Rick Lowe
The following two articles should make us all sit up and take notice.
First, Dr. Burt Folsom points to the reasons why Detroit, Michigan in the USA has gone backwards over the decades in this post...
He notes:
"The lesson for the U.S. today is clear. If we overtax and overregulate, we create an unstable climate to invest, which cuts the chances people have to make money. Thus, people with money leave and invest elsewhere. All of this decline plays out over several decades. Therefore the U.S. can increase taxes, debt, and regulations and be like Detroit–and like New York, Boston, and San Francisco from 1950 to 1980–or the U.S. can cut its corporate tax (which is currently the second highest in the industrialized world) and its high income tax and, above all, cut its reckless spending and be more like New York, Boston, and San Francisco after 1980, when they capped taxes and encouraged investment. The choice is ours. Our future will depend on our decisions."
Second, a friend sent an oped by Victor Davis Hanson, a classicist and an expert on the history of war, entitled The Hundred Years' German War about the resentment of Germany's usccess by some European countries while they fail.
He points out that;
"Behind all the EU's 11th-hour gobbledygook, Germany's new European order is clear: If you wish to live like a German, then you must work and save like a German. Take it or leave it."
Hope you can take the time to read both pieces. They are very instructive.