They simply don't care - so long as they get theirs - who gets the bill or whether it can be paid.

Who's right folks? Well guess what - if you think you have a "right" to Social Security, a "right" to Medicare, or any similar "right" that extends beyond your present value to pay for whatever good or service you wish to purchase then you are claiming a right to screw your children and grandchildren in order to cover the bill.

It is my contention that those people who believe this are either ignorant of the impact on their kids and grandkids (in which case education and their repudiation of their position is the answer) or they simply don't give a damn, in which case they are spawn of the Devil and I pray that my belief in the Divine, which I will finally have proof of when I pass, turns out to be true.

One is obligated to look at incentives when looking at why things happen.

It is really quite simple:

• We provide incentives for people to poop out babies they cannot afford (more food stamps than you get as a single person, and welfare.) We thus get lots of pooped out babies that the parents cannot afford, and create incentives for women to sleep with men who can't or won't help support a family.
• We craft Ponzi schemes in social programs (Social Security and Medicare) which then gives cover to dozens of additional Ponzi Schemes, with the latest one (housing) consuming our economy. We thus get an education system that intentionally refuses to teach our children that we as parents are literally raping our childrens' futures, and that in turn turns them into PREY for the bankers and hucksters who then destroy their personal balance sheets and financial lives so they can turn a "profit."
• We start on the first day of Kindergarten indoctrinating our children that "from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs" is appropriate, beginning with a five year old's pencils and paper. We then find ourselves continuing this by claiming that every student in a class of more than 100 is "outstanding" at the same time for the same thing, a mathematically impossible feat, destroying the incentive of students to truly excel. We learned exactly nothing from the socialism experiment at Plymouth Colony, which resulted in the death of more than half of the colonists - a downward slide that was only reversed when The Mayflower Compact was torn up and private property rights, along with recognition for hard work and success, was instituted in its place. Oh, and we don't teach that inconvenient little fact in our so-called "history class" with regards to the Thanksgiving Holiday; if we did some of the students might discover that we're a bunch of flaming hypocrites and flip us the bird instead of "respecting" us. (As an aside, lying is worthy of respect, isn't it?)
• We are "happy" as parents when our schools get "good" test scores on things like the FCAT, even though the schools are achieving this by intentionally ignoring part of the state curriculum standards so they can "teach to the test." See, not everything in the curriculum standards is on the test, so the parts that aren't simply get ignored. Instead of demanding Principals and Curriculum Directors be fired and replaced for this, we cheer the "great" performance of our schools. Bluntly, we cheer cheating by our school administrations. (As an aside, can you really punish your kid for doing it if he or she does when the school board and administration are doing the same thing?)
• We not only countenance federal, state and local budgets predicated on unsustainable Ponzi Schemes (e.g. the housing bubble and school budgets on up the line) but we reward those people with re-election and reappointment to their positions. We then whine - after we've allowed these asshats to spend $9,000 on "smart boards" for classrooms, when a $50 white board works just fine - that our schools "don't have enough money."
• We allow people like Henry Paulson and Bernanke to pontificate on how "subprime will not spread", "the economy is fundamentally strong" and dozens of additional and similar lies, when these are people with advanced educations and actual knowledge of their falsehoods, who are speaking for the explicit purpose of "inciting confidence" - that is conning us. We then act on this and find our economic futures decimated; ask those who lived through this crap in the 1930s! Oh wait - you can't - they're all dead. Gee, I wonder why they're getting away with it this time when we no longer teach actual history in the damn schools!

We deserve what is coming folks, and the first place to direct your ire is at your County School Board.

You live in a district, you pay taxes, directly or indirectly, to support those clowns. Whether you have children or not the kids in school now are the wage-earners of the future and you had damn well better care about the quality (or lack thereof) of the education that is being doled out in them.

GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND DEMAND THAT THE CURRICULUM REFLECT REALITY, THREATENING TO FIND WAYS TO CUT OFF ALL THEIR MONEY IF THEY DON'T!

