The pickle we’re in

Eric Roston at WorldChanging writes a short rhythm, a rant, a message.

Americans’ requirement for health care, education, labor, and pensions is thought of, at least by inference, as a hand-out, something the state shrugs its shoulders and begrudgingly offers to balance the scales. They are anything but.

These policy areas make up the four corners of human capital investment.

health care
education
labor
pensions

In the 21st century, democracies that understand this and invest in their populations will thrive. Other nations will atrophy.

This observation applies most vividly in education. Every nation that can afford it (or that funds it) builds schools so that the youngest generation can acquire the knowledge and skills that allow civilization to perpetuate itself. I think this is incontrovertibly true; what’s sad is that the state of our schools is such that the previous sentence is a howling absurdity.