What Is To Become Of America's Youth?

In the 1960's and 70's when I was young, America offered magnificent opportunities to gain a higher education and a growing job market with many high quality, good paying jobs. I didn't have much money but Community and State Colleges were readily affordable thanks to the generosity of America's vast Middle Class taxpayers and I like millions of other young people took advantage of it to build a better future for myself, for my family and for my nation.

Later as a taxpayer and as an employer providing jobs and health care coverage to my firm's employees, and services to our customers, I gratefully paid those educational opportunties back and much more, while also providing educational opportunities to a new generation with my taxes. But today that system is breaking down.

Young people, whether high school dropouts or college graduates are finding jobs in short supply, especially jobs that pay well. Many of these young people are moving back in with their families because they can't afford to keep a roof over their heads, while many of the college educated are also struggling to pay their student loans.

This has terrible implications for America's future. If America's young don't good jobs that pay well and provide promotional opportunities, they don't buy homes, cars and appliances as they cut back on their spending and cut back on doctor and pharmacy visits they also can't afford. As a result, the U.S. economy creates fewer jobs and in what becomes a vicious circle spirals downward.

As a nation, we owe them and ourselves far better than this. Instead of wasting our money on the military industrial complex and its wars, we must reestablish our manufacturing base. We can do this if each person buys more U.S. made goods and pressures retailers and the U.S. government to encourage U.S. production. Many of those jobs will pay well, offer promotions and pay taxes, which in turn will offer the kind of upward mobility that was the American Dream. I also ask foreign readers for their support of U.S. production for if we don't get our financial house in order, we won't be able to afford your goods and services, nor afford to pay back the money we have borrowed from you.

Dick