I have often seen the cartoon where there are three monkeys sitting side by side; one with his hands covering his eyes, one covering his ears and the final one covering his mouth. While the cartoon may seem humorous, it is a sad fact that the actions of we Americans are not that much different than those of the monkeys. We Americans have been richly blessed with a standard of living that most of the rest of the world only dreams of. I believe that our prosperity was due to the efforts of the men and women who fought and won WW2 “more commonly known as America’s greatest generation”. Most of them lived through the great depression and knew what sacrifice was. Anyone who has ever lived through bad times has a better understanding of sound financial stewardship. Most of the Americans living today have made the bad assumption that tomorrow will be the same as yesterday and next week will be the same as today. Economics is just like the weather; today it can be calm, tomorrow a storm may fall out of the sky and destroy everything you own. Far too many of our people made the assumption that it was a natural right of Americans to have huge homes, cheap gas, and oodles of junk, as well as a government that could buy anything it wanted without giving a second thought to fiscal discipline. I have begun to get more pessimistic about the financial problems of our country. There are individuals such as Senator Tom Coburn that understand the dilemma facing our country, but for every person like senator Coburn there are numerous others that have to see the storm clouds and lack the courage and political will to make the hard sacrifices. I used to think that corrupt politicians were the problem, but I have found that they are merely a symptom of a much bigger problem. I have often heard voters make the comment that many of the programs of the government have always been done that way and they always expect them to continue even if they are ineffective or corrupt. Many politicians have abused their power to satisfy groups with sweetheart deals funded with taxpayer money. If a politician does try to do the right thing the voters will simply vote him out for someone who promises them what they want to hear. The decades of these practices are on the verge of catching up with us. Granted there is a lot of talk being done about the deficit but I do not see the political courage to solve our problem. By the way the difference between an optimist and pessimist - usually the pessimist has more and better information.