The New World That's Coming. . .

While we get ready to enjoy our weekends, it is all too easy to forget the concerns of the wider world. Most Americans, on some level, probably wish the rest of the world would just go away -- and with good reason. Life here is pretty sweet. Unfortunately, for us and our children, we may not be interested in the world, but the world is very interested in us -- like it or not, the US is stuck up to its eyes in absolutely everything. Here is a sampling of today’s headlines at the webpage/aggregator “Real Clear World.” Today's headlines are not atypical.

Many of us have been privileged to spend our lives growing up, living, working and raising our families in the greatest, richest, most powerful country ever to exist in the history of the world. Even America’s poor of today are rich beyond the wildest imaginings of nine-tenths of the humans who have ever lived. Americans have always worked hard, but to a great, often underestimated degree, we owe our national prosperity to a unique set of favorable conditions, chiefly the undisputed military and economic control by a more or less unified population of a whole continent’s worth of resources and space; as well as the outcome of both the world wars, in which the Europeans succeeded in exhausting themselves and handing the US financial and military control of the west. For the past 100 odd years, the world has been our oyster.

Now, those underlying conditions are shifting. America’s power is in relative decline, while that of others rises. Shifts in the relative power positions of nations and groups of people, historically speaking, are seldom peaceful.

There’s a lots for us to think on, and big new world coming, that we need to try to get our children ready for. It can still be good, for America, but we need to get our house in order, and so far, we're not even in the game. Well, we are --because you can't get out of the game, which goes on forever -- but we're not really playing). The people who govern us -- from both parties, are living in a fool's paradise, squandering our children's splendid birthright for a mess of pottage. Enjoy your weekends, but remember that the future’s out there being written. It doesn’t care whether we like it or not.

The End of the West as we Know It.
Natural for Russia to Flex Her Muscles.
UK Must Reject Anti-American Lib Dems
Iran Risks Multi Front War.
Venezuela is Crumbling.
America is Not Greece.
Hezbollah Remains Armed & Dangerous.
BRIC Nations Won’t Conquer the World.
Syria Asks Russia to Pressure Israel.

While we’re at it, here are some headlines from today’s Real Clear Markets:

Second Debt Storm: Who Bails Out Nations?
American Solvency Hinges on Low Interest Rates.
Look Out, Asia is Emerging Stronger.
Take One Guess What Greece Has to Jettison for a Bailout?