Robert Reich
I don't think the world will end tomorrow, regardless of what the Mayans predicted. Nor do I think it will end if we go over the "fiscal cliff," despite the dour predictions of some economists. Nor will we face the end if we fail to act on the budget deficit anytime soon (in fact, I'd prefer we didn't as long as unemployment is high). But I do worry about big problems that are growing so slowly they don't dramatize themselves at any particular point in time -- climate change, widening inequality, the impoverishment of the nation's children, the decline of the middle class, the eclipse of our democracy by big money, the uncontrolled global market for nuclear fissile material. It looks as though Washington is ready to do something about guns because the slaughter of 20 school children compels action. It's the slower-moving tragedies that may do us in, Mayan calendar notwithstanding.
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