Specifically:

• No more "socialism" in the classroom. You bring pencils and paper to class, they are yours. From the first day of Kindergarten. This does not prevent someone who "has less" asking for a pencil, but it does prohibit confiscating your pencils, whether directly or via coercion ("c'mon Johnny, you have plenty of pencils.... can't Steve have one of yours?")
• The first time Thanksgiving is taught and from then onward, Bradford's diary and the truth about the colonists and The Mayflower Compact needs to be discussed. Fact: Socialism has never worked in the history of the world for any substantial period of time in other than small, insular, single-socio-ethnic groups. Presenting it as a "competing socio-economic theory" is not only ok but should occur, however, failing to note that every attempt at living under it for larger societies has failed is not acceptable. Period.
• Mathematics must include discussions of compound interest and compound earnings. When kids learn how to do percentages, they must be taught about compound interest and compound earnings. By fifth grade any kid should be able to take $100 and tell me what the total interest due is on that for 10 years at 10%, and how much money they will have if they start with that $100 and earn 10% a year, compounded.
• "Home EC", "Life Skills" or whatever you want to call it must spend at least as much time on financial education as sex education. You're just as screwed if you make a mistake financially as if you do sexually. To pass that class you should understand the basics of what a stock and bond are and how they're priced and traded, what a mortgage is, what depreciation is, how to compute the total imputed cost of owning .vs. renting a home and where and when fiduciary responsibilities apply and when they do not - and why you care. The fact that The Fed follows the market on rates; it does not set rates, must be discussed and understood, along with the overall monetary environment, including the difference between monetary and price inflation. The economic cycle, including Kondratieff Cycles (long cycles) and shorter-term cycles (18 years on average for housing and 7 for general business) must be understood. This cannot be an elective - it must be a required course. If you don't arm kids against the thugs on both Wall Street AND Main Street they WILL get screwed; Greenspan's example of urging people to take ARM mortgages at the bottom of the interest rate cycle in 2002/03 is just one example!

As for "we adults", here's reality folks:

• This is a recession. We just saw a huge jump in the unemployment rate today. Those "goldilocks" crooners are wrong, and if you listen to them whatever is left of your portfolio will be destroyed. Get to safe harbor with your investments NOW.
• Congress, The Fed and The Administration have all encouraged "holding" losses instead of selling bad positions and recognizing them. This is a gambit that will not pay; it is predicated on housing bottoming in 2009. THEY ARE WRONG - housing will not bottom in 2009. The best time to take those losses and sell those assets was in August of 07, and the longer banks and others wait, the worse it will get. We may have already passed the point where a depression is inevitable, but if we keep sitting on our butts while Congress, The Fed and The White House fiddle, allowing banks, pension funds and others to hide losses, we will get one with certainty.
• If you are going to have to sell your home in the next five years consider doing it right now and renting. You are at severe risk if this economic dislocation is mishandled by Washington DC, and there is absolutely no evidence that they understand what is going on or are willing to face reality.
• It is absolutely essential that as taxpayers you do not allow government largesse nor can you give a pass to the incompetence of state and local government officials who drew budgets and spending plans based on the housing bubble continuing. These people must be forced from office NOW. California is facing the possibility of bankruptcy as a state as soon as August of this year! Florida and other states will follow unless immediate austerity measures are taken. This is not optional.
• The states, municipalities and the Federal Government must get the illegal aliens - all of them - out of our nation immediately. These individuals are a huge net cost in social service, education and judicial resources and we do not have the money to spare. Worse, we need the jobs for Americans. This is not limited to California and Florida - Colorado and Illinois, for example, both have huge illegal immigrant populations. The arguments over "humanity" simply are no longer applicable - this is about economic survival, not whether we want to "be nice".

Time for the tough choices folks.

Either make them or they will be made for you.