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Nov. 6, 2009
Rabbi Berel Wein: Choosing to hear
JWisdom.com Zero to 1/60th: How to Empower An Hour with Gavriel Aryeh Sande (7 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick The mullahs' big week
Suzanne Fields A Fallen Wall for Fallen Man
Nov. 5, 2009
The Kosher Gourmet: Three scrumptious -- but simple -- butternut squash dishes
JWisdom.com Hidden Hints: Unlocking Faith & Prayer with Rabbi Jay Yaacov Schwartz (10 minutes)
Nov. 4, 2009
Tom Hamburger and Kim Geiger: Should prayers be covered?
JWisdom.com When God played peacemaker With Rabbi Sroy Levitansky (5 minutes)
Nov. 3, 2009
Martin Peretz: Beware, Barack. Beware, Rahm. Beware, Axelrod
JWisdom.com Are you are closet idolater? With Sara Yoheved Rigler (10 minutes)
Nov. 2, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The Holocaust is now on Facebook
JWisdom.com Abraham's Strange Change With Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer (5 minutes)
Oct. 30, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Secret to Immortality
Caroline B. Glick Silencing dissent in America
Oct. 29, 2009
Lini S. Kadaba: Do tactics avert flu or reduce humanity?
JWisdom.com We Must Revamp our Religious Vocabulary With Gavriel Aryeh Sanders ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 28, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: Atheists in Bubbleland
JWisdom.com Why what we wear impacts who we are With Rabbis Mordechai Becher, Menachem Golberger and Aliza Bulow ( 10 minutes)
Oct. 27, 2009
Paul Greenberg: The United Nations Is Outraged Again, Or: Department of Mideast Static
JWisdom.com The Science of Love With Rabbi Jonathan Rietti ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 26, 2009
The Jewish Ethicist by Rabbi Dr. Asher Meir: Damaging disclosures with a twist
JWisdom.com Wisdom and Wonks With Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 23, 2009
Rabbi David Aaron: Are you ready for the ultimate pleasure?
JWisdom.com Watermark and oneness with Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 4 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick Stop using limited powers in a way that expands our enemies' advantages over us
Oct. 22, 2009
Steven Emerson: Terror Cases Share Desire to Kill Americans
JWisdom.com No More More Family Fights --- Really? By Sarah Chana Radcliffe ( 5 minutes)
Oct. 21, 2009
Tonya Alanez: Holocaust denier sues survivor, calling Auschwitz memoir 'vicious lies'
JWisdom.com Meditating Jewishly: A Panacea for Success by Sarah Yoheved Rigler ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 20, 2009
Dennis Prager: Obama and Dalai Lama: Why Israel Worries about U.S. President
JWisdom.com Abraham was not religious By Rabbi Yitzchok Fingerer ( 6 minutes)
Oct. 19, 2009
JWisdom.comWhy Good People Do Bad Things By Rabbi Eytan Feiner ( 7 minutes)
Oct. 16, 2009
Rabbi Yonason Goldson: The Perfect Number
JWisdom.com Hearing Voices By Rabbi Sroy Levitansky ( 5 minutes)
Caroline B. Glick How Turkey was lost
Oct. 15, 2009
Jeff Jacoby: Peace vs. the 'peace process'
JWisdom.com: Former MTV producer and stand-up comedian Rabbi Lawrence Hajioff: Taming a Control Freak (A VERY fast 15 minutes)
Oct. 29, 2003
Mortimer B. Zuckerman: Graffiti On History's Walls (MUST-READ!)

Jewish World Review July 14, 2008 / 11 Tamuz 5768

A Dark Prediction — and a Way Out

By Roger Simon


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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | I have seen the future, and it is grim. That's the bad news.


The good news is that things are not hopeless. But we have to do certain things about the economy on a national and personal level, and we have to do them quickly if we want to have any hope at all.


That was the message at a breakfast forum I went to featuring Peter G. Peterson, a billionaire investment banker and fiscal conservative, and David Walker, a former comptroller general of the United States, whom you may have seen on "60 Minutes" saying "the most serious threat to the United States is not someone hiding in a cave in Afghanistan or Pakistan but our own fiscal irresponsibility."


Both are now at the Peter G. Peterson Foundation, which was created this year to increase public awareness about "the nature and urgency of several key challenges threatening America's future."


According to the foundation, there are six critical challenges that must be addressed "sooner, not later, since time is currently not in our favor."


The six are: budget, savings and current account/trade deficits; entitlement benefits; health care costs; energy consumption; educational competitiveness; and potential proliferation of nuclear and other dangerous materials."


Depressed enough?


Well, don't be. Not entirely, anyway. At the breakfast, Peterson said there were actually solutions to all these problems, but the real difficulty was getting people to recognize the seriousness of the situation.


"The problem is not a lack of ideas for doing something about it, it is doing something about it," he said.


He went on: "We actually believe we can solve the problems of the economy - but if we don't solve this current crisis, we will have a crisis like nobody has seen. Young people today don't know what hard times are."


The Peterson Foundation has produced a colorful (red, white and blue) little booklet that lists a few things the government needs to do right way including:
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  • Re-instituting tough budget controls "to stop digging our fiscal hole deeper."

  • Reforming entitlement and other programs (including Medicare, Medicaid and Social Security) to constrain the growth in costs and make them more efficient, effective and sustainable.

  • Eliminate low-priority and ineffective programs.

  • Reform our tax system, making it simpler and fairer while generating additional revenues.

  • Setting enforceable fiscal policy goals and holding elected leaders accountable for their actions or inactions. But it is easy to tell the government what to do (though it is difficult to get the government to do it). Here is what the Peterson Foundation thinks individuals can do:

  • Establish a personal budget, and stick to it.

  • Formulate a financial plan that includes short-term and long-term objectives regarding education, family and retirement.

  • Put that plan into action immediately.

  • Become more responsible about spending and using credit while saving and investing wisely.

  • Teach children the importance of planning, savings, budgeting, investing and using credit responsibly.


"We are on train-wreck scenario," David Walker said at the end of the breakfast. "But we can solve these problems."

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© 2008, Creators Syndicate