Check out my new article, Downsizing and Reset.  My wife and I decided to transition our lives from a large single family home to a townhouse with two apartments in between. 

TPM

During our downsizing move my wife and I have been eating dinner out every night, since our apartment kitchen is not yet functional due to all the boxes sitting in middle of the kitchen floor.  Tonight we ate at a local Italian restaurant.  We were greeted by our waitress, Natalia.  I looked at Natalia and thought I was looking at a shorter version of Maria Sharapova.  It turns out Natalia is from Russia and has been working in the US for about two years. She is about to head home for a visit.  Natalia's English skills were excellent.  She is also appears to be a very good waitress.

During the past ten years, my wife and I have met many young people, in their early to mid twenties, from Eastern Europe that are working in low level service industry jobs in many US cities.  In almost every case they spoke excellent English and appeared to do their jobs well.  These kids came to the US to work hard for what US citizens would consider to be low wages. 

US government statisticians keep telling us that we have a very high unemployment rate of over 9 percent and a much higher unemployment rate for young people.  How do the Natalias of the world come to the US and get jobs, save some money for a periodic trip home and appear happy in their work when our citizens of the same age can't get jobs?  I don't think our US young people are willing to work hard for low pay, if they can live off handouts from the government.

I don't have any problem with Natalia and the other hard working young Eastern Europeans that are in the US getting the job done in their attempt to develop a better life for themselves.  My problem is with the hand-wringing US politicians that desire to develop a new program every day for people that clearly aren't willing to work hard enough to become employed in entry level positions and do a good job.  My view is that we should shut the government programs down and make the unemployed young people take these low level jobs to survive.  We need to remove part of the entitlement safety net so the desire to work becomes more aligned with survival.

I admire the young East Europeans.  They remind me of young Americans of an earlier era.  We need more young Americans developing a stronger hunger for survival and success.  No government program can compete with human internally generated hunger for achievement.

TPM

US economic growth appears to be slowing despite the deficit spending by the Federal Government and Quantitative Easing by the Federal Reserve.  Economists are now talking about the US going back into recession by the end of 2011.  Many are warning that a reduction in US government spending will cause a double dip recession because it will reduce final demand in the economy.

Our nation is not different from a household or company that spends far more than its income and borrows far more than it can afford.  The spending party and enhanced lifestyle created by overspending eventually stops when the money runs out and borrowing limits are finally reached.  Out of control defense spending, unfunded entitlement programs and continued increases in the size of government programs without matching tax revenue, have all contributed to the problem.  Now that the spending and debt party is reaching the end our nation must collectively operate at a lower standard of living while we rebuild our national balance sheet and adjust our spending to the level of our income.

It is painful to make the big life style changes that must occur.  However, there is no way around the problem.  The politicians have no answers to making the situation better because there are no answers other than to reduce the collective standard of living by restructuring our government and its programs.  We must collectively live within our means.  

It is time for our national leaders to tell the citizens the whole truth and get on with the restructuring process.  During the years that it takes to rebuild our nation's balance sheet many people will feel a lot of pain.   It is an unfortunate but necessary part of the process.   Our collective standard of living will not improve until a reasonable balance between income and spending is achieved and our national balance sheet is stabilized.

Our politicians must stop attempting to avoid the pain of the US government restructuring process.  We need to get the job done and move forward to a more prosperous future.

TPM