dictates drastic measures and
many governments in desperation are slowly picking away at essential
services to try to maintain the coffers.
In
Australia, we have slowly been losing our manufacturing industries
for years, lost to cheap labor in our neighboring Asian region, and
as the mining boom begins to fade, we are faced with huge problems,
desperately seeking innovations to fill the holes than manufacturing
leaves in our ability to trade in world markets. So where does the
money come from, to maintain essential services like healthcare and
education, if we are not selling more than we're buying? More taxes?
I
don't want to be the voice of negativism, but to what do we invest
our thinking: war and righteous quests or taking care of our people?
Do we keep paying CEO's and politicians ridiculous amounts of money,
while half the populations can't afford health insurance, and must
wait up to four years to have a necessary operation like a knee
replacement? Inequity in capitalist society is beginning to look a
lot like communism; those at the top living is absolute luxury, the
rest of us bordering on poverty. It's really not much of a stretch if
you think about it.
The
world is continually evolving, and the changes can bring about much
upheaval, but common sense seems to have been lost on many levels.
It's something to think about.
