I came across the following article while reviewing postings on the Peter G. Peterson Foundation website (pgpf.org) Pete Peterson and David Walker, the foundation’s President and CEO, run this foundation that has the following mission:
We are dedicated to increasing public awareness of the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America's future, and to accelerating action on them. To address these challenges successfully, we will work to bring Americans together to find sensible, long-term solutions that transcend age, party lines and ideological divides in order to achieve real results.
Sounds pretty good to me!
This quote has been attributed to several different folks in the 19th Century, but it says it all.
The average age of the world's greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years. During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependency back into bondage
In my estimation, the shift from abundance to complacency took place about 25 +/- years ago. Since then we have, as a nation, been guilty of apathy. If we look at the average age of the world’s greatest civilizations (approx 200 years) and we look at the fact they go through these 7 phases, would it make sense that each phase is probably 25-30 years? Following that logic it appears obvious it’s time for us to become dependent . . . or wait, maybe we are already there.
