Lost Decade of the United States

Anyone who eschews instant gratification and believes in acting on long-term benefits is not surprised by the lost decade in the United States. The problems that we are facing today are of our own making and were in the making for years, if not decades. Our government consisting of the current non-visionary generation of politico and our inept people electing these incompetent leaders are to blame. We can only hope that this credit crisis of 2008 and near-depression economic experience is going to serve as an inflection point to change the course for American leadership and American people.

Gloom and doom pandits like to talk up the dire scenario of the U.S. dollar becoming worthless and America going bankrupt. Even, optimists are not that sanguine about the prospects of the United States. However, it is not too late for America to correct the course and get on the solid financial footing. What we need is a resolve to do that and that resolve can come only from people and their government servants. Unless, we the people do not show that desire, our leaders will continue to squander the national wealth and we may get to the point of no return where it is too late to change anything.

Smaller and more efficient government, budget surpluses (not deficits), investing in future and not present, tackling long-term issues of Medicare and Social Security honestly and ferociously to relieve people of major uncertainties and fatal monetary accident, making America the best choice of investing in the world for the corporate citizens are the key elements to this new course to make America once again the great nation that it was. Major stock market indices are trading at reasonable to cheap levels, though not super-cheap as it has been few times in the last century, so they give us a decent chance of earning high single digit to low double digit returns for the next decade. However, that has to be earned and it not going to be automatic.