NOT MY FATHERS GENERATION ANYMORE

Newport News, Virginia is home of the largest US Navy shipyard in the world. That is were I grew up. My father was a designer of ships, who found gainful and secure employment during the entirety of the cold war. The Fasano family lived for over twenty years in a neighborhood called Ivy Farms. It was a preplanned ‘hood for working class people who wanted a three bedroom home on a budget and expected to raise their children and live there for at least two decades.

Religion and Economics were real to my parents. They grew up during the Great Depression. Times were hard, but our family always had a roof over their heads and food on the table. My father believed that anything beyond that was a gift. They struggled, but they learned character. The Great Depression made a huge impact on the consciousness of them and their peers.

The “Greatest Generation” forged values that are rarely emphasized today and at a detriment to our society, I believe. For example, Mom and Dad were never in debt, they lived within their means and never put their children’s welfare and security at risk. I can say with confidence that everyone in my neighborhood in Newport News was living within his or her means. I never saw a perfectly good home knocked down to build an ostentatious mini-mansion for the purpose of a showy display of wealth. The Bible says materialism will build enmity with God. People used to believe such things as that.

ARM mortgages were non-existent. New cars were rare. People were genuinely happy and the holidays were a special time of year.

Things are not that way anymore, and it is the infestation of nihilism that is responsible.  Do you think this country is better since religion has been removed from schools and most media, that moral relativism has become mainstream, that the natural place of the family has been minimized? 

The seven deadly sins have consequences.  Greed being the most prominent.  Greed is a killer, and it's evil is found only in the hearts of men.  Mortgages became like drugs, and the pusher of $300,000 loans for $69 a month made more money than any Colombian cartel.  It had to come to an end.  It did come to an end.  You cannot escape with impunity.  I remember a time when that siren song would have been ignored.

I entered high school in 1969 at the time of the Vietnam war, then Watergate.  Our country got thru it.  We moved on and excelled.  We elected Ronald as President because he explained that Government, not people were the problem.  I still believed that a good job, a home, a car, and a nice vacation was well within my reach.  I was an American, and it was my Constitutional right.

The only thing people used credit for was a house and a car payment.  My parents had a Master Card for over forty years and never carried a balance.  They made the payment every month. The Government seemed to do the same thing.  There was the recession in 1974-75 which led to Stagflation, but it soon passed and the heady days of the 1980's were upon us and everybody made money.  I did very well during that time.

Now, for the first time in American history you would have done better by putting your money in a Banks passbook savings account, then the Stock Market.  The mattress is not far behind.

The interest on the National debt is now over $500 billion and growing.  The nation is in trouble. It was when Reagan took over and one of the first things he did was hire Paul Volcker to run the federal reserve.  President Obama has hired him as well.  You can't go wrong with him.  He will maintain a stable money supply, and market forces will eventually get us out of this.

The liabilities we face are enormous when you factor in the Baby boomers and Social Security.  Are they going to take a cut?  Not likely. They will though, if we are to survive.

One thing I know for a fact is that when America was attracted on December 7th, 1941, something happened to this nation.  Prior to Pearl Harbor, Europeans thought we were a nation of pansies, who had no real spine.  After all, we claimed Hitler was their problem, and Japan was separated from us by a great ocean, and they were no threat to us.  We were wrong.  Once prodded this country moved toward GREATNESS.  A greatness never seen before on Earth.  The American people made real sacrifices(not just flying a flag on their car, or "we stand united" bumper stickers, seen after 9-11-2001) and we overcame toxic enemies to essentially save the world. 

That is what we will do this time.

We will perserver or enter the 1,000 years of darkness that Regan warned us about.

The stakes have never been higher.