A friend whose marriage is dissolving cried to me on the phone "I should have finished this house instead of enjoying life. Now the shack is worthless and my family is gone."

Over the past 20 years of marriage this couple had inherited an old house.  Instead of tearing it down and building anew they had "bits and pieced" it to death and mortgaged it over and over to finance a consumer based life style complete with instant gratification for adults and children alike.  In the end all they have is a huge debt, no happiness, a yard full of "China Junk" and an ugly old shack.

Let's not roll our eyes until we 35 - 65 types take a look at the country we inherited and what we've done with it.

Fifty years ago, as most of us were clearing the orifice, America boasted one of the finest infrastructures in the world.  Our rail system was second to none - NOW it's a wreck.  Our ports and merchant marine were world class - NOW they are foreign owned or operated.  Our super highway system was well on its way, better than any other - NOW 44,000 bridges are near collapse and the system is a horror.  Our aviation system was the world leader - NOW the traffic control system uses 30 year old head sets, outmoded computers and our aged fleet of air craft is seen worldwide as dangerous.  Our health care system in 1960 actually was quit universal and was the best of its era - NOW in order to keep it afloat we can only care for 76% of the population, while costs are pushing through the roof.

In short under our watch America has become an old shake, while our glutinous ways have bred a generation of "take freaks," like the TV commercial jingle: "I want what I want and I want it all - I want it all...."

We have done almost everything a generation could do to destroy the society that was given to us.  We think a greatness is owning a 5000 sq. ft. home at thirty-eight, or having Esplanades in the drive for every family member, or sporting a wardrobe of designer everything's, or sending baby to an expensive prestigious preschool that guarantees  Harvard at age eighteen.

Is there any difference between my friends' superficial life style allowing their world to fall apart for junk and what we have all done to this land called home? As a final monument to our greed and gluttony we've allowed a mob of maniacs to set the world on fire to get us cheap oil with war money borrowed from China who now holds a mortgage of a trillion dollars over our heads.  All the money we've plundered we've blown on yards full of junk and houses we can't afford.

As we reach maturity we better repent of our wildness or like my friend we'll discover we're 60 years in debt and this old shack isn't worth the mortgage.

I've been warning my friends of their pending doom for 10 years - they wouldn't listen.  I and others have been warning America for the same period - you wouldn't listen.  Now we're trapped in this old shack and we're broke - For God's Sake